Chapter 2
The ball ended an hour later, but Vanessa’s words echoed in my head long after the last guest left.
My security chief, Marcus, wheeled me up to my suite, his face tight with anger. He’d heard every word, of course—he heard everything.
“She’s worse than we thought,” he said, closing the door behind us. “Liam was right there with her, nodding along like a lapdog.”
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed the second the lock clicked. My muscles ached a little from sitting still for so long, but it was a good ache—a reminder I was still whole.
“Tell me everything they said when they thought I couldn’t hear,” I said, pacing the room.
Marcus pulled out his phone and played a recording. Vanessa’s voice came through, sharp and clear.
“By the end of the month, the company will be mine,” she said. “That idiot can’t sign a power of attorney fast enough. Once I have that, Liam and I will drain the accounts and be in Monaco before anyone notices.”
Liam’s laugh followed. “He’ll rot in that wheelchair for the rest of his life, and no one will care. Not even his own father.”
I closed my eyes.
I’d known they were greedy. I hadn’t known they were that cruel.
A soft knock on the door made me jump back into the bed, yanking the blanket up to my waist. Marcus slipped into the shadows by the window.
“Come in,” I said, my voice back to that flat, empty tone.
It was Clara. She held a tray with a mug of tea and a small plate of cookies, the kind I’d loved since I was a kid. No one else remembered that. Not even Vanessa.
“I thought you might be hungry,” she said, setting the tray on the nightstand. She didn’t look at Marcus, didn’t ask why he was there. She just acted like it was completely normal for a grown man to be hiding in the dark of my room at midnight.
“Thank you,” I said.
She turned to leave, but I reached out and caught her wrist. Her skin was warm under my fingers, and she froze, but she didn’t pull away.
“Why did you do that tonight?” I asked. “Everyone else was scared of her. Why weren’t you?”
She looked at me, her dark eyes steady.
“Fear doesn’t give you permission to be cruel,” she said. “And you didn’t deserve any of it. Not then. Not ever.”
She pulled her wrist gently from my grasp and left, closing the door softly behind her.
I stared at the tea for a long time before I drank it. It was perfect, exactly how I liked it—honey, no sugar, a splash of milk.
Marcus stepped out of the shadows.
“She’s loyal,” he said. “We can trust her.”
I nodded, but my mind was racing. If Vanessa and Liam were already planning to steal the company, they wouldn’t stop at power of attorney. The accident had been too convenient, too perfectly timed right before the merger that would have made me the most powerful man in the city.
“Dig into the crash,” I said. “Every detail. Every witness. If they had anything to do with it, I want proof.”
Marcus left, and I was alone again. I walked to the window, looking out over the city I’d built, the city people were trying to steal from me.
Somewhere down the hall, a door closed. I knew it was Clara’s room.
For the first time since the crash, I didn’t feel alone.
May you like
I felt something else, something I hadn’t felt in years.
Hope.
