Chapter 2

2.

Claire had known since she was a child that the Ashworth and Sterling families had been feuding for three generations.

She and Damian were rivals from the start.

If he was first in their class, she had to win the National Academic Decathlon.

If she won gold at the National Junior Piano Competition, he had to win an international one.

They competed in academics, arts, business ventures―anything and everything they could.

They were like two young wolves, each vowing to crush the other.

Everyone in their Greenwich circle assumed the Ashworth and Sterling heirs would be at each other's throats forever.

No one ever expected their rivalry to end in the most scandalous way imaginable.

At a charity gala, twenty-two-year-old Claire’s drink had been spiked.

By the time she realized something was wrong, a fire was spreading through her veins.

Fighting to stay upright, she slipped away from the crowd and pushed open the door to a private lounge.

She locked it behind her, stumbled to the bathroom, and plunged herself into a tub of cold water.

When she opened her eyes, she locked eyes with a pair of equally burning dark pupils.

It was Damian.

Water droplets traced paths down his muscular chest.

Their eyes met.

Drip.

A single drop of water shattered their hazy senses.

Closer, touching, embracing, gasping...

Damian’s lips brushed against the corner of her mouth, his voice a low, seductive rasp. "Are you sure... you want this?"

Claire’s mind was a blank slate, her world reduced to the sight of his lips.

She pushed herself up, straddling him, her soaked dress floating around them in the water.

She kissed him, a fierce, defiant kiss that answered his question.

One night of reckless passion.

It turned into an addiction.

They became two infernos, consuming each other from presidential suites to private beach houses, from mountaintop cabins to Tuscan villas.

Claire would steal a billion-dollar merger Damian had spent a year planning, then bake him a bourbon caramel cake for his birthday.

Damian would crush her profit margins at the negotiating table, then book her favorite track at Laguna Seca for a private race day.

To get married―

Claire stood before the Ashworth family board and burned her trust inheritance documents, signing a declaration that severed her ties, pushing herself until she collapsed from hypoglycemia.

Damian stood at the Sterling family’s annual summit and returned his family shares, renouncing his inheritance.

His father, Richard, threw a glass of whiskey in his face in front of everyone, disowning him on the spot. The Sterling family lawyers officially removed him from every trust and will.

They had a magnificent wedding.

Damian lifted her veil and kissed her with a sincerity that stole her breath. "From now on, you're stuck with me for life."

She smiled and kissed him back.

They both believed their passionate love would last forever.

Until two years ago.

Damian was in Colorado for a renewable energy project. On his way back, a sudden blizzard caused a mudslide, sweeping his car off a mountain road.

The news reached Claire just after she found out she was eight weeks pregnant.

Ignoring everyone's warnings, she led a search party into the mountains herself.

The snow fell harder, the roads turned to treacherous mud. She searched for a day and a night, screaming his name until her throat was raw.

The next evening, she received a call that Damian had been found and taken to a hospital.

A wave of relief washed over her, and the adrenaline that had kept her going vanished. A sharp pain shot through her abdomen.

She was rushed to the hospital, but it was too late to save the baby.

Damian hurried to her side, tears streaming down his face for the first time in his life.

He held her hand, whispering "I'm sorry" over and over.

His bloodshot eyes were filled with a guilt so profound it broke her heart.

But she knew it wasn't his fault.

It was an accident.

The day Claire was discharged, Damian brought a shy-looking woman to New York.

He explained, "She was hit by a falling rock while saving me. She has amnesia. I have to take responsibility for her until she gets her memory back."

Claire nodded. "It's the right thing to do."

At first, everything was normal.

Lily had caretakers for her daily needs, and Claire and Damian would visit occasionally.

But soon, Lily’s "discomforts" became more frequent.

Headaches, insomnia, heart palpitations―and every time an episode occurred, she would only call for Damian.

Damian always rushed to her side.

Claire went from understanding to silent endurance.

People started whispering that Damian's concern for Lily went far beyond gratitude.

They said it was only a matter of time before Mrs. Sterling was replaced.

Claire refused to believe it.

Until she was pregnant again, and she and Lily fell at the same time.

He scooped up Lily, who had only scraped her knee, and rushed away, leaving Claire on the ground.

On the operating table, she called him again and again.

As the phone rang unanswered, she finally signed her own name on the consent form, feeling the life of their second child slip away. In that sterile, silent room, her hope died.

The day she got out of the hospital, she drove to the Sterling family estate with a knife.

But outside the study, she heard Richard's furious voice. "You sabotaged family deals and married an Ashworth, all to get back at me and this family for letting your mother die, didn't you?"

After a brief silence, Damian's voice came, cold and clear. "What if I did?"

In that moment, Claire's entire world went black.

She was just a tool in his war against his family.

All his affection, all his promises, were built on a foundation of lies and manipulation.

The most pathetic part was that she had fallen completely, irrevocably in love with him.

Fighting a wave of dizziness, Claire kicked open the study door and threw the knife onto the desk.

"I want a divorce."

Damian, thinking she was just overwhelmed with grief, had her sedated.

Claire fell into a deep, drug-induced sleep.

When she woke up, he was there, soothing her. "I know you're hurting. We can have another baby."

Over the next month, Claire asked for a divorce countless times.

Each time, Damian tore up the papers, dismissing it as another one of her dramatic tantrums.

Only Claire knew the truth.

All the love she had for Damian Sterling―

Like a vast lake in a drought, had withered into dust.

The Ashworth family had a rule: any member who left and wished to be reinstated had to prove their worth by independently closing a major deal within a set time, without using any family resources.

In a few months, her trial would be over.

And then, she and Damian would be finished for good.