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 sit with the vision for two hours before I do anything, which is longer than I usually sit with visions before acting and shorter than I would need to sit with this one to feel comfortable acting, but the wedding is in three weeks and comfortable is not the available option.


Two futures. Both with blood. One beautiful and hollow, one electric and costly, and the one where they are breathing is the one where the cost is paid by both of them rather than by her alone in the slow way of the exchange that Helena described, the daily reduction of her capacity for joy that is happening whether Marcus Reeves knows about it or not, whether Vivian can feel it yet or not.


Chapter 226 - "The Alternative Future"