Semua Bab Contract of Hearts : Bab 1 - Bab 10

The envelope was the color of my shame.I stared at it across my Formica kitchen table, the pale yellow surface mirroring the single strip of afternoon sun managing to struggle through the grubby glass of my window. I didn't have to open it. I already knew what the letter inside said. St. Jude’s Medical Center’s logo was stamped neatly on the corner-the placid, healed blue that now meant everything I couldn’t have.Final Notice.My hand shook slightly as I picked up my coffee, long gone cold. I needed something to hold. The apartment around me was pristine; not by nature, but because over the past three years I had learned that mess was a luxury I no longer possessed. Everything was aligned. Every dirty dish was washed the moment it became dirty. Control. I held onto it like a drowning woman held onto a log. Six months ago the bill had felt manageable. An irritation, a sharp but ascendable peak. Then the graphic design firm where I worked had cut my hours. Then the second surgery had

The dress was a weapon.Mira stood in front of the full-length mirror in her guest room, staring at her reflection like she didn't quite recognize it. The gown was black—of course it was black—silk that spilled over her body like liquid shadow, low in the back, higher than she'd like in the front, slit up the thigh that made her feel both powerful and terrified. Simone had delivered it that morning along with a team of stylists who'd descended upon Mira like a small, glittering army. Her hair had been twisted into an elegant knot, her makeup done in shades of smoke and rose, and the black diamond on her finger caught the light with every small movement.She looked like someone else. Someone who belonged in Kieran Locke's world."You clean up well."She turned. Kieran stood in her doorway, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed. He was wearing a tuxedo—custom-tailored, midnight black, with a silver tie that matched his eyes exactly. His hair was swept back from his forehead, a

The eggs were terrible.Mira ate them anyway, sitting across from Kieran at the kitchen island, wearing his shirt and watching the morning light play across his bare shoulders. He'd put a plate in front of her with a kind of nervous hope that made her chest ache—like he was offering her something far more vulnerable than overcooked scrambled eggs."They're not that bad," she lied."Yes, they are." He poked at his own portion with a fork, grimacing. "The toast is salvageable. Eat the toast."She laughed—a real laugh, unrestrained and bright—and Kieran looked at her like she'd just hung the moon. It was disorienting, this sudden shift from cold indifference to something that bordered on adoration. She kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. For him to retreat back behind his walls, to remind her of the contract, to tell her that last night had been a mistake.But he didn't. He reached across the island and took her hand, his thumb tracing slow circles on her palm, and said, "I have to

The private jet touched down in Zürich under a sky the color of old pewter.Mira had spent the last hour of the flight pressed against the window, watching the Alps rise up to meet them—jagged teeth of white and gray, ancient and indifferent. She'd never been to Europe. Never been anywhere, really, except the few hundred miles between her childhood home and the crumbling apartment she'd just left behind. The world had always felt small, constrained, defined by bills and boundaries and the weight of survival.Now she was landing in a country she couldn't find on a map without help, about to meet a woman she'd spent twenty years trying to forget.Kieran's hand found hers as the wheels touched down. His grip was firm, grounding, the calluses on his palm rough against her skin. She held on like he was the only solid thing in a world that kept shifting beneath her feet."You don't have to do this," he said, not for the first time. "We can turn around. Go home. Figure out another way."Mira

The private jet touched down on American soil at 3:47 AM.Mira had spent the seven-hour flight in a fog, the leather notebook clutched in her hands like a talisman. She'd read it twice—once for content, once for the ghost of her father she could feel in every hurried stroke of his pen. Victor Delacroix had been meticulous, methodical, and utterly fearless. Page after page of names, dates, transactions. A roadmap to Castellano's empire, written in the hand of a man who knew he was signing his own death warrant.Kieran had slept beside her, his head in her lap, one hand curled possessively around her ankle even in unconsciousness. She'd watched the rise and fall of his chest, the way his brow furrowed slightly in sleep, and felt a fierce, protective love that scared her almost as much as Castellano did.She couldn't lose him. Not now. Not after everything.The car was waiting on the tarmac—a black armored sedan with tinted windows and a driver who looked like he could kill a man with hi