Chapter 6

(Kelsey POV)

The train ride to Paris didn't feel like mere transportation.

It felt like a decompression chamber.

I sat by the window, watching the French countryside blur into streaks of green and gold, letting the distance wash over me.

I wasn't wearing the stiff, structured Chanel suit I had left New York in. I had shed that skin in the cramped bathroom of the train car.

Now, I was wearing a simple linen dress I had bought at a market years ago and hidden in the back of my closet like a secret lover.

It wrinkled. It breathed. It felt like skin rather than armor.

Around my neck, I wore a pendant I had made myself. It was a jagged piece of sea glass wrapped in copper wire.

Imperfect. Sharp. Real.

"Excuse me?"

I looked up.

A man was standing in the aisle. He had tousled brown hair and eyes the color of warm whiskey. He was holding a violin case, looking entirely at ease with the swaying of the train.

"I think this bag is about to make a break for it and land on your head," he said, pointing to the overhead rack.

My suitcase was teetering dangerously on the edge. Before I could even stand, he reached up and adjusted it with an easy, fluid grace.

"There," he smiled, dusting off his hands. "Crisis averted."

"Thank you," I said, my voice sounding foreign to my own ears.

"I'm Judd," he said, offering a hand. "Judd Mullen."

I hesitated.

For fifteen years, I had been Mrs. Randolph. I was a title first, and a person a distant second.

"I'm Kelsey," I said finally. "Just Kelsey."

"Nice to meet you, Just Kelsey."

He sat across the aisle and opened a book. He didn't stare at my jewelry. He didn't assess my market value. He just read.

It was the most intimate interaction I had experienced with a man in a decade.

Paris greeted me with rain.

It suited me. I spent the next month building something from the ashes of my old life.

I rented a small gallery space in Le Marais. White walls. Soaring ceilings. Empty space waiting to be filled.

Opening night was a blur of champagne bubbles and polite French conversation. I stood in front of a mirror in the back office before heading out, taking stock of the reflection.

I looked different.

The shadows under my eyes were gone. My spine was straight-not because of a corset or social expectation, but because I wasn't carrying the dead weight of a crime family on my back anymore.

I walked out into the gallery, feeling light.

And then, the air was sucked out of the room.

He was standing in front of my centerpiece sculpture.

Bennett.

He looked violently out of place among the artists and students. He was wearing a bespoke black suit that cost more than the rent for this entire building. His presence was a dark, oily stain on my clean slate.

He turned and saw me.

His eyes raked over my linen dress, my wild, unstyled hair.

"You look like a peasant," he said.

His voice was low, intimate. Terrifying.

"What are you doing here, Bennett?"

"I came to collect my wife."

"I am not your wife."

"The papers aren't signed," he said, stepping closer, invading my personal space. "You are still a Randolph. You don't get to play bohemian in Paris just because you're having a midlife crisis."

I took a step back, my heart hammering against my ribs.

"Go home to your mistress, Bennett."

He laughed. It was a cold, sharp sound, devoid of any humor.

"Aria is handled," he said dismissively. "I cleaned up her mess. The gambling debts. The drama. It's done. I can give you a clean slate, Kelsey."

"I don't want a clean slate. I want a whole new book."

He reached into his jacket pocket.

He pulled out a phone, tapped the screen, and turned it toward me.

My blood ran cold.

It was a video. From our bedroom. From years ago.

It was private. Intimate. Degrading in the specific, controlled way he liked things to be.

"If you don't come back," he whispered, leaning down so his breath brushed my ear like a curse, "everyone in the art world will see exactly how obedient the ice queen really is."

I felt sick. Bile rose in my throat.

He was going to ruin me. He was going to take the one thing I had built for myself-this fragile, beautiful life-and smear it with his filth.

"I have more," he threatened smoothly. "Photos. Videos. I will burn this little gallery to the ground with scandal."

My hands shook. Not from fear. From rage.

"Is there a problem here?"

Judd appeared beside me.

He wasn't wearing a suit. He was wearing a corduroy jacket and holding two glasses of wine. But his stance was solid. Protective.

"Who is this?" Bennett sneered, looking Judd up and down. "The help?"

"I'm the man asking you to step back," Judd said. His voice was calm, but his eyes were hard as flint.

Bennett laughed again.

He reached into his pocket one more time and pulled out a velvet box. He tossed it onto the display counter with a careless flick of his wrist.

It was the Randolph diamond necklace. The collar he used to mark me as his property.

"Put it on, Kelsey," Bennett ordered. "Let's go home."

I looked at the necklace.

It glittered under the gallery track lights-a diamond-encrusted shackle.

Then I looked at Judd.

He didn't say anything. He just set his wine glass down on a pedestal.

He picked up the necklace.

He held it for a second, weighing the heavy stones in his palm.

Then he dropped it back onto the counter.

It landed with a heavy, final thud next to a sculpture made of rusted barbed wire.

"She doesn't wear costumes anymore," Judd said.

The silence that followed hit harder than a gunshot.