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 standing in Vivian's doorway when I hear the glass shatter, having arrived ten minutes ago with every intention of demanding explanation for yesterday's wedding disaster but finding myself unable to knock, unable to interrupt whatever is happening inside, unable to do anything except listen to the woman I was supposed to marry today spiral into breakdown on the other side of the door.


She's been talking to herself for the past hour, voice getting louder and more desperate, words becoming slurred as wine consumption accelerates from moderate to excessive to dangerous. I've heard her cry, heard her scream, heard her laugh in ways that sound more like breaking than amusement, heard her say things about curses and magic and patterns that should sound insane but instead sound exactly like truth I've been denying.


Chapter 69 - Ethan's Heartbreak