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.

I'm still in the hotel suite when my phone starts going off, notification after notification stacking up so fast the screen never goes dark, and I don't have to read a single headline to know what it says. The wedding is off. Jackson is gone. And the press, the beautiful, ravenous, shameless press, has already written the eulogy for a love story I was never actually living.


I pull the duvet over my head like that does anything. Like three hundred thread count Egyptian cotton is enough to muffle the sound of my career imploding, of my mother's voicemails stacking up, of Elise texting in all caps because she saw the pap shots of Jackson leaving the venue last night with his luggage and his jaw set and his entire posture screaming I am done with this woman.


Chapter 176 - "Jackson Leaves"