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.

The gala is for children's literacy, which means everyone is dressed in fifty thousand dollars worth of clothing and drinking champagne that costs more per bottle than most people's grocery budgets, all in service of the very sincere belief that they are doing something good for the world tonight. I find this charming in the way I find most things charming: at a distance, with a glass in my hand, and without examining it too closely.


I arrive in a column of black silk that my stylist called "weaponized minimalism" and I called "the dress I wear when I need armor that doesn't look like armor." My hair is up. My heels add four inches. The photographers outside get what they came for and I give it to them without breaking stride, which is a skill I've been developing since my first premiere and have now refined to something close to an art form.


Chapter 179 - "The Gala Game"