Chapter 7

Chole's POV

Richard's front door opened before I could knock.

Susan—my aunt by marriage, Richard's wife, the woman who had spent two decades perfecting the art of making me feel like an intruder in every room she occupied—stood in the doorway wearing a cream cashmere twinset and the particular smile.

She looked me over the way she always had, that slow top-to-bottom inventory that was designed to make me feel like something she'd found on the bottom of her shoe.

"You're three minutes late," she said, stepping aside to let me in.

"Traffic." I smiled back, just as wide, just as empty. "You look wonderful."

She didn't respond to that. She never did when I complimented her, because accepting it would require acknowledging me as someone worth accepting anything from.

The house smelled the same as it always had—expensive candles layered over something slightly stale, the particular scent of a home that spent more money on appearances than on living.

I followed Susan through the marble foyer, past the oil paintings that Richard had purchased in bulk from an estate sale and framed like inherited heirlooms, into the sitting room where Richard was waiting.

He stood by the window with a glass of scotch, his back to me. The power move was so practiced it had become reflex—make her wait, make her announce herself, remind her who controls the room before she's even sat down.

"Chloe." He turned, and his expression did the thing it always did: assembled itself into something approximating warmth while his eyes stayed perfectly, clinically cold. "Sit down."

I sat. I folded my hands in my lap. I made myself small and still and compliant, the way I'd learned to do at ten years old in this very house, before the Sterlings had taken me in and Arthur had taught me, through sheer example, that stillness and smallness were two entirely different things.

"The Russo family has locked in their timeline. They want the engagement formally announced at the Elysium Gala—this time next week, public, official, with photographers and the whole spectacle."

I let a beat of silence pass before I said, carefully, "I understand."

Richard blinked. He'd been braced for resistance; I could see it in the slight loosening of his shoulders when it didn't come. "You understand."

"The Gala. The announcement. I'll be there." I smoothed an invisible wrinkle from my skirt. "I just need to know that our arrangement still stands. Once the Russo investment is secured and the partnership formalized—"

"The sketches." His voice went flat again. "You'll have them—once the engagement goes public, once the Russo investment clears. Do your part, and they're yours."

"All of them. The complete portfolio, with the original copyright documentation transferred to my name." I held his gaze without blinking. "I want it in writing, Richard. A legal agreement, signed before the Gala."

Susan drew a breath, but Richard raised a hand to silence her. He studied me for a long moment with the expression of a man trying to find the trap in an offer that looked too clean. "You're not going to fight me on the timeline."

"Fighting you doesn't get me what I want." I smiled, and I made it look like surrender. "You have something I need. I have something you need. That's how arrangements work."

Something shifted in his face—satisfaction, maybe, or the particular pleasure of a man who believed he'd won. He reached for his scotch again. "I'll have the lawyers draft the language."

"Thank you." I stood, which was a small power move of my own—ending the meeting on my terms rather than waiting to be dismissed. "I'll need the draft by the end of the week, so I have time to review it before the Gala."

"You'll have it." Richard stood too, reflexively, because he was the kind of man who couldn't let a woman hold the room even in her exit. "And Chloe—" he paused, and the warmth came back into his voice like a light switched on, performative and immediate. "I'm glad we could come to an understanding. Your father would have wanted us to work together."

The mention of my father landed exactly as he intended it to, like a thumb pressed into a bruise. I felt it move through me—the grief, the rage, the particular exhaustion of being weaponized by someone who'd never cared about Jonathan Vance beyond what he could extract from his memory.

"I'm sure he would have," I said.

Susan walked me to the door. She didn't say anything until we reached the threshold, and then she said, very quietly, with that smile still in place, "Try not to embarrass us at the Gala. Dress appropriately. Something understated."

I looked at her for a moment—at the careful architecture of her contempt, at the way she'd spent two decades perfecting the art of diminishment through politeness.

"I'll wear something I designed myself," I told her. "It'll be perfect."

I walked down the stone pathway without looking back, and I didn't let my shoulders drop until I'd turned the corner and the house was out of sight. The evening air hit me cold and sharp, carrying the first suggestion of rain, and I stood on the sidewalk for a moment with my eyes closed and my hands loose at my sides.

Breathe. Count it. Four in, hold, four out.

The legal agreement was settled—ownership on paper was no longer the question. But paper meant nothing if Richard decided to play games with the physical portfolio itself,

I knew him well enough to know that "settled" and "done" were two different things when it came to him. Which meant I needed a contingency, a way to ensure every last page of my father's sketches made it into my hands intact, regardless of what Richard chose to do between now and the moment he was supposed to hand them over.

He thought the sketches were a leash. He hadn't considered that a leash only works if the person on the other end of it stays afraid.

I pulled out my phone and typed a message to Emily: Call the IP attorney. I need a copyright transfer agreement drafted. I'll explain tomorrow.

Then I scrolled up to Marcus's deleted message and stared at the blank space where it had been.

Mr. Sterling requests you inform him if you require any assistance with your current situation.

The rain started—just a few drops at first, tapping against the pavement like fingers drumming an impatient rhythm. I turned my collar up and started walking toward the main road, where I could flag a car back to the hotel. The smart thing to do was keep moving, keep the pieces in motion, not think about the fact that somewhere across the city, Arthur Sterling was probably watching the same rain fall against his floor-to-ceiling windows and thinking about—

I stopped that thought before it finished.

The arrangement with Richard would hold for now. Derek Harvey was neutralized, at least temporarily, by his own greed and my silence.

The Gala was one week away, which meant seven days to get the copyright agreement signed, get the legal protection in place, and figure out exactly how I was going to walk into that room on Julian Russo's arm and still walk out of it free.

Seven days was enough time to win a war, if you spent it right.

A car pulled up to the curb before I'd even raised my hand—black, expensive, the particular hum of an engine that costs more than most people's annual salary. The rear window slid down, and Marcus looked out at me with his customary expression of professional neutrality.

"Mr. Sterling thought you might need a ride," he said.

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