Chapter 2

The next day, a black car, so shiny it looked like polished obsidian, pulled up in front of my rundown apartment building. It was completely out of place, a spaceship landed in a junkyard.

A woman in a tailored suit stepped out. She was older, with perfectly styled silver hair and an air of authority that needed no announcement. She walked to my door and knocked.

It was Liam Sterling's grandmother. I recognized her from society pages. The matriarch of the Sterling family.

She didn't waste time with pleasantries. Her eyes, a sharp, intelligent gray, scanned my tiny apartment, taking in the peeling paint and second-hand furniture.

"Scarlet," she said. Her voice was crisp, like autumn leaves. "I assume you saw the press release."

I just nodded, my throat too tight to speak.

"My grandson has acknowledged his responsibility. The family will do the same. This environment is not suitable for a Sterling heir. You will pack a bag. You are coming with us."

It wasn't a request. It was a command. There was a flicker of something in her eyes, not kindness, but perhaps a pragmatic sort of sympathy. She saw me not as a person, but as a situation that needed to be managed.

Hope and fear warred inside me. A part of me was relieved. I was so tired of struggling, of being scared. Another part was terrified. I was losing control of my own life.

"My grandmother..." I started, my voice barely a whisper.

"She will be taken care of," Eleanor Sterling interrupted smoothly. "We have already arranged for her to be moved to the best private care facility in the country. All her expenses will be covered. Indefinitely."

That was it. The final piece of the transaction. They were buying my compliance, my life, my child. I had no power to refuse. So I packed a small bag with a few changes of clothes and my sketchbook.

The Sterling mansion was less a home and more a modern art museum. It was all glass and white walls, with minimalist furniture and vast, empty spaces. It was beautiful and impossibly cold. It felt like no one actually lived there.

A maid silently showed me to a suite of rooms that was larger than my entire apartment. The bed was massive, the sheets felt like silk, and the bathroom was lined with marble. It was a gilded cage.

I stood in the middle of the room, feeling small and out of place.

Then, I heard footsteps.

Liam Sterling appeared in the doorway. He was taller than I remembered from a distance, dressed in a simple gray T-shirt and dark pants that probably cost more than my rent for a year. His face was exactly as the media portrayed it: sharp, intelligent, and completely unreadable.

He looked at me, his eyes sweeping over me once, dismissively. There was no recognition, no warmth, nothing. He had claimed me and his child in front of the entire world, but in person, he looked at me like I was a piece of furniture that had been delivered to the wrong address.

He didn't say a word. He just turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing down the long, silent hallway.

The disappointment was a sharp, physical ache. I didn't know what I expected, maybe a word of explanation, a simple "hello." But I got nothing. Just cold, complete indifference.

Later that evening, exploring the silent ground floor, I saw it. On a minimalist console table in the cavernous living room stood a single, large, silver-framed photograph. It was a woman, a ballerina, captured mid-leap. She was breathtakingly beautiful, with a graceful neck and an expression of pure joy. Her name was Celeste, a famous principal dancer. Her connection to Liam was rumored for years.

Seeing that photo, I understood. This whole arrangement, my presence here, it meant nothing to him emotionally. His heart, if he had one, was somewhere else entirely. I was just a complication, a duty he was forced to perform. The mother of his heir. Nothing more.