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 thing about distance is that it has never worked on us the way it's supposed to.


Normal people use distance to gain perspective, to let the heat of something cool to a manageable temperature, to remember who they are when the other person isn't in the room. I know this because I've watched it work for other people. Sienna uses it effectively. Ethan has used it. Even Elise, in her particular cold and strategic way, understood how to create space that served a purpose.


When Chase and I create distance, it functions as an amplifier. The further apart we are, the louder everything gets. The silence between us fills faster than the noise between us ever did, and what it fills with is worse, because silence is a canvas and we are both very good at projection.


Chapter 187 - "The Push-Pull"