Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 1 - Chapitre 8

"Raine, Skye, if you two don't drink with me tonight, that means you don't think I'm worth the respect!"I opened my eyes in shock and found myself back at the company's annual gala.Derek Voss, the intern, was already three drinks deep and completely wasted. He used his buzz as an excuse to force drink after drink on Raine and Skye Lane, the two girls I'd grown up calling my future brides.I started to rise to stop him, then froze and forced myself back down into my seat.In my last life, I couldn't stand watching them get humiliated like that. I had called Derek out in front of everyone. Raine and Skye never touched a drop of alcohol normally, but they acted like completely different people that night. They grabbed their glasses and downed them, then turned around and accused me of using my position as the Sterling heir to control their lives and strip away their right to make their own choices.I had been furious and heartbroken at the same time, and we'd had an ugly fight.

Raine and Skye's faces went greener than the emerald itself, and they marched straight up to me."Julian, what's wrong with you? You know that emerald matches our skin tone perfectly! Are you just going to let some stranger walk off with it?"I spread my arms like I was helpless and said, "Someone else got lucky. What am I supposed to do about it, mug her for it?"Derek cleared his throat and cut in."Mr. Sterling, you know how much Raine and Skye love emeralds. There's a perfect piece right in front of you, and you're not even going to try to buy it for them? That's a little hard to justify, don't you think?"Raine and Skye nodded along eagerly."Even Derek can see how obvious this is. You're supposed to be rich. How are you this dense?""That woman's about to try them on! That's ours! Someone stop her!"Their shrieking nearly split my eardrums, and of course Chloe heard every word of it too. She froze mid-motion, the color draining from her pretty face. She was clearly not su

The employees who'd come with me looked ready to explode."Mr. Sterling, don't listen to a word this intern says! He was in bed with both of your future brides. Why would you send them money?""Derek, do you seriously think you can play our Mr. Sterling for a fool just because you saved his life once? I don't care what you did for him. He's the one who got you a job here. This and that have nothing to do with the other. You've gone way too far!"The room erupted with people cursing him out, but the second Raine and Skye's phones chimed with the hundred-thousand-dollar deposit, every trace of panic disappeared from Derek's face.He snorted and turned to the sisters."Raine, Skye, something feels off about this. What if Mr. Sterling was the one who drugged us? What if this is his idea of revenge?"Even the employees who'd been shouting at him a second ago sucked in a breath."No way. Mr. Sterling's always been a straight shooter. There's no way he'd drug the girls he grew up with.

My employees looked angrier than I felt, which I appreciated. However, I didn't want to give away my plan too early, so I just kept nodding along."Give me some time. Let me think this through."When they saw me finally soften, they agreed to let me go. Even so, they kept warning me the whole way out."You need to cut ties with them, Mr. Sterling, once and for all!""Those two are bad news. Trust us on this!"I made it home through a barrage of warnings. The second I walked through the door, I pulled out the listening device.If I'd guessed right, the two of them would meet up with Derek right after this. What exactly was going on between the three of them?I waited patiently, listening for any sound from the other end. Hours later, Derek finally showed up. He barely got through the door before he slapped both Raine and Skye across the face."Have you two lost your minds? How could you humiliate me like that in front of everyone?"Raine and Skye shrieked back."We agreed th