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.

Six weeks pass and I don't use the key. Don't return to the penthouse. Don't break pattern by resuming it. Just exist in my small apartment trying to rebuild life without Chase Sterling as central component, trying to prove separation can stick when I actively maintain it.


The time jump feels both endless and instantaneous. Days blur together: auditions that don't lead anywhere because blacklist is still active even without Chase actively maintaining it, script readings for independent films that can't match studio budgets, dinners with Jackson who's patient and kind and everything Chase isn't.


I'm dating Jackson. Officially. Publicly. Not as revenge. Not as performance. Just as genuine attempt to prove I can have healthy relationship with safe person who doesn't contaminate me.


Chapter 152 - Six Weeks Later