Chapter 1
Chapter 1
The day after Julian Vance’s engagement party, his assistant handed me a plane ticket.
“It’s time for you to go,” he said, his gaze fixed on a point just over my shoulder. “And don’t come back to New York. Ever.” He let the threat hang in the air. “Mr. Vance has a great many ways to ruin a person.”
All those years with Julian, I had been the envy of everyone, bathed in a light that wasn’t my own. Now, my exit was so pathetic it
was almost comical.
“Alright,” I said, my voice perfectly even.
That night, the flight plummeted from thirty–thousand feet.
I never planned on dying.
in my version of the future, I take Julian’s five million dollars and disappear to some sun–drenched corner of Europe, far away from
the wreckage of my life. The rest of my days would be a quiet succession of small joys, mine and mine alone.
But in the screaming chaos of the fall, all of that was ripped away. There was nothing left but a searing, helpless rage.
That ticket wasn’t a fresh start. It was a death sentence.
My last meeting with Julian flashed in my mind. We hadn’t spoken in over two months. He’d been consumed–arranging Ava Monr- oe’s divorce, settling her and her daughter, a whirlwind of activity that finally, belatedly, reminded him he still had a girlfriend.
So he carved out an hour and came to my apartment.
His apartment, really. A sprawling penthouse in a part of Manhattan so exclusive I couldn’t have afforded to breathe the air without him. Not long ago, we were tangled in the sheets of the master bed, his arm heavy around my waist as I playfully dragged my nails down his back, leaving faint red trails on his skin.
But now, after just weeks of silence, we were strangers. We sat at opposite ends of the long dining table, the polished wood a cont-
inent between us.
“What do you
want?” he asked. Direct. Cold.
I didn’t bother with pleasantries.
Three years of my youth. I told him they were worth five million dollars.
Yes, I had loved him. I admit that. But that love had withered and died the day I realized I wasn’t the masterpiece, just the prelimin- ary sketch. A placeholder until the real thing came back.
He nodded, his expression unreadable. “Fine.” Then, the final turn of the screw: “But you can’t stay in New York. She doesn’t want you in the same city.”
She.
What could I do? I could only nod. If I refused, Julian, with his infinite resources and nonexistent patience, would find a way to force
me out. And it would be far messier.
He named a city on the West Coast. “I have properties there. Pick one. It’s yours.”
So generous
I managed a smile. “Okay.”
Chapter 1
He gave a slight nod. “And we won’t see each other again. You can do that, can’t you?”
My very existence was an inconvenience, an unsightly smudge on their perfect reunion.
“Of course,” I replied.
17.48
I was an orphan who had clawed her way through college. I came to New York chasing rumors of opportunity, fell into some model- ing work, and started to enjoy it. The flash of the camera, the fleeting sense of being seen. Then I met Julian. He pursued me with the kind of grand, sweeping gestures you only see in movies, and within two weeks, I was his.
He didn’t like me working, so my world, once expanding, had shrunk to the size of him. For years, the only people I knew were his friends, I had no roots here, no one to miss.
