Rosewood Mountain Villa | 10:07 PM
Moonlight bled through the windows of Silas Thorne's
third-floor suite, painting the room in shades of charcoal and silver. Water
droplets glistened on his sculpted shoulders as he stepped from the shower, a
towel riding dangerously low on his hips. The shrill ring of his phone
shattered the silence.
He snatched it off the fogged marble, voice a rumble of
gravel:
"Ingrid. It's late."
Across the city, Ingrid Winslow eased her daughter's bedroom
door shut, silk robe whispering against the frame. Her teeth already gritted at
her nephew's frosty tone.
"Late? Forgive me for caring whether my favourite nephew
hasn't worked himself into an early grave by ten."
A smirk tugged at Silas's mouth. He raked the towel through
his damp, dark hair, droplets darkening the rug beneath him.
"Shouldn't you be comatose? Doctor's orders: 'Eight hours or
accelerated wrinkling'?"
"I'd have fewer wrinkles if you answered my calls!" She
stormed into her bedroom, where her husband hid behind The Financial Times.
She ripped it from his hands. Useless, she seethed.
"We need to discuss the arrangement," she hissed, pacing
before the frost-kissed window.
Silas sank into leather upholstery, tapping speakerphone.
"Arrangement?"
"The blind date, Silas! Or has your titanium-plated memory
conveniently malfunctioned?"
Arthur Winslow's muffled protest rustled through the line.
Ingrid's voice sharpened to a stiletto point:
"Your grandmother calls daily. 'The Thorne dynasty is
crumbling!' she wails. 'Julian needs brothers! The bloodline thins!'" Her
mimicry was lethal. "Find a wife. Have an heir. Fix this." She drew a sharp
breath. "Serena Vance returns from Milan next week. Five years your junior,
fluent in four languages, and her family owns half the vineyards in Tuscany.
Your equal."
The silence thickened. "No more excuses. Twenty-two years is
enough. Bury the past."
Silas stood abruptly, towel puddling at his feet. Naked and
unconcerned, he stalked to the floor-to-ceiling window. The city glittered
below like scattered diamonds.
"Julian is the legacy. Marriage is a gilded cage."
"A cage?" Ingrid's scoff crackled. "Try 'sanctuary.' Or do
you enjoy rattling around this mausoleum alone? And spare me the infertility
lament—Serena knows. She'd still duel at dawn for your ring."
Twin headlights speared the mountain fog. A Rolls-Royce slid
to the porte-cochère. Before the driver could move, the rear door flew open. A
streak of electric pink—small, furious, haloed by the cold—exploded onto the
gravel.
Silas's breath hitched. His knuckles blanched against the
chilled glass.
"I'm handling it, Ingrid."
"Handling what? Your—"
Click.
Ingrid stared at the dead screen. "Insufferable
bastard."
She whirled. Arthur had burrowed under the duvet like a
threatened hedgehog. With a snarl, she ripped the covers back, exposing his
flannel pyjamas.
"Up. Now," she commanded, thrusting Keats' poetry into his
hands. "And project, Arthur. I want to hear the despair in stanza three."
Villa Entry Hall | 10:19 PM
Elara staggered across the threshold, the villa's oppressive
warmth engulfing her like a fever dream. Her cheeks burned—a cruel cocktail of
icy wind and scalding tears—while her damp curls clung to her neck like
desperate fingers. Behind her, Ethan hovered near the Rolls-Royce, his
silhouette rigid with guilt under the porte-cochère lights. "I'll wait here,
Miss Hayes," he'd rasped, avoiding her eyes. "He'll skin me alive for letting
you see… for letting you come here."
A figure in a charcoal uniform materialised from the
shadows. Without a word, the housekeeper guided Elara to a plush burgundy sofa
that seemed to swallow her whole—a gilded trap in a room dripping with silent
opulence. A porcelain mug appeared in her trembling hands: chamomile tea,
over-sweetened with honey, the steam curling like ghostly accusations. Outside
the floor-to-ceiling windows, skeletal elm branches scraped against the glass
like bone on bone. Snowflakes spun in the darkness—ephemeral, doomed.
What possessed you? The thought hammered against her
skull. He's Julian's father. His flesh. His protector. He'll toss you out
like yesterday's trash. The silence pressed down, thick and cloying as
velvet, amplifying the frantic drum of her pulse.
She didn't hear him descend.
One moment, the cavernous hall echoed only with her ragged
breaths and the distant tick-tock of a grandfather clock. The next—a shift in
the air. Cool, dry sandalwood cut through the lemon polish, undercut by
something darker, wilder: rain on volcanic rock. Him.
His shadow fell over her first—long, possessive, bleeding
across the intricate Persian rug—before she registered his presence.
Elara's gaze snapped upward. Silas Thorne stood before her.
Draped in a navy silk robe that clung to his powerful frame,
Silas stood like carved stone—belt loose, revealing a V of taut skin and
shadowed muscle. Damp ink-black hair fell across his brow; a single droplet
traced his jawline. His eyes—liquid obsidian—locked onto hers, stripping her
bare.
Vengeance and absolution incarnate. The thought
chilled her blood.
"Ethan indicated you required an audience." His
voice was deceptively smooth, like aged bourbon over crushed velvet, yet edged
with steel.
Panic ignited in her chest. Elara shot to her feet, tea
sloshing over her wrist. The burn anchored her.
"Why plant a watchdog?" Her voice emerged colder
than the storm, surprising even her. "Am I a threat to the Thorne empire
now? Or just another inconvenient reminder of your son's failures?"
A flicker of something—approval?—darted through his dark
eyes before vanishing. He moved with lethal grace to the high-backed leather
armchair opposite, its dark leather sighing as he settled in. One powerful leg
crossed over the other. His right hand rested on the armrest, thumb slowly
circling the heavy onyx signet ring on his left pinky—a black hole swallowing
light.
"Consider it… insurance," he countered, gaze
scraping over her mud-caked boots, torn tights, swollen eyes. "Why would
my son's discarded lover seek a viper's nest..." A deliberate pause.
"...looking this ruined?"
Discarded. Refuge. Ruined.
Each word was a scalpel carving deeper into her pride. The
fragile dam holding back her fury shattered.
"You KNEW!"
The scream tore from her throat, raw and guttural, echoing
off the marble floors. "You knew Julian was fucking Vivian! When you sat
across from me at Meridian, sipping your fucking mineral water! When you handed
me that knife wrapped in silk—'End it with dignity, Elara'." Her breath
hitched, rage choking her. "Was Ethan part of the production?
Stage-managing the tragic reveal? Making sure the fool stumbled upon her own
humiliation?"
Silas went preternaturally still.
Not a muscle twitched. Not an eyelash flickered. Only his
thumb paused its orbit on the onyx ring, knuckles bleaching white against the
dark stone. His silence wasn't denial. It was glacial, damning confirmation.
A sound escaped her—a hollow, fractured laugh that scraped
like broken glass. "God," she whispered, wrapping her arms around her
waist as if holding herself together. The fight drained momentarily, replaced
by a flood of shame so profound it stole her breath. "I actually believed
you… pitied me. Saw something broken worth…" She choked on the words,
forcing them out. "Mr. Thorne." She laced the name with pure venom,
watching his eyes. "Did it entertain you? Watching me grasp at straws of
decency in your vipers' pit?"
A spark ignited in the obsidian depths—fury, swift and
dangerous.
He rose.
Not a movement wasted. Two strides closed the distance.
Suddenly, his heat enveloped her—bergamot, cedar, and something fiercely,
irrevocably male. She tilted her head back sharply, confronted by the sheer,
intimidating breadth of his shoulders, the corded strength in his exposed
forearms.
"Pity is an indolence I do not indulge," he
stated, his voice dropping to a rough, intimate timbre. Ash
And Her name on his lips felt like a brand. "This is
obligation. My blood betrayed you. That disgrace stains my name. Protecting you
isn't compassion—" His gaze, searing and unflinching, locked onto a tear
tracing her cheekbone. "—it's damage control. Preventing your
self-destruction from splattering onto my doorstep."
His stare pinned her, dissecting her defences. She saw her
reflection in his pupils—a shattered porcelain doll, eyes blazing with furious
defiance.
"State your reparation," he commanded, absolute.
"An apartment in Ashbourne? A foundation? A jet to anywhere?" He
leaned in, his breath a warm, invasive caress against her temple.
"Anything within my reach."
The proximity was suffocating. Electrifying. Her pulse
roared in her ears. The rage surged back, darker now, twisted with a reckless,
intoxicating power. It burned through the shame, hot and sweet.
She tilted her chin up, meeting the abyss of his eyes. Her
whisper was ice shards and venom:
"What if I want him broken?"
Silence. His gaze sharpened, intensified.
"What if,"
she breathed, invading his space, "I want to shatter your golden heir?
Break him like he broke me?"
Her eyes burned with unholy fire.
"Would you let me?"
The clock's tick hissed like a lit fuse.
"Would you hand me the knife—" Her smile turned
lethal.
"—or hold him down while I cut out his
heart?"