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.

Leaving the hospital is a spectacle I'm too exhausted to manage appropriately, which is how I end up facing a wall of cameras and reporters the moment Vivian and I step through the service exit that was supposed to be discrete.


Someone leaked our departure time. Someone always leaks everything when Sterling family disasters are involved. Probably Dominic trying to control the narrative, probably Helena feeding the media to accelerate curse burnout, probably just inevitability of being famous and cursed simultaneously.


"Chase! Is it true you've been permanently damaged by the curse?"


"Chase! Are you and Vivian Ashford together now?"


Chapter 142 - "Discharge"