Chapter 1

After being locked in a psychiatric facility by my husband for three years, I was finally brought home.

Upon my return, I became the flawless Mrs. Sterling. The envy of Manhattan.

I no longer threw hysterical fits when Arthur left to care for his late partner's widow. I even took the initiative to move her into our Long Island estate.

I didn't care if our two children wanted to throw away their Ivy League admissions. I nodded along to every absurd, rebellious decision they made.

I managed all our high-society obligations with airtight perfection.

But my husband wasn't happy.

Watching me half-kneel on the rug, reaching out to take off his mud-splattered leather shoes, his bloodshot eyes flared. He violently kicked over a crystal vase nearby. It shattered across the hardwood.

"I already sent Cynthia away!" he roared. "How much longer are you going to throw this tantrum?"

Our two children threw themselves at me, gripping my arms.

"Mom, we'll never call you crazy again. We'll never go looking for Cynthia. Please, just stop treating us like this!"

~~~~~

"I'm not throwing a tantrum."

I didn't even blink.

Arthur's jaw tightened, his eyes heavy with a frantic exhaustion.

"Are you punishing me? Punishing me for locking you up in Switzerland?"

Punishing him? Wasn't this exactly what the Sterling family had always demanded of me?

"You're overthinking," I said, my voice entirely flat. "I've simply accepted reality."

A faint knock echoed from the heavy double doors of the estate.

Cynthia was here.

I walked over and turned the brass handle.

She stood on the steps in a faded cashmere sweater, her shoulders hunched as she clutched a battered Birkin bag. The picture of fallen grace.

Seeing me, she instinctively took a half-step back, her eyes darting away.

"Eileen, I... I shouldn't intrude..."

"Come in." I stepped aside. "The maids have already prepared the guest room on the third floor."

Cynthia hesitated before stepping into the foyer. Her gaze flicked toward Arthur, then her eyelashes fluttered down, feigning a delicate fragility.

I had seen this victim act a thousand times.

Every single time, Arthur would decide she was too pitiful to survive the ruthless jungle of Manhattan, mobilizing all his resources to "protect" her.

"Mom!"

Lucas suddenly rushed over, spreading his arms to block the space between Cynthia and me.

"If you're not throwing a tantrum, then have security toss Cynthia back to Brooklyn!" The eighteen-year-old heir yelled, his face flushed. "Chloe and I don't even want her here!"

Chloe clicked over in her heels, tugging at my silk shawl.

"Mom, we're done with her, I swear. Please don't do this..."

I looked at them quietly. These two heirs of the Sterling empire, sharing half my blood.

"Lucas, Chloe," I explained patiently, my tone as mechanical as reading a quarterly financial report. "It's not safe for Cynthia to live out there alone."

"Besides, her husband was your father's best partner. The Sterling Group cannot afford a reputation for abandoning our own."

With that, I grabbed Cynthia's wrist and led her to the velvet sofa.

I turned to Arthur, who was still frozen in place, and pointed at Cynthia's bag.

"Arthur, take Cynthia's luggage up to the third floor. The east-facing room. It has the best sunlight."

Arthur didn't move. His eyes were locked onto me, as if trying to peel back my skin to find a single trace of jealousy, spite, or vengeance.

He found nothing.

"Eileen," his voice squeezed through his teeth. "I already apologized. I brought you back. Why can't you just let the past go?"

I looked at him. The man I had known for twenty-two years.

We grew up in the same wealthy neighborhood. He was three years older, always following behind me, promising to protect me for the rest of my life.

When I was seventeen, he kissed me for the first time by the rocks on the Long Island shore, vowing to marry me the second he took over the family trust.

Later, he really did marry me.

And he really did destroy me.

"Arthur, I'm just thinking of Cynthia," I said evenly. "A woman living alone won't be as well taken care of as she would be here."

The temperature around Arthur plummeted.

"Are you really going to do this?"

I nodded.

He strode forward, slapping my hand away and roughly snatching Cynthia's bag.

He used too much force. I stumbled backward, my heel twisting. I crashed hard onto the floor, my right arm pressing directly into the shattered crystal shards.

A sharp, piercing pain shot up my nerves.

I looked down. Several jagged pieces of glass were embedded in my forearm. Blood slowly seeped out, staining my white silk cuff crimson.

"Eileen!"

Arthur dropped the bag and lunged forward, reaching out to grab my shoulders.

Instinctively, I flinched, shrinking back to avoid his touch.

That micro-movement froze him mid-air.

A long second passed before he suddenly grabbed my injured arm, forcefully yanking me up from the rug.

The glass shards dug deeper. My vision swam with black spots, but I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek, refusing to make a sound.

"Do I disgust you that much?" he demanded, his breathing ragged as my blood dripped through his fingers onto the Persian rug. "You won't even let me touch you?"