Chapter 2

I didn't sleep that night.

She saved your life. He'd refused to explain. He'd simply wheeled past me and said goodnight, leaving me alone in a bedroom the size of my father's entire penthouse — my ears straining at every sound in that enormous, breathing house.

In the morning, the housekeeper — Mrs. Pool, sixty, kind-eyed, terrified of something — laid out the rules with my coffee.

"The east wing is Mr. Sinclair's. You don't go there. Dinner is at eight; he may or may not attend. And..." She hesitated. "Don't ask him about the crash. Ever."

"What actually happened to him?"

Mrs. Pool's hands went still on the coffee pot. "Brake failure. On a road he'd driven a thousand times. The night before he was supposed to be named CEO of Sinclair International." She looked at me then, quick and meaningful. "The board gave the position to Mr. Grayson instead. Convenient, wasn't it."

Ice slid down my spine. "You're saying—"

"I'm saying nothing, ma'am. I like being alive." She left with the tray.

I spent the day exploring my gilded cage. And that's when I found it — a small conservatory at the end of the west hall, glass walls fogged with green, and inside, a workbench. Jeweler's tools. A torch. Pliers, mandrels, a tray of loose stones catching the light like spilled stars.

My hands were moving before my brain caught up. I hadn't touched a bench since Chloe took my portfolio to Meridian House and told them the sketches were hers. Since the creative director I'd worshipped my whole life looked at my originals and called me the thief.

"You found it."

I spun. Damian sat in the doorway, watching me with an expression I couldn't read.

"I'm sorry — I didn't know this room was—"

"It's yours." He rolled forward, picked up a graver, turned it over in those long fingers. "I had it installed yesterday."

"Yesterday? You didn't even know me yesterday."

"I knew of you." His dark eyes lifted to mine. "Aria Whitmore. Graduated first in her class. Won the Lumière Prize at twenty-four for a collection called Elena — named for her mother. Then vanished from the industry entirely while her sister's career mysteriously bloomed." He set the graver down with a soft click. "I don't like mysteries. So I looked into you."

My throat was tight. "Why would you bother?"

"Because I was told I was marrying the useless Whitmore daughter. The one with no talent, no spine, no prospects." Something dangerous flickered under his calm. "And I've learned to pay very close attention when powerful people work that hard to make someone look small."

No one — no one — had ever said anything like that to me. My eyes burned and I hated it.

"Dinner's at eight," he said, turning the chair. "Wear something nice. We have guests."

"What guests?"

"Your family. And my brother." He paused at the door, and his voice went flat and cold. "They're coming to inspect the merchandise. Both of us."

Dinner was a battlefield dressed in candlelight.

Chloe arrived draped in white gold — wearing, I realized with a physical jolt, a necklace built from my sketch. The Elena teardrop. My mother's design. On my sister's throat.

"Aria, sweetie, you look tired." Chloe's eyes glittered over the rim of her glass. "Marriage to an invalid must be exhausting."

Grayson smirked beside her. My father studied his plate. Vivian smiled and smiled and smiled.

"Actually," Damian said mildly, cutting his steak with surgical precision, "my wife's been busy. She's launching a jewelry line. I'm funding it."

The table went silent.

"Funding it with what?" Grayson's laugh was a knife wrapped in velvet. "Brother, we both know your allowance from the company barely covers this mausoleum. You're a shareholder in name only. I run Sinclair International now." He leaned back. "You have nothing but that chair."

Damian smiled slowly.

"Of course," he said. "Nothing but the chair."

But under the table, hidden from every eye but mine — I saw his foot shift.