All Chapters of LOVE AGAINST LEGACY: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Chapter 1ADRIAN POINT OF VIEW The crystal glasses clink around me. I force a smile I've practiced since I was a kid. The Whitehall Hotel ballroom shines with money, bright lights, women with jewels,men in expensive suits. This is my world. My beautiful prison."Lancaster Enterprises is growing in new markets," I hear myself say to the businessmen around me. The words come out automatically while my mind wanders. "Our Asian expansion is up seventeen percent."They nod, impressed. They should be. At twenty-eight, I proved myself quickly in the family business. I brought fresh ideas that doubled company profits in three years. My grandfather Reginald only gave me this job after I got my master's degree and proved I was "worthy" of the Lancaster name."Your grandfather must be proud," says Jefferson Moore, an old family friend who once tried to set me up with his daughter.I take a burning sip of whiskey. "Grandfather is never satisfied," I say lightly, though the words carry the weight

Chapter 3ADRIAN POINT OF VIEW The elevator ride to Elias's apartment feels endless. Each floor number lights up, counting me closer to the moment I'll destroy everything. My reflection stares back from the polished doors, a ghost already, pale and empty-eyed.I check my watch. 7:58 PM. I'm never early, never late. Always exactly on time, a habit beaten into me by years of Grandfather's disapproval.The elevator chimes. Floor twenty-two. No more putting it off.I step into the hallway, my expensive shoes silent on the thick carpet. Elias's apartment is at the end, 607. A corner unit with windows facing east and north. We watched sunrise here once, tangled in sheets, whispering about futures that will never exist now.My fist hangs in the air before the door. One knock and everything changes.I knock.Footsteps approach, and the door swings open. Elias stands there, dark hair damp from a shower, wearing faded jeans and a soft gray t-shirt. Home clothes. The Elias nobody else gets to s

Chapter 5CELESTE POINT OF VIEWI stand at the bedroom window watching morning sunlight spill across perfect gardens, but all I see is my reflection in the glass, a ghost woman in a house that doesn't belong to her.Two weeks. Two weeks since I became Mrs. Adrian Lancaster. Two weeks of Paris cafés where my husband ordered for me without asking what I wanted. Two weeks of museum visits where he walked three steps ahead, checking his phone while I pretended to admire art. Two weeks of sleeping next to a stranger who touches me like I'm made of porcelain and might break.Or maybe like I'm something distasteful he has to endure.Behind me, Adrian sleeps soundly, one arm thrown above his head. He looks different when he's not awake, younger, softer. For these few minutes each morning, I can almost pretend we're a real married couple. That he chose me. That this ring on my finger means something more than a signature on a contract.Then he wakes up, and the walls go back up.I wrap my silk

Chapter 7CELESTE POINT OF VIEWMorning light streams through the bedroom windows as I wake up alone, again. My hand reaches across the empty space beside me, the sheets cold. Adrian didn't come home last night. The third time this month.I check my phone. No new messages since the texts I sent at midnight. The dinner I made sits untouched downstairs, candles burned down to nothing, wine put away.The shower starts in the bathroom. So he's home now. I pull my knees to my chest, waiting.When Adrian comes out with a towel around his waist, he jumps slightly when he sees me awake."Good morning," he says, voice carefully flat. "I didn't want to wake you.""You didn't come home." I keep my voice steady, watching his face.He moves to his dressing room, turning away from me. "The Tokyo deal fell through. Everything we'd been building for months, gone because someone leaked information. I was stuck in emergency meetings all night."His back is to me as he picks out clothes. I study the tig

Chapter 9ANDRIAN POINT OF VIEW The Lancaster dining room stretches long and dark, family portraits watching from wood-paneled walls like silent judges. I sit at one end of the mahogany table, Grandfather at the other, twenty feet of polished wood and family history between us. The weekly Sunday dinner ritual, unavoidable as death in the Lancaster world."The board is asking questions," Grandfather says, cutting into his steak with surgical precision. "About the future. About succession plans."I sip my wine, buying seconds before responding. My heart already knows where this is heading. "I've been CEO for less than two years. Isn't talk of succession a bit early?""Not succession for your position." His knife scrapes against fine china like nails on a chalkboard. "Succession for the family line. For the Lancaster name."The air thickens around me. I set down my glass carefully, keeping my face blank despite the storm building inside me. My stomach drops like I'm falling off a cliff.