Chapter 2

"The Sanchez family can choose from half the old families in Kingsbury if they want an alliance. Why would they ever choose someone like Glenda Moretti?"

"Exactly. Maybe she ran into the Sanchez heir at one of those charity galas, threw herself at him, and decided that meant they were sleeping together."

Laughter spread through the dining room again.

I looked at the faces around me.

Every person here was family.

Aunts who had held me when I was a baby. Uncles who had watched me grow up. Cousins I'd spent every Christmas and birthday with.

Now they stood around me like a jury, tearing me apart as if my humiliation were the evening's entertainment.

Not one of them cared whether any of it was true.

My father suddenly grabbed the wooden cane that usually rested beside Grandfather's chair.

"Glenda Moretti!"

He brought it down across my back.

Pain exploded between my shoulders.

I stumbled forward.

"Have you no shame?" he shouted. "It's bad enough that you're making filthy money in clubs, and now you're dragging the Sanchez name into your lies?"

"Dad, stop!"

I twisted away before he could strike me again.

"Everything I said is true!"

Another blow caught my arm.

I gasped and curled instinctively around myself.

Before I could recover, Eric stepped forward and snatched my phone from my hand.

"Then let's make this simple."

My heart dropped.

"Give that back."

He held the phone out of reach.

"If Jarvis Sanchez is really your boyfriend, I'm sure he won't mind clearing this up."

"Eric, don't."

But he had already opened my recent calls.

Before I could reach him, he pressed the number and switched the phone to speaker.

The call connected after two rings.

A familiar voice came through the speaker.

Cold. Low. Irritated.

"Hello?"

My breath caught.

Then Jarvis said, "I thought we agreed. You don't call me. I call you."

The laughter around the room stopped.

Several relatives exchanged uneasy glances.

Even Eric's smile stiffened for a moment.

The voice was unmistakably authoritative, the kind of voice that made men in Kingsbury lower theirs without realizing it.

I lunged for the phone.

Anne grabbed both of my arms from behind.

"Let me go!"

She tightened her grip.

Eric lifted the phone closer to his mouth.

"Mr. Sanchez?"

Silence came from the other end.

Eric cleared his throat.

"I'm a man currently pursuing Glenda Moretti."

My head snapped toward him.

"What?"

He ignored me.

"I'd like to know exactly what kind of relationship you have with her."

There was another pause.

Then Jarvis gave a short, humorless laugh.

"I don't have time for childish games."

The meaning in his tone was obvious to me.

He was angry.

Eric didn't hear it.

Neither did anyone else.

"Wait, Mr. Sanchez," Eric said quickly. "This is important to the Moretti family. Glenda claims you're her boyfriend."

Jarvis went silent.

For one terrible second, I thought he might actually admit it.

Instead, his voice turned colder.

"A fling."

My stomach tightened.

"Nothing more."

The room went completely still.

Jarvis added, "Satisfied?"

Then he hung up.

Eric stared at the dead screen before slowly smiling.

He tossed the phone back at me.

"Well."

It landed against my chest.

"I think that settles it."

What he didn't see was the screen lighting up almost immediately.

Message after message appeared.

Getting bold now, aren't we?

You rejected me again, and now some man is calling himself your suitor?

What exactly am I to you? Someone you sleep with when you're bored?

Send me your location.

I'm coming to get you.

I stared at the messages.

Another arrived.

Ignoring me won't help.

Then another.

You think I can't find you myself?

And finally:

Glenda Moretti, you are not running away from me tonight.

I locked the screen before anyone could see.

There was one thing they weren't entirely wrong about.

The way Jarvis Sanchez and I had met wasn't exactly something I'd ever planned to tell my parents.

A year earlier, I had failed the final stage of the federal recruitment exam.

Five years of studying, and I had missed the cutoff by less than a point.

My best friend had dragged me to one of the neutral clubs downtown and insisted I drink until I stopped talking about exam scores.

She left early when her boyfriend came to collect her.

I stayed.

I drank far more than I should have.

At some point, looking for the restroom, I opened the wrong door.

It wasn't the restroom.

It was a private room reserved for the Sanchez family.

Jarvis Sanchez was sitting alone on a leather couch.

Even drunk, I knew who he was.

Everyone in Kingsbury did.

The eldest son of the Sanchez organization.

The man expected to inherit an empire built on shipping, casinos, security companies, and businesses respectable people preferred not to ask questions about.

I should have apologized and left.

Instead, something inside me snapped.

Maybe it was the alcohol.

Maybe it was five years of frustration.

Maybe I simply wanted, for once, to do something reckless.

I walked straight over, pushed Jarvis back against the couch, and kissed him.

His eyes were bloodshot that night.

He looked like he had been drinking too.

But he didn't push me away.

By morning, neither of us could pretend nothing had happened.

Jarvis stared at the scarlet stain on the white sheets for a long time, his brows drawing together.

After that night, things became complicated.

One meeting became another.

Then another.

Until somehow, without either of us admitting it, we became tangled in something that looked dangerously close to a relationship.

I never fooled myself about what it meant.

There was an entire world between Jarvis Sanchez and me.

The Sanchez family sat at the top of Kingsbury's underworld.

The Morettis were respected, but compared with them, we were minor players.

And I knew about the woman Jarvis had loved for years.

Everyone did.

His first love.

The woman he'd never managed to keep.

She had eventually married someone overseas and disappeared from Kingsbury society, but people still whispered that Jarvis had never truly moved on.

I assumed that was why he wanted me.

Maybe I looked a little like her.

Maybe I was simply convenient.

So every time we were together, I reminded myself not to mistake possession for affection.

Not to expect anything.

Jarvis had told me more than once that he wanted something real with me.

I'd rejected him every time.

I always gave him the same answer.

"When you meet the woman you actually want, tell me. We end this cleanly. No drama."

He hated hearing it.

But he never left.

Jarvis was also absurdly generous.

Jewelry.

Clothes.

Designer bags.

A car I refused to accept.

Sometimes the things he gave me made our relationship feel less like dating and more like I was being kept by one of the most dangerous men in Kingsbury.

That was exactly why I'd never told my conservative parents.

The only person who knew anything was Anne.

My sister.

The person I had trusted enough to tell.

I had never imagined she'd use it to destroy me.

Eric's voice dragged me back to the dining room.

He was laughing again.

"I can tell you with absolute certainty that wasn't Jarvis Sanchez."

I looked up.

Eric pulled out his own phone.

"As some of you know, I work for one of the Sanchez Group's subsidiary companies."

His confidence returned with every word.

"Jarvis Sanchez is our chairman."

He tapped quickly at the screen.

"I've seen his corporate contact information before, so I checked the number Glenda has saved."

A smug smile spread across his face.

"It doesn't match."

The room erupted again.

I stared at him.

Of course it didn't match.

Jarvis had three phones that I knew of.

Probably more that I didn't.

Eric lifted his chin triumphantly.

"And there's something else everyone in Kingsbury knows."

His voice grew louder.

"Jarvis Sanchez has never shown interest in women since his first love married overseas."

A few relatives nodded immediately.

"Exactly."

"I heard that too."

Eric looked at me from head to toe.

Then his gaze lingered shamelessly on my chest.

"With that sweet little innocent face of yours, Glenda, what makes you think a man like Jarvis Sanchez would even notice you?"

My hands curled into fists.

Anne laughed beside him.

"Oh, God."

She covered her mouth as if she'd just realized something hilarious.

"Glenda, don't tell me some random man pretended to be Jarvis Sanchez just to get you into bed."

She tilted her head.

"Did someone actually trick you out of your virginity?"

The room exploded.

Laughter came from every direction.

One cousin slapped the table.

An aunt shook her head in mock sympathy.

"She spent five years trying to climb out of this family, only to get fooled by the first man who claimed he was important."

Another relative laughed even louder.

"She wanted to climb into the Sanchez family so badly that she got played like an idiot."

I stood in the middle of them, my back still burning from my father's blows, listening to the laughter rise around me.

My phone vibrated again in my hand.

One new message appeared on the screen.

I'm outside.