Chapter 3 THE WOLF IN BLACK

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I have dressed billionaires' wives. I have dressed movie stars. I have dressed women who have killed for less than a good seating arrangement at the Met Gala.

I have never been nervous about what to wear. Until tonight.

"Wear black. White is for victims."

His email was still open on my laptop at 7:55 PM. I was standing in the penthouse suite at The Ritz-Carlton on Central Park South — a room that cost $4,000 a night and that Alexander Knight's assistant had booked for me with a note: "Mr. Knight insists you stay here, not at your family's townhouse. He owns this hotel too."

Of course he does.

I looked at myself in the full-length mirror. I had chosen a dress I designed but never sold. Black, silk, so simple it was almost nothing. Thin straps, backless down to the very bottom of my spine, cut so close to the body it looked like it was painted on. No bra. No panties — the silk was too thin and I wanted him to know I knew. A slit up to my hip that showed my long leg when I walked.

My hair was down, dark, wavy, still damp from the shower. My freckles were visible. I had not covered them. My lips were red. Blood red. Not pink. Not nude. Red like I had just bitten something.

I looked like a weapon.

At exactly 8 PM, my phone buzzed. "Mr. Knight's car is downstairs. Black Maybach. Do not keep him waiting. — K."

I went down. New York in November was exactly as I remembered. Cold, raining, beautiful, cruel. The same rain my father threw me out into five years ago.

The Maybach was idling, black, windows so tinted you couldn't see inside. A driver in a black suit opened the door. He didn't speak.

The inside smelled like leather and a man's cologne — something expensive, woodsy, cold.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Mr. Knight's residence, Ms. Laurent. 220 Central Park South. Penthouse."

220 Central Park South. The most expensive building in America. I had read that Ken Griffin bought a penthouse there for $238 million. Alexander Knight owned the top three floors.

We drove for four minutes. We didn't need to drive. We could have walked. But men like Alexander Knight don't walk. They are driven.

The doorman knew my name. The elevator required a fingerprint. It went straight up. No stops. 90 floors. My ears popped.

The doors opened directly into his apartment.

And I forgot how to breathe.

It wasn't an apartment. It was a sky palace. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking all of Manhattan, Central Park glittering below like black diamonds. The furniture was all black and white and gray. Cold. Perfect. No photos. No mess. Like no one actually lived here.

And in the middle of it, standing by the fireplace with a glass of whiskey, was him.

Alexander Knight.

I had seen photos. In Forbes. In Wall Street Journal. Blurry paparazzi photos of him leaving Cipriani. None of them did him justice.

He was tall — 6'3" at least. Broad shoulders under a black custom Tom Ford suit that cost more than my first year's rent in Paris. Dark hair, slightly too long, pushed back. A jaw that could cut glass. Eyes — gray. Not blue. Gray like a winter storm in New York. Cold, intelligent, cruel, and completely focused on me.

He was 32. He looked 32. But he looked like he had already lived 100 years and was bored of all of them.

He saw me. He didn't smile. He stared. His eyes started at my face, then dropped, slowly, deliberately, down my body. Down my neck, my chest where my nipples were visible through the thin silk because it was cold, down my waist, down to the slit where my thigh was showing.

He took a long sip of whiskey.

"Isabella Laurent," he said. His voice was low, deep, with a faint New York accent, like he was trying to hide that he was from Queens. "You wore black."

"You told me to," I said. My voice was steady. I was proud of that.

"You look..." He paused. He walked towards me. Slowly. Like a wolf who knows the deer cannot run. "You look like you want to kill someone tonight. Is it me or your stepsister?"

"Both. Maybe."

That made him smile. Just a little. A terrible, beautiful smile.

"Good girl."

He gestured to a dining table set for two, right by the window. There were candles. Steak. Wine that probably cost $5,000 a bottle.

"I don't eat before revenge," I said.

"You will," he said. Not a suggestion. An order. "Sit."

I sat. Because I wanted to see what he would do.

He sat across from me. He poured me wine. His hands were large, veins visible. No wedding ring. No jewelry at all.

"I watched your show," he said. "The White Dress collection. In Paris. I was there."

"You were? I didn't see you."

"I was in the back. I don't like front rows. Too many people who want something from me."

He cut his steak. Perfectly. Like everything he did.

"The last dress," he continued. "The Zara dress with the chocolate stain covered in diamonds. That was your mother's dress, wasn't it? The one you were wearing when your father threw you out."

My blood went cold.

"How do you know that?"

"I know everything about you, Isabella Cole. Or Laurent. Whatever you call yourself now."

He pushed a black folder across the table towards me.

I opened it. Inside were photos. Me, at 19, in the hallway of my apartment building in that white dress with chocolate on it, crying. Taken from a security camera. Me, landing at Charles de Gaulle with a trash bag. Me, in Madame Dubois's tiny atelier. Me, at my first Fashion Week show. Me, yesterday, at JFK.

"You're stalking me," I whispered.

"I'm researching an investment," he said calmly. "I have owned your father's debt for two years. Cole Properties owes my bank $47 million. He missed his last three payments. He is using your stepsister's wedding at The Plaza — which I also own — to try to impress investors to save his company. It's pathetic."

He leaned forward. His gray eyes locked on mine.

"Your stepsister emailed you because her father told her to. He thinks if he gets the famous Isabella Laurent to design the dress, it will make his family look good again. He doesn't know you are his daughter. Chloe doesn't recognize you. Your hair is different. Your body is different. Your name is different. You are a stranger to them now."

"How do you know Chloe doesn't recognize me?"

"Because I had my assistant show her a photo of you. The Vogue cover. She said 'Oh she's so pretty but not as pretty as me.'"

I laughed. I couldn't help it. It was so Chloe.

Alexander didn't laugh. He just stared at my mouth.

"I can give you everything you want," he said. His voice dropped lower. "I can give you her wedding to ruin. I own the venue. I own the catering company. I own the flower company. I own her fiancé's father's company — Jake Morrison's father works for me too. One word from me, and her wedding will be the most humiliating day of her life. And your father will lose his house, his company, his name. He will have to beg you."

"And what do you want in return?" I asked. Because men like him never give for free.

He stood up. He walked around the table. He stood behind my chair. I could feel his heat. His cologne. His presence.

He leaned down, his mouth right next to my ear. His hand touched my shoulder, the bare skin where the dress strap was.

"I want you," he whispered. And it wasn't romantic. It was possessive. Hungry. Like he was claiming something.

"I have watched you for two years, Isabella. Since your first small show in Le Marais. I saw a girl who was thrown away like trash turn herself into a queen without anyone's help. I have never wanted anything I didn't own. But I want you."

His fingers traced the edge of my dress on my shoulder.

"Be mine. Not your boyfriend. Mine. Let me take care of you. Let me buy you things. Let me ruin people for you. And in return, you will come to my bed when I call, wear what I tell you to wear, and never wear white for another man."

My heart was hammering so loud I was sure he could hear it.

"You don't even know me," I whispered.

"I know you like black now. I know you still keep that stained white dress in a safe in Paris because you can't throw it away. I know you touch your mother's pearls every night before you sleep — the real ones, not the fake ones Chloe wears. I know you have not let a man touch you since Jake, because you think they will all betray you."

Tears stung my eyes. How does he know that?

"I will not betray you," he said. "I will not cheat on you. I will not throw you out. I will be obsessed with you. Is that what you want? A man obsessed?"

I turned my head. Our faces were inches apart. His gray eyes were burning.

"And if I say no?"

"Then I will still give you the wedding to ruin. Because I like watching you destroy people who hurt you. It's beautiful. But you will still think about me every night when you're alone in Paris."

He was so close. I could see a small scar on his lip. I wanted to touch it.

"Say yes, Isabella."

I thought about Chloe in my bed with my mother's necklace. I thought about my father slamming the door. I thought about five years of sleeping on a floor in Paris.

I thought about being alone.

I said, "Yes."

The moment I said it, his hand gripped my waist — hard, possessive — and pulled me up from the chair, into his chest.

"Good girl," he growled against my mouth, but he didn't kiss me. Not yet. "Now eat your steak. You will need your strength. Because tomorrow, we go to your father's house. And you will meet your stepsister as Isabella Laurent."

And for the first time in five years, I felt safe. Not because a man saved me.

But because the wolf decided to stand next to me, not against me.

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