The taxi ride was a blur of neon and smeared headlights. Audrey stared out the window but saw nothing. She was a statue carved from ice, moving through a world that had lost all its color.
She arrived. The Metropolitan Museum of Art loomed before her, its grand facade a monument to everything she had worked for. Tonight was supposed to be her victory.
It felt like a funeral.
She paid the driver, her movements stiff. She walked up the iconic steps, the murmur of the crowd inside a distant roar. Each step was an act of will.
She could still feel the phantom weight of Kian’s gaze on her back. Is that little boy your son? His silence was the only answer she needed.
A doorman in a crisp uniform opened the heavy glass door. “Ms. Wells. A magnificent evening.”
She forced a smile. “Thank you, Charles.”
The sound hit her first. A symphony of clinking glasses, polite laughter, and the soft strains of a string quartet. The Great Hall was filled with the city’s elite. Tuxedos and jewels. Money and power.
Her exhibit, “Echoes of the Sea: A Maritime History,” was just beyond the archway. Her life’s work. The one thing that was real.
She took a breath, squared her shoulders, and stepped into the fray.
“Audrey, darling!” A board member, Mr. Abernathy, kissed the air beside her cheek. “A triumph! An absolute triumph!”
“Thank you, Harrison. I’m so glad you could make it.”
She moved through the room on autopilot. She smiled. She accepted compliments. She shook hands. Each interaction was a performance, a carefully constructed lie that said, I am fine. I am in control.
She saw Cole across the room, holding court near the bar. He wore his smug satisfaction like a tailored suit. He caught her eye and raised his glass in a silent toast. A possessive, triumphant gesture. Her stomach turned.
She ignored him, focusing on the guests, on the work.
Then the room seemed to shift. A cold front moved through the warm, crowded space. The polite chatter near the main entrance faltered.
Beatrice Sterling had arrived.
She was an iceberg in a Chanel suit, her silver hair coiled into a perfect, merciless chignon. She moved with an aura of untouchable authority, parting the crowd like the Red Sea.
And her cold, blue eyes were fixed on Audrey.
Audrey’s heart hammered against her ribs. She didn’t move. She wouldn’t run.
Beatrice glided to a stop directly in front of her. The silence around them was so profound it was a sound in itself. Everyone was watching.
“Ms. Wells,” Beatrice said, her voice carrying with chilling clarity. “We’ve met.”
“Mrs. Sterling,” Audrey replied, her own voice a tightrope wire.
Beatrice’s lips curved into a smile that held no warmth. It was a predator’s smile. “I believe I gave you some advice. I see you chose to ignore it.”
Audrey stood her ground. “I’m not for sale.”
The smile tightened. Beatrice leaned in, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that was somehow louder than a shout.
“Then let me be perfectly clear.”
She straightened up, her voice ringing out across the cavernous hall, sharp and cruel and designed to shatter.
“Stay away from my son.”
The words landed like a gunshot. A collective gasp rippled through the crowd. Phones were subtly raised. Mr. Abernathy choked on his champagne. Cole watched from the bar, a flicker of pure, vicious delight on his face.
Audrey’s world tilted. The floor felt like it was falling away. My son. His mother. It was real. All of it. The humiliation was a physical force, hot and suffocating.
And then, a voice cut through the stunned silence.
“Mother. That’s enough.”
Kian.
He was striding through the crowd, his eyes blazing with a fury that made people physically recoil. He hadn’t bothered with a ticket. He had just walked in, a king reclaiming his territory. He didn’t stop until he was standing beside Audrey, a solid, protective presence.
He faced his mother, his jaw tight. “This is over.”
Someone in the crowd whispered his name. “Is that… Kian Sterling?”
The name echoed. Sterling. Sterling. Sterling. The truth was a wildfire, consuming the last of Audrey’s defenses. He was him. The man from the tabloids. The shipping heir. The lie made flesh.
Kian ignored them all. He turned to Audrey, his eyes full of a desperate, pleading anguish. “Audrey, I am so sorry.”
Before she could process the words, another hand was on her arm. A grip like steel. Cole.
“Come on,” he hissed, his face a mask of false concern for the onlookers. He started pulling her away from the scene, dragging her toward a less crowded corridor. “Let’s get you away from this lunatic.”
Kian started after them. “Don’t you touch her.”
“She’s with me,” Cole snarled over his shoulder, yanking Audrey harder.
The chaos was a whirlwind. Beatrice’s triumphant glare. Kian’s furious face. The whispering, judging eyes of the entire New York art world.
Cole pulled her into a quiet alcove behind a marble column, his fingers digging into her arm.
“I told you he was bad news,” he said, his voice a low, possessive growl. His eyes were shining with a terrifying, proprietary rage. “I knew he’d try to ruin your night.”
Audrey tried to wrench her arm free. “Let go of me, Cole.”
“I protect you, Audrey. I always have.” He leaned closer, his breath hot against her ear. “You were so worried about that cracked vase from the Corinthian dig. The one that almost got your exhibit canceled.”
Audrey froze.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered, his words a venomous confession. “I took care of it. Smashed it to pieces myself. Had to make sure you knew who you could really count on.”
The blood drained from her face. The sabotage. The anonymous complaint. The weeks of terror, of feeling like she was losing her mind. It was him. It had always been him.
Betrayal number one stood ten feet away, a billionaire liar with a secret son.
Betrayal number two was holding her arm, a smiling monster who had systematically tried to destroy her career just to keep her.
It was too much. The silk gown was a cage. The air was poison.
The carefully constructed woman who had walked in an hour ago finally, completely, broke.
A sound tore from her throat.
It wasn’t a word. It was a scream. A raw, ragged, primal howl of agony and rage.
She ripped her arm from Cole’s grasp, shoving him back against the column. She turned and saw Kian, his face a canvas of horror as he realized what he had just heard.
She looked at Cole’s shocked face. She looked at Kian’s devastated one.
Two liars. Two cages. Two traitors.
“GET AWAY FROM ME!” she shrieked, the words echoing off the marble. “BOTH OF YOU!”
She didn’t wait for a response. She turned and ran.
She fled past the stunned faces of the patrons, past the priceless artifacts, past her own beautiful, tainted exhibit. She ran through the Great Hall, a flash of emerald green and pure despair.
She burst through the front doors and into the cold night air, the sound of her own ragged sobs chasing her down the stone steps.
She was free.
And she was utterly, terrifyingly alone.