登入Delia’s POVI needed money and I needed a way back into rooms that had started closing their doors on me.The headlines had not stopped. Every time I opened my phone, there was another photo of my face, another article calling me the woman who had claimed a marriage that never existed. My father’s house felt like a cage. The few people who still answered my calls spoke carefully around me, like they were afraid my failure might rub off on them.So when the message came from a man named Adrian Hale requesting a meeting about a private organizational opportunity, I answered.We met on the forty-second floor of a glass building in Midtown. The office was quiet, all clean lines and expensive silence. Adrian Hale was tall, in his mid-thirties, in a dark suit, and had the kind of smile that never reached his eyes. He slid a black folder across the table toward me.“Vesper Group is preparing its public launch in New York,” he said. “We need someone who already knows the city’s elite. Someone
Katia’s POVI closed the front door harder than I meant to.My bag hit the floor. I kicked my shoes off and stood there for a second with my back against the wood, trying to get my breathing under control. The argument at my father’s house still sat in my throat. Delia’s voice. Martha’s apology. The way my father had looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time in years. I had said everything I needed to say, and then I had walked out. Now I was home, and my hands would not stop shaking.Julian stood in the living room doorway.He already knew. I could see it on his face. The set of his jaw. The way his eyes moved over me like he was checking for damage.“You went alone,” he said.“He asked me to.”“And Delia was there.”It wasn't a question, so I nodded.He crossed the space between us fast. Both hands caught my face, and he kissed me hard, like he was angry I had left the house without him. I kissed him back the same way, fingers already in his shirt, pulling the fabric ope
~Delia~I had chosen the restaurant carefully, a quiet place two neighborhoods away from anywhere I usually went, hoping the distance alone might buy me a meal without a single stranger recognizing my face from the headlines that had multiplied online over the past several days.I should have known better.I was three bites into a salad I had barely touched when I heard the voice, sharp and familiar, carrying the confidence of a woman who had built an entire career out of never once doubting her own timing."Delia Kensington," Tessa Sterling said, sliding into the empty chair across from me without being invited. "Or should I say, the artist formerly known as Mrs. Windsor?"I set my fork down."I did not invite you to sit," I said."You did not need to," she said, unbothered, waving down a server with the ease of someone who considered every room she entered her own territory. "I am simply here for the story. And you, my dear, have become quite the story this week.""I have nothing to
~Katia~Father called me on a Tuesday afternoon, his voice carrying a formality I was not used to hearing from him, asking if I could come to the family house that evening. He wanted to talk, he said. Just talk. He suggested I come alone.I should have known better than to believe that word.The drive over felt longer than it actually was, my hands tight on the wheel, my mind running through every possible version of what waited for me on the other side of that door. Since the announcement, since Julian had stood in front of cameras and claimed me publicly as his wife and Aiden as his son, my life had become a series of confrontations I had not asked for and could not fully control. I told myself this would simply be another one. I told myself I could handle it the way I had handled everything else.I was wrong.Martha opened the door, and I knew immediately, from the careful, apologetic set of her mouth, that this evening was not going to unfold the way Father's phone call had promis
Katia’s POVThe office was quiet for the first time all morning.I sat behind my desk with a fresh cup of ginger tea cooling beside a stack of unsigned contracts, the city glittering beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass. The announcement dinner had ended only hours ago, yet the fallout was already spreading like smoke. My phone had been vibrating nonstop since midnight—messages from Sam, from Julian, from numbers I didn’t recognize. I had silenced everything except the direct line to the house. Aiden was safe. That was the only thing that mattered right now.I had just turned back to the first page of a contract summary that I was busy reviewing when the door to my office exploded open.Delia stormed in like a hurricane in designer heels, three journalists and two cameramen trailing behind her as if she had personally invited the entire press corps to my private floor. Her face still carried the dark shadows of Julian’s handprints, carefully left uncovered so every lens could feast on th
Delia’s POVThe car stopped at the base of the wide stone steps. Flashbulbs exploded the second the door opened. I stepped out slowly, chin high, the black dress cutting a sharp line against the floodlights. Every camera caught the dark handprints on my face. Good! Let them. Let the entire city see what Julian Windsor had done to his wife.Security tried to form a barrier, but the media had already spilled past the outer gates. Voices shouted my name from every direction. I ignored them all and walked up the steps as if I still belonged here. As if the house had not already started rejecting me.Inside, the air was thick with perfume, champagne, and low, nervous conversation. The grand dining room had been transformed. Long tables glittered under crystal chandeliers. Board members, socialites, and old-money families filled the seats. Conversations died the moment people noticed me. Eyes locked on my bruised face. Whispers started before I even reached the center of the room.I moved
~Katia~Vegas heat hit me like a wave the second I stepped off the private jet. The runway shimmered under the late afternoon sun, and I squinted past my sunglasses, already half-listening to the ping of updates on my encrypted racing burner phone. Six hours before the race, and my heart was alread
KatiaI woke up to the sound of people singing badly.“Happy birthday to you...” I blinked hard against the sunlight filtering through the curtains, my brain slow to reboot. The voices were getting louder, and for a second, I thought I was dreaming. A really weird, off-key dream.“Happy birthday, d
~Katia~“Get out!” my mom screamed, her voice tearing through the hallway like a bomb going off in a small room.The sound hit the walls and bounced back so violently, like the house itself was flinching. Even the air felt startled, buzzing with the kind of tension that makes your skin crawl. My he
~Katia~I woke up to the sour taste of bile creeping up my throat, and my legs threw me out of bed before my brain could even catch up. The morning light seared into my eyes like punishment, and I stumbled across the cold floor, my feet slapping against the wood, straight into the bathroom. My knee







