Chapter 3

Less than an hour, the tabloids had already branded me a criminal.

The Attic Freak Steals the Billionaire's Crown.

My stepmother, Kaelin, had twisted my fifteen years of silence into the narrative of a scheming viper.

Outside the gates of the Ember estate, reporters packed the front gates three deep, camera lenses pointed toward the house.

"Nobody goes outside," Cian Ember murmured.

"My father's lawyers are already on the line with the registrars," I said and held onto my jeans to hide the slight tremor in my fingers.

"Let them talk," Cian said coldly.

He walked out toward the southern terrace, leaving me alone in the silence of the corridor.

I didn't want to hear my father's subservient excuses over the phone.

I turned away from the glass and pushed open a set of unlatched doors at the dead end of the hall.

It was Cian's private study.

The room smelled of cedarwood, leather, and old paper.

But as I brushed past a bookshelf, my hip caught a heavy album.

A single, small object slipped from between the pages, fluttering face-down onto the floor.

It was an unvarnished Polaroid.

My breath caught in my throat, a sharp heat rising behind my eyes. I couldn't move.

The woman in the photograph was my mother, Rosalie Maris.

She was fifteen years younger, standing in the rose garden visible through the study window behind me.

She was wearing a simple linen apron, her fingers dusted with white baking flour, her head tilted back in a laugh.

For fifteen years, I had remembered my mother as a gray, trembling shadow.

I had spent my entire youth believing she was a victim who had been broken by my father and stepmother.

And she had never mentioned their name to me once before she died.

But the woman in this photo wasn't broken. She was radiant. She looked confident, and deeply loved.

"You're tracking dust onto the rug," Cian's voice drifted over my shoulder.

I didn't scramble to my feet. I stayed on my knees, my fingers trembling as they clutched the edges of the photograph.

Cian walked into the study, his footsteps silent.

He pulled a heavy leather chair out with his foot and stopped right beside me.

He didn't demand to know why I was breaking into his files.

His dark eyes descended to the Polaroid in my hands, his gaze instantly became unreadable.

Slowly, he reached down, his long fingers gently taking the white border from my grip.

I expected him to hide it. I expected him to order me out.

Instead, Cian stayed frozen, his thumb brushing the faded cursive on the back.

Neither of us spoke.

"Why do you have that?" I whispered, my voice cracking through the quiet. "Who was she to your family, Cian?"

Cian didn't look at me. He carefully slid the photo back into the album, closing it with a heavy, final click.

"She laughed a lot back then," Cian murmured.

A chill crawled over my skin. I stood up slowly, looking at his rigid silhouette.

"You knew her."

"I was seven, Elowen," Cian said.

He turned his head, his dark eyes locking onto my face with a quiet intensity.

"She lived in this house for six months," Cian whispered, his hand tightening into a fist at his side.

"And the day she left, she took everything my family was supposed to inherit with her."

"What did she take, Cian?"

Cian didn't answer. He stepped closer, his shadow completely swallowing my frame.

Suddenly, his hand moved.

With a single, fluid movement, his fingers caught my tangled brown wig.

But he didn't drop the wig. He kept his fingers clenched tightly around the brown hair.

"Why did your mother make you hide?" Cian asked.

"I should be asking you. Why did you react like that when you saw my face?"

"I asked you first, Elowen. Why did Rosalie Maris order you to live like a freak in that attic?"

"I don't know," I said, my voice steady, though my heart was knocking hard.

"She only told me to stay ugly until my twentieth birthday. She never gave me a reason."

Cian looked at me, his eyes cold, sharp, and entirely unconvinced.

"I don't believe you."

The study doors burst open.

The secretary had entered without knocking.

His face was paper-white.

"Mr. Ember," the secretary said, his voice cracking.

Cian didn't turn around. His gaze remained locked on my face.

"What happened?" Cian asked smoothly.

"The Jove family," the secretary said. "They've made their move."

The secretary gave him the tablet.

Nobody spoke.

Cian looked down at the screen.

For the first time since I had crashed his wedding, I watched his chest stop moving entirely.

"No," Cian whispered.

He stared at the screen, his thumb shaking against the glass.

"No."

My fingers tightened into my jeans.

"What is it?"

Nobody answered.

Cian slowly looked up from the screen. He looked at me.

"They weren't looking for your mother."

"The person they've been hunting for fifteen years... is you."