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.

Dominic returns to Sterling Industries board meetings exactly four months after the heart attack that was supposed to kill him or at least force permanent retirement, returns looking thinner but crueler, weaker physically but sharper mentally, alive and hungry for control in ways that make his previous manipulation look restrained by comparison.


The first board meeting after his return, he sits at the conference table like he never left, like interim recovery was just brief interruption, like the CEO position I've been managing during his absence is temporary placeholder waiting for his inevitable reclamation.


Chapter 161 - Dominic Recovers