Chapter 3
For the next five years, I played two entirely different roles in New York.
By day, I was the ruthless corporate partner and the legal dictator of the Scott family empire. I used the shares Elias left me to crush his greedy uncles in the boardroom, securing the legacy he bled for.
By night, I was the strict, emotionless guardian to his younger brother, Lucas. I paid off his scandals, and forced him back into college.
I built an impenetrable fortress around my heart, locking my grief and my guilt inside.
These days, Lucas had turned the estate’s dusty old warehouse into a makeshift studio for his final exhibition.
Every night, I would quietly leave a glass of hot milk and a high-protein meal at his door. No words. No lingering. Just a transaction to keep him alive.
But that night, as I walked past the warehouse, I heard a deafening crash.
I pushed the heavy iron doors open. The studio was a disaster.
Lucas was hurled against the brick wall, breathing heavily, his knuckles raw and bleeding. His centerpiece—a massive marble sculpture he had worked on for months—had cracked right down the middle. He grabbed a heavy steel hammer, raising it to smash the ruined piece to dust.
"Don't," I snapped, lunging forward and catching his wrist.
He glared at me, his chest heaving under his sweat-soaked t-shirt. "Get out. You don't know shit about art. It's ruined!"
I didn't argue. I just let go of his arm and knelt in the white dust. Over the past few years, to keep him from getting expelled, I had audited countless of his sculpture classes and helped him finish homework.
But more than that, I had spent hours secretly watching him work, especially when he obsessively carved bust after bust of Elias. I had memorized the physics of the stone just by watching him try to bring his brother back to life.
"The stress point is off," I murmured, tracing the jagged fissure in the cold stone. "You miscalculated the center of gravity. But if we inject industrial epoxy here and brace the lateral angle with steel pins, it will hold."
Lucas froze, the hammer slowly slipping from his grip.
For the next three hours, we sat shoulder to shoulder on the dirty floor. I guided his hands, showing him how to distribute the pressure. The storm raged outside, but inside, the only sound was our synchronized breathing.
When I finally wiped the marble dust from my forehead at 3:00 AM, I turned to look at him.
Lucas wasn't looking at the sculpture. He was staring at me.
His gray eyes were dark, burning, tracing the line of my jaw and the shadow of my eyelashes under the dim bulb.
The air between us suddenly grew dangerously thick. My heart gave a strange, violent flutter that terrified me.
I immediately stood up, brushing the dust off my tailored skirt, locking my icy mask back into place. "Clean this up. Don't miss your deadline."
I walked out without looking back, refusing to acknowledge the heat in his gaze.
But I couldn't outrun yesterday. October 12th.
Elias’s death anniversary.
I canceled all my meetings and spent the entire afternoon sitting by his gravestone. The crisp autumn wind bit through my trench coat, but I couldn't feel the cold.
"I secured the Scott merger, Eli," I whispered, tracing his engraved name with a trembling finger. "And Lucas... he's actually finishing his exhibition. He didn't drop out this time. He's growing up. He looks so much like you now. Sometimes, it terrifies me."
My voice broke. I cried until my lungs burned. I pressed my hand against my lower abdomen, right over the kidney he had secretly given me. My life was bought with his. Every beat of my heart was stolen time.
By the time I returned to the empty Scott mansion, I was shivering and completely hollowed out.
I bypassed my bedroom and went straight to the wine cellar. I grabbed a bottle of 1982 Château Margaux—Elias’s favorite—and didn't bother with a glass.
The alcohol hit my empty stomach like a freight train. The grand hallways of the mansion blurred and tilted.
I stumbled into the dark living room, the empty bottle slipping from my fingers and shattering on the hardwood floor.
"Stella?"
A voice cut through the darkness.
I blinked through the haze of tears and heavy intoxication. A figure was sitting on the sofa, bathed in the blue glow of the TV screen.
Lucas had just returned from his final exhibition. He was wearing a tailored black suit, his tie loosened around his neck, a pair of blue-light glasses resting on his nose. He was holding a game controller.
My breath hitched.
The sharp suit. The glasses. The broad shoulders. The exact same profile.
Elias.
"You're back," I choked out, my knees giving way.
He dropped the controller and caught me before I hit the floor. His hands were incredibly warm, solid, and alive.
"Stella, you're wasted," he said.
"You're finally back," I sobbed, burying my face into his neck. He smelled like cedar wood, rain, and something distinctly masculine.
I reached up, my trembling fingers tangling in his dark hair, pulling his face down to mine.
He stiffened violently. "Stella, do you know what you're doing?"
"I missed you so much," I whispered frantically against his lips, my wine-soaked breath mingling with his. "I'm so tired."
He froze. The years of repressed, forbidden tension between us—the longing he had hidden behind his rebellious sneers—brutally snapped.
With a low, ragged groan, his mouth crashed down on mine.
It wasn't a gentle kiss. It was a ravenous, desperate claiming. His tongue swept past my parted lips, tasting of mint and raw, unrestrained male hunger, deeply invading my mouth and swallowing my helpless whimpers.
He swept me off the floor with terrifying ease, his large hands gripping my bare thighs, carrying me up the grand staircase while never breaking the kiss.
He kicked my bedroom door shut, pressing me deep into the silk mattress.
"Stella..." he rasped, his voice thick with a dark, burning lust.
He tore my trench coat away, his fingers impatiently ripping the buttons of my silk blouse.
The cool air hit my bare skin for only a second before his scorching mouth replaced it, trailing wet, biting kisses down my jaw, my neck, and the sensitive swell of my breasts.
I whimpered, blindly pulling at his tie, desperate for the solid weight of his body. My foggy, alcohol-drenched mind blurred the edges of reality. I just needed the heat.
He stripped off his shirt, pinning both of my wrists above my head with one strong hand. His chest was hard, radiating a blistering heat as he settled his heavy frame between my parted legs.
"You're driving me fucking insane," he growled against my ear, his hot breath grazing my skin as his free hand slid up my inner thigh, parting my underwear.
His fingers found me already slick, shivering, and aching. He stroked me with a ruthless, agonizingly slow rhythm that made my spine arch violently off the bed.
I sobbed out a breathless moan, my nails digging half-moons into his broad shoulders. "Please..."
With a guttural, feral sound, he caught my hips and buried himself deep inside me in one powerful thrust. The sheer size and scorching heat of him tore a loud gasp from my throat.
"Look at me," he commanded hoarsely, his hips driving into me with a bruising, relentless intensity. "Feel me, Stella."
The rest of the night was a chaotic blur of burning friction, slick sweat, and tangled bedsheets.
He was insatiable, completely consumed by his own desperate need, flipping me over and taking me again and again.
He devoured my body as if he was trying to brand his existence into my very soul. And every time I cried out in a drunken, pleasure-soaked haze, he thrust deeper, kissing me senseless.
The morning sun pierced through the heavy curtains, stabbing directly into my eyes.
My head throbbed with a vicious, pounding hangover. My body ached in places I hadn't felt in five years.
My bare leg brushed against solid, scorching hot muscle.
A heavy, strong arm was wrapped possessively around my bare waist, pinning me firmly to the mattress.
My blood instantly froze.
The fragmented memories of last night crashed into my brain like a tidal wave. The suit. The blue-light glasses. The smell of cedar. The frantic, sweaty sheets. The moans.
I slowly, agonizingly turned my head on the pillow.
Lying next to me, breathing deeply in sleep, was not my dead fiancé.
It was Lucas.
