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 trying to get the nurses to let me see Chase, trying to convince them I'm stable enough to walk next door despite the monitors still attached to me, when I see Elise Vanderwood approaching his room from the opposite hallway. She's not in her wedding gown anymore, dressed in simple clothes that make her look younger and more vulnerable than the composed bride from the cathedral. And her left hand is conspicuously bare. No engagement ring. No symbol of the arrangement that was supposed to save both her and Chase from their respective curses.


She doesn't see me. Just walks into Chase's room with purpose that suggests she's been planning what she's going to say, how she's going to end this officially, how she's going to release him from obligation that no longer serves either of them.


Chapter 139 - Elise's Decision