Chase Sterling always felt like furniture. The kind you don't notice, the kind that's easy to shove in a corner and forget. He was used to it: people looked right through him, brushed him off like lint. But it only takes one phone call to erase a lifetime of being overlooked. When his estranged family meets a tragic end, Chase suddenly finds himself in charge of the sprawling Sterling fortune. Turns out, riches aren't the only thing the family left him. There's a curse running through his blood, warping love into something hungry and dangerous, impossible to escape.

Vivian Ashford never set out to blow Chase's life to smithereens. Just one decision (a sharp, ruthless move at graduation) was all it took to set their worlds spinning out of control. While Vivian soaks up the Hollywood limelight and collects red-carpet headlines, Chase slips into his new role as Manhattan's most intimidating heir. But no matter how far they run, something keeps yanking them back together, like a stitch in an old wound that refuses to heal.

Six months into the arrangement and we've perfected the art of deceit in ways that should terrify me but instead just feel like necessary skill for maintaining double life where public performance and private reality exist in completely separate universes that never touch except in hotel rooms and lies.


The public relationships are flawless. Oscar nominations announcement happens in February and both Chase and I attend the ceremony separately, both of us nominated in different categories, both of us performing appropriate industry behavior while conducting affair no one suspects because we've gotten that good at compartmentalization.


Chapter 157 - Double Lives