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.

Three months after the funeral, I accept an invitation to dinner.


This is not the first invitation I've accepted in three months, the grieving period has not been hermetic, I've been working and attending necessary events and doing the ordinary maintenance of a life that continues regardless of whether the person inside it is ready for it to continue. But this is the first invitation I accept because I want to, rather than because I need to, which is a distinction that has not been available to me since the debris field in the English Channel, and its availability now tells me something about where I am.


Chapter 221 - "Three Months Later"