Chapter 4

MYLES' POV

For the first time in his adult life, Myles felt something like genuine shock.

He'd hired Nova Harlow on instinct… something his grandfather had warned him about years ago. Never hire on instinct, boy. Always hire on strategy. But looking at her application, reading her carefully composed essay about ambition and overcoming obstacles, he'd felt something stir in his chest that had nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with recognition.

A recognition he couldn't explain. Shouldn't have been possible.

His entire life had been structured around control. Control of his emotions, his reactions, his desires. He'd been groomed since childhood to lead the Rochefort empire… a corporation that was only the public face of something far more extensive and dangerous. The Rochefort name carried weight in circles that polite society didn't acknowledge.

And the Rochefort bloodline carried a curse.

His grandfather had told him the story once, when Myles was sixteen and old enough to understand the implications. A woman. A Harlow. A woman from centuries ago who'd been the obsession of a Rochefort CEO. She'd been promised to him, betrothed by family arrangement, the kind of thing that had been common in their world. But she'd run. Had chosen love with someone beneath her station, had rejected the Rochefort name and the power that came with it.

The CEO, so the story went, had died of heartbreak. Or perhaps rage… the accounts varied depending on who was telling the story. But his dying curse had become part of the family legacy “Every Rochefort CEO would crave a Harlow Bride with the intensity of obsession. Would desire her body and soul with a hunger that could never be sated. Would either break her or be broken by her.

Find a Harlow, his grandfather had told him, and you'll understand why our bloodline has always been cursed”.

Myles had dismissed it as mythology. The kind of thing old money families told themselves to explain their compulsions and excesses. But then he'd seen Nova's application, and something ancient had stirred in his blood.

A Harlow. The name was there in her application, bold and undeniable. Nova Harlow.

And when she'd walked into his office on Friday, he'd felt it… that inexplicable pull, that sense of recognition from somewhere beyond this lifetime. She'd looked at him and flushed, and he'd known with absolute certainty that she felt it too.

The curse was real.

"Nova," he said now, and his voice sounded strained even to his own ears. He released her chin and stepped back, trying to regain the control that suddenly felt dangerously fragile. "Tell me everything about this dream."

She studied him with that careful intelligence that had drawn him to her in the first place. "Why does it matter?"

"It matters because… " Then He stopped himself. Couldn't tell her the truth. Couldn't explain that he believed in curses and reincarnation and the impossible notion that their souls had recognized each other across centuries. "Because you're distracted, and I need you focused."

"It was just a dream," she said, but there was uncertainty in her voice now. "Probably just my mind processing the stress of the new job."

"Probably," he agreed, though he didn't believe it for a second.

She moved toward the door, and he found himself speaking before he could stop himself. "Nova, wait."

She turned, her hand on the doorframe, and the evening light caught her hair in shades of copper and gold.

"Have we met before?" he asked. "Besides Friday, I mean. Did you ever come to any of the university functions? Any corporate events?"

"No," she said, and her voice was small. "I would have remembered."

He should have been satisfied with that answer. Should have let her leave and regained his equilibrium. Instead, he found himself moving toward her, drawn by something that felt magnetic and inevitable.

"What was his name?" he asked. "In the dream. Did he tell you his name?"

"He didn't have to," she whispered. "I already knew it."

Before he could ask the question, his phone buzzed with an incoming call. The caller ID showed his father's name. Myles silenced it with a flick of his finger, but the moment was broken.

"Go home," he said, his voice rough. "Rest. Tomorrow is going to be demanding."

She nodded and left, and Myles stood at the window watching her disappear into the city below, his phone already buzzing with another call from his father.

He answered on the second ring. "Yes?"

"We need to talk," his father said without preamble. "In person. Regarding the DuPont situation. There's been a development."

"I'm aware of the DuPont situation," Myles replied coolly.

"Not like this, you're not. There's a woman involved. Someone they believe can be leverage." His father paused. "Someone connected to the Harlow name."

The world seemed to narrow to a single point.

"Send me the information," Myles said quietly. "And cancel my schedule for tomorrow evening. We'll meet at the estate."

He disconnected the call and turned back to the window. The city sprawled below him, millions of lives moving in patterns he could manipulate if he chose to. But one woman had just walked out of his office and turned his carefully ordered world into something chaotic and unpredictable.

One woman with a Harlow name and a dream about a man with grey eyes.

One woman who was already becoming an obsession.