Chapter 1
Dorian fastened the Daughter Star—the pendant meant for my daughter—around his mistress’s son’s neck.
The cameras erupted below the stage, flash after flash burning into my eyes.
“Thank you all for joining us tonight to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Green Star Collection.” Dorian stood at the microphone, one arm around Camille, the other resting on the shoulder of the seven-year-old boy beside him. His voice was calm, polished, impossible to ignore. “It is my honor to announce that Orson Veyne will be presented as the sole heir to the Green Star legacy.”
A stunned murmur swept through the ballroom.
On the enormous screen behind them, a new campaign image slowly appeared.
Elsie’s name had been erased.
In its place were two words:
Orson Veyne.
The green stone at his throat caught the light, cold and brilliant.
It had belonged to my mother, Celestine Laurent—Elsie’s grandmother.
Celestine had created the Green Star Collection from her original designs. When she died, the Green Star Trust gave the Mother Star to me and placed the Daughter Star in trust for Elsie until her twelfth birthday.
The Veyne Group had been granted the right to sell the collection. It had never been given the right to choose who inherited it.
I looked down.
Eleven-year-old Elsie stood beside me in the white dress my mother had designed for her by hand. Her fingers slipped from mine.
She lowered her eyes to her empty chest, then looked back at the boy onstage, glowing beneath a hundred cameras.
“Mom…” Her voice trembled. “What happened to my name? Dad said tonight was supposed to be my debut.”
Something inside my chest split open.
I took a breath, tightened my grip on her hand, and walked toward the stage.
Dorian noticed me coming. His brow tightened. He stepped forward, his body blocking me from the pendant—and from the place that had belonged to my daughter.
“Dorian.” My palm had gone ice-cold, but I held his gaze. “You promised Elsie.”
“Don’t make a scene tonight, Mireille.” His voice was low and flat, carrying the warning of a man used to being obeyed. “The guests are watching. The family will make other arrangements for her.”
“You cannot make arrangements with something you do not own.”
Camille leaned into his chest, a victorious smile curling across her lips. Orson looked confused beneath the cameras.
Camille straightened the pendant at his throat and smiled for the press.
“It looks perfect on him.”
Rage surged through me. I raised my arm, ready to storm the stage and rip the pendant from the boy’s neck.
Dorian moved faster.
His hand clamped around my wrist, his fingers digging into my skin.
“Stop acting crazy,” he murmured, too quietly for anyone else to hear. “Everything you and Elsie have comes from the Veyne Group. Be smart. Take her out through the back door and leave.”
A few muffled laughs rose from the crowd, quickly swallowed by the clink of champagne glasses.
I looked at his cold, merciless face.
Then I stopped shaking.
I did not scream.
I did not let him turn my daughter’s pain into a spectacle for strangers.
Instead, I took a champagne flute from a passing server’s tray and held it out to Dorian.
Before every camera in the ballroom, I used my left hand to pull off the wedding ring I had worn for twelve years.
Clink.
The platinum-and-diamond ring fell into the golden champagne and sank to the bottom of the glass.
Dorian’s eyes darkened.
“You gave her place to someone else,” I said, looking directly into his eyes. My voice was clear enough for him alone to hear. “So do not expect her to spend the rest of her life protecting your dignity.”
I turned, took Elsie’s hand, and walked out beneath the chase of a hundred flashing cameras.
Half an hour later, we were home.
The house was silent.
Elsie did not cry. She walked into the study and searched through the things my mother had left behind.
Then she returned holding a locked wooden music box.
She placed it in my hands.
“Mom,” she whispered, “Grandma told me that if anyone ever took my star, I should give this to you.”
I took the music box.
It felt heavy in my hands.
Heavier than I remembered.