Chapter 1 - THE PURSE AND THE PREDATORMy stepsister humiliated me in front of Manhattan’s elite, and my stepmother laughed openly while I stood there clutching her expensive designer purse like hired domestic help.
They thought the most feared man in the room—a man every socialite in the tri-state area had spent months trying to impress—would naturally choose Celeste.
Instead, Giovanni Campone walked right past every glamorous woman in the ballroom and stopped dead in front of me. What my family didn't know was that my late father had left him a secret designed specifically to dismantle everything they had stolen from me.
"Nobody wants you here, Willow," Celeste said loudly enough for nearby investors and socialites to overhear.
She looked immaculate in her custom red designer gown, while I stood shivering in a cheap, borrowed gray dress. My stepmother, Patricia, stood right beside her, smiling as if my public degradation was high-class entertainment. She even chuckled when Celeste added the cruelest cut of all: Even your own father only kept you around out of pity before he died.
I turned my face away, blinking hard to keep the tears from falling.
That was the exact second the ballroom went dead silent.
Giovanni Campone handed his crystal glass of scotch to one of his heavily armed enforcers and began walking across the polished marble floor. Celeste immediately straightened her posture, a triumphant, practiced smile blooming across her lips, certain he was finally coming to claim her attention.
He walked right past her.
May you like
Giovanni stopped inches in front of me, his dark, piercing eyes locking onto mine, and extended a gloved hand. "May I have this dance?" he asked, his deep voice carrying across the quiet room.
Celeste’s smile vanished so fast it looked painful, while gasps rippled through the surrounding crowd.
