The crushed matchbook bearing the Sterling Plaza Hotel crest sat dead center on the mahogany table. It looked exactly like a live bomb with the timer ticking down to zero.
Richard's gaze was as cold and crushing as the bottom of the Mariana Trench, boring straight through Clara's skull. He simply waited. Every agonizing second that ticked by in the sprawling dining room felt like a razor blade slowly dragging across her throat.
If she said the wrong thing right now, Richard would instantly know she had been secretly communicating with his lethal uncle, Arthur.
Clara slowly lowered her eyes, staring blankly into the dark amber liquid of her teacup. Her brilliant mind was spinning at a breakneck, terrifying speed. She didn't just need a plausible lie; she needed a masterpiece. She had to completely manipulate the massive, arrogant ego of the monster sitting right next to her.
Slowly, Clara raised her head.
She allowed her carefully constructed, flawless mask to completely and utterly shatter. Her hazel eyes rapidly filled with hot tears, radiating a thick, suffocating aura of pure, unadulterated devastation and despair.
"It was a suicide note," Clara whispered. Her voice was incredibly hoarse, violently trembling with emotion.
Richard's thick eyebrows instantly pulled together in a sharp, confused frown. The terrifying, demonic smirk that had been playing on his lips completely vanished. "What exactly are you talking about?"
"Last night, after you violently pinned me against the wall and locked yourself in your study, I wrote a letter to my mother," Clara sobbed. Her trembling hands gripped the edge of the mahogany table so tightly her knuckles instantly turned bone white.
"I wrote about how much I absolutely despised my life," she choked out, letting a single, fat tear spill over her eyelashes. "About how desperately I wanted to open those floor-to-ceiling windows and jump off the sixty-fourth floor just to end this absolute nightmare. Because I finally realized that I had completely sold my body, my pride, and my entire freedom to a man who views me as nothing more than a piece of corporate property."
The tears streaming down Clara's face were born of pure, blinding hatred, but she flawlessly disguised them as the tears of a broken, desperate girl.
"But then... I thought about Leo," Clara continued, her voice breaking into a pathetic, agonizing whimper. "If I throw myself off that balcony, my little brother dies on that operating table. So, I took a matchbook from my pocket and burned the letter in the bathroom sink. I physically burned my only way out of this hell."
Absolute, suffocating silence violently choked the dining room once again.
Richard's piercing eagle eyes aggressively scanned every single millimeter of Clara's tear-stained face, ruthlessly hunting for even the microscopic fraction of a lie.
But all he found was a pathetic, shattered girl who had been completely crushed under the immense weight of his absolute power. Clara's lie was terrifyingly perfect precisely because the agonizing, suffocating pain she was projecting was entirely real.
Slowly, almost reluctantly, Richard reached across the table and snatched the crushed matchbook back. He slipped it silently into his tailored pocket.
"Eradicate those pathetic, idiotic thoughts from your head immediately," Richard ordered coldly, though the lethal, murderous threat had completely evaporated from his tone. "Your death will not legally absolve your family's massive financial debt to me. Dry your tears, Clara. Tonight, you are going to need every single ounce of your sanity."
Clara let out a massive, shuddering breath in the absolute safety of her own mind. She had survived. At least for the morning.
"What exactly is happening tonight?" Clara asked, aggressively wiping the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand.
"The mandatory monthly family dinner at the Sterling Estate," Richard replied smoothly, standing up from his chair. He casually adjusted the crisp collar of his dress shirt. "The entire extended family and every major majority shareholder will be in attendance. It is your very first official trial by fire as my legal wife."
Richard looked down at Clara, his dark eyes flashing with a sharp, incredibly serious warning.
"They are going to try and skin you alive, Clara. If you show them even a fraction of the pathetic weakness you just showed me, they will completely devour you and not even leave the bones."
Seven agonizing hours later, the heavy door of the black Rolls-Royce swung open.
Clara stepped out into the crisp evening air, immediately confronted by the towering, terrifying iron gates of the main Sterling Estate.
The sprawling architectural monstrosity looked far more like a fortified royal palace than a private residence. Massive, imposing marble pillars stretched toward the sky, aggressively illuminated by hundreds of golden crystal chandeliers hanging from the porticos. But to Clara, the sprawling estate radiated the suffocating, chilling aura of an incredibly expensive graveyard.
Richard silently extended his right arm. Clara slipped her hand perfectly into the crook of his elbow, instantly sliding her flawless, icy mask back into place.
She wore a breathtaking, blood-red velvet evening gown that hugged her slender curves perfectly. The painful paper cut on her thumb the physical mark of her ten-million-dollar blood contract was completely hidden beneath elegant, elbow-length black lace gloves.
They stepped through the massive double doors and walked directly into the grand dining hall, which was already swarming with dozens of elite family members.
The exact second Richard and Clara crossed the threshold, the low hum of arrogant conversation was instantly and violently silenced. Every single pair of eyes in the massive room snapped toward Clara, aggressively dissecting her with sharp, incredibly condescending glares.
Uncle Howard sat near the center of the impossibly long table, glaring at Richard with a burning, unresolved hatred. Seated directly beside him was a heavily botoxed, middle-aged woman dripping in blindingly expensive, gaudy diamonds. His wife, Aunt Vivian.
But sitting at the absolute head of the table, resting casually in a massive, high-backed leather chair, was Arthur Sterling.
The old phantom stared directly at Clara. His paper-thin lips curved into a chilling, hollow smile that made the blood instantly freeze solid in her veins.
"Ah, our incredibly sudden newlyweds have finally graced us with their presence," Aunt Vivian practically shrieked, her voice dripping with artificial, saccharine sweetness. Her heavily lined eyes aggressively scanned Clara from head to toe. "Please, do sit down, darling. Don't be shy, even though I am absolutely certain you have never seen a dining table quite this massive in your entire, pathetic life."