Lena was a vision of curated, expensive fury. Her coat was tailored to perfection, her hair a weaponized blonde bob, but her eyes—dark and burning with a frantic, unhinged energy—told a story of a woman who had lost her grip on reality. “So, this is the pathetic fortress you’ve built,” she spat, her voice a jagged…
But to them? To the Morrisons? I was just Cassidy. The girl from the “wrong side of the tracks” who got lucky, got pregnant, and then got dumped when the novelty wore off. When I walked through the double oak doors, the air was suffocating, thick with the scent of tuberose and judgment. Brendan opened…
Specifically, onto Vanessa, my younger sister. She sat there in a champagne-colored dress that was aggressively bridal, shimmering under the chapel lights. She was biting her lip, her eyes wide and wet, staring back at him with an intensity that sucked the oxygen out of the room. When I reached the altar, Ethan didn’t take my…
But as I fastened my pearl earrings, my hands shook. Something was visceral, a stone-heavy coldness in my gut. I looked at the photograph of Bernard on my nightstand. “Look at their eyes, Margot,” he used to tell me when we were building our hotel empire. “The mouth can be trained, but the eyes are the soul’s ledger.”…
The toast was perfect. Daniel had dropped to one knee, the crowd had erupted in a cacophony of applause, and for a suspended moment, I was the protagonist of my own story. Then, I felt a heavy, unyielding grip on my elbow. “We need a word, Eleanor. Now,” my father hissed. His voice carried the…
Lily Bennett clutched the mop with hands that were too small for it. Her knees pressed against the cold marble floor as tears slid down her cheeks, blurring the reflection of the chandelier above her. She tried to wipe them away with her sleeve, but more kept coming. Her arms hurt. Her throat hurt. Her…
I bypassed the waiting car service, opting instead for the raw power of my Aston Martin. I needed the wind. I needed to feel the road. I sped toward the suburbs, toward the fortress I had built with my first hundred million—a sprawling architectural marvel of glass and stone, hidden behind iron gates and guarded by…
And then there was Daniel. My husband. He stood framed in the doorway for a heartbeat, his hands trembling so violently he had to shove them into his pockets. He was whispering my name, over and over, but the syllables sounded foreign to him, as if he were trying to recall the name of a stranger…
The door to the master suite didn’t just open; it was breached. Mark Vane walked in, draped in a freshly pressed charcoal suit that cost more than a mid-sized sedan. He smelled of clean linen, expensive sandalwood cologne, and a sharp, metallic impatience. He didn’t look at the monitor. He didn’t ask if I had managed to…
The cruelty hit me with a half-second delay, filtered through the thick gauze of exhaustion. I blinked, my brain struggling to process the idea that my body—the vessel that had just carried triplets to term—was now a public offense to his brand. “Mark,” I managed, my voice a dry rasp. “I just had three babies….