Introduction

My grandmother, Eleanor Vance, a woman who curated lives as meticulously as her art collection, had decided my future: marriage to the influential gallery owner, Daniel.

My dream, however, was to attend the prestigious Blackwood Art Academy, a dream she' d promised to fund-on the condition of this union.

But then, my cousin Olivia, ever the delicate flower, executed a theatrical faint at the dinner table, perfectly timed with the announcement of my tuition.

She claimed a rare heart condition, and my grandmother, blind to the obvious manipulation, diverted my entire academy fund to Olivia' s supposed treatment, even suggesting I become her "assistant."

The injustice burned, the audacity of Daniel-my supposed fiancé-proposing I become his mistress after he secured the Vance fortune through Olivia, was breathtaking.

Was my art, my entire future, to be sacrificed for a transparent charade?

Just as I believed all hope was lost, a mysterious letter arrived: a full, anonymous scholarship to Blackwood, the exact academy I had been barred from, exposing Olivia' s deceit in front of the city' s elite.