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.

The message arrives through Ethan, which is how Dominic's communications have been arriving since the board restructuring, through the specific channel of the half-brother who is now running the company and who maintains a relationship with Dominic that is more functional than mine and less complicated than it could be given the circumstances of their connection.


Ethan calls on a Thursday and says, without preamble, which is how Ethan says things he needs to say without the buildup that would give me time to construct a response before the information has fully arrived: "Dominic is in the hospital. Sloan Kettering. He wants to see you."


Chapter 238 - "Dominic's Return"