SHARDS OF US - sculptor turned heiress forbidden love

The boardroom feels colder than she remembers.It isn’t the air conditioning, it’s him.Dane Hayes sits across the glass table, eyes fixed on the digital display in front of him, jaw locked, posture military. The kind of stillness that’s more dangerous than anger. He hasn’t looked at her once since she entered, though the space between them crackles like live wire.Rae’s pulse trips as she takes her seat, careful, measured, professional. Her voice sounds foreign when she greets the team. “Good morning.”The room hums with polite responses, but none from him.She tells herself it doesn’t matter, that this is business, that she’s over him but the truth leaks through every stolen glance. His presence is gravity, the kind that pulls even when you resist.Two years earlierThe world had felt smaller then, just a rooftop and two reckless hearts.She remembers him in soft light, wind teasing his shirt, paint smudges on his hands from his side job restoring murals downtown. They had been bro

The conference room smells like glass and money, sharp, clean, suffocating.Rae sits straighter than she needs to, spine rigid, eyes on the projector screen. Her hands are clasped in her lap, nails pressed into her palm, the pain grounding her. The hum of the AC fills the silence between voices.Across the table, Dane is speaking.His tone is precise, cool, measured, the same way he used to say her name before it meant something. Now he doesn’t say it at all.“ so, if we integrate the design division under joint supervision, the merger stays balanced,” he says, flipping a slide. His voice carries that steady confidence that once steadied her. “But that means full transparency from both sides.”Full transparency. The irony makes her chest tighten.Rae nods, forcing composure. “Agreed. We’ll provide access to our end-of-quarter files by next week.”He doesn’t look at her. “I’ll expect them sooner.”A pause. The others in the room, assistants, board members, consultants glance between

The ballroom glowed with the kind of light that made everything look effortless. Chandeliers scattered gold across polished marble; champagne shimmered in crystal flutes; conversation rippled like silk. The charity gala was Ethan’s masterpiece, part fundraiser, part social spectacle and Rae, as always, was meant to be the centerpiece.Her reflection caught in the mirrored pillars, hair swept in soft waves, gown a whisper of ivory satin. She looked composed, elegant, perfect. Unreal.“Smile,” Ethan murmured, his hand sliding to the small of her back. His voice was velvet over steel. “You’re the reason half these people showed up.”Rae obeyed. Her smile appeared on cue, graceful and easy, though her stomach felt hollow. She had learned long ago how to perform happiness in public and how to look radiant while slowly unraveling inside.Across the ballroom, a low hum stirred her attention. Laughter, a ripple of movement, then a familiar voice, deeper now, rougher with age. Dane Mercer.H

Rae had attended a hundred events like this, but tonight her skin felt wrong inside her gown, like she was wearing someone else’s life. The ballroom gleamed in gold. Chandeliers threw light like captured fire, scattering it across glassware, sequined dresses, and too many smiles. Cameras flashed in every direction, the hum of wealth and ambition vibrating under the music.She caught Ethan’s hand resting too casually on her lower back. His charm was impeccable the practiced ease of a man who knew the room belonged to him. She smiled when the photographers called their names, smiled again when someone asked about the wedding, and kept smiling even when her heart fluttered like a caged thing.Across the room, Dane stood near the bar, suit sharp, expression colder than the champagne in his glass. He wasn’t supposed to be here tonight, not at their announcement party. Except it wasn’t supposed to be an announcement party. Rae thought it was a corporate celebration, a small merger dinner

The night air was thick when she stepped out of the car. Somewhere behind her, laughter from the investor dinner echoed. She needed space, air, anything that didn’t smell like performance.Her heels clicked against the cobblestones as she crossed the courtyard toward the studio. She hadn’t planned to come here, hadn’t planned anything, she just found herself tracing muscle memory, needing clay, silence, and her own pulse.When she pushed the door open, the familiar scent hit her: dust, rain, old art, and the faint memory of his cologne still clinging to the corner where he’d once stood.The lights flickered on. The sculpture she’d left unfinished sat on the workbench: fractured, fragile, almost human. Like she was.She pulled her coat tighter. Her engagement ring glinted.Rae set it on the counter beside her tools.She wanted to lose herself in the sound of the wheel, in the rhythm of shaping chaos into form. But the moment her hands touched clay, her control slipped. Tears came withou