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 photographs run on a Wednesday morning and I see them the way I see most things I wasn't supposed to see on any particular morning, which is through the specific cruelty of algorithmic content delivery that has decided, based on my search history and engagement patterns and whatever it knows about my life that I haven't consciously provided, that this is information I should have immediately.


Chase Sterling and Isabella Morrison, formalized. That's the language one outlet uses, formalized, which is a word that belongs in business contexts and has been applied here with the specific intention of communicating something about the nature of the relationship, which is that it has been upgraded from its previous status to something that has been publicly announced and celebrated with champagne in a private venue that was somehow not private enough to prevent documentation.


Chapter 199 - "The Agreement"