PROLOGUE
AS THE GLASS ELEVATOR CARRIED US UP, Boston spread out before me in a tangled, weaving mess. The city hadn’t been planned, and the narrow roads were laid atop horse trails from the seventeenth century. Snarling lines of concrete were wedged between skyscrapers. Traffic was a nightmare.
I felt a similar kind of chaos as my gaze focused on him.
He wore a black suit and a black tie dotted with silver specks. To everyone else, he’d look powerful and confident, but I saw through it, down to the uncertainty that lingered behind his blue eyes. It was unnerving to see him like this. I’d known him my whole life and only witnessed it a few times.
Breath seized in my lungs as his hand curled around mine and wove our fingers together. We were alone in the executive elevator, but the glass walls left me feeling exposed. Like anyone could see us. I wasn’t supposed to be here.
The pad of his thumb brushed absentmindedly over the set of rings on my left hand, and it forced the words from my mouth, coming out like I’d discovered a great secret. “You’re nervous.”
He delivered a cool, irritated look. “Of course not. Why would you say that?”
I glanced down at our joined hands and back to him, wordlessly presenting his behavior as evidence. Currently, I didn’t work at Hale Banking and Holding, and even if I did, displays of affection had no place here at the office, out where anyone could see.
He raised an eyebrow. “I wanted an excuse to touch you before the meeting.”
It was a lie, but I didn’t call him out on it because he had good reason to be nervous. He was about to walk into the most important board meeting of his life. A decision had to be made, and it would settle once and for all what had been in the works for years.
I didn’t know which Hale was going to come out on top.
He didn’t either, judging by his unsteady tone. “He doesn’t have the votes.”
There was too much anxiety in me to offer a response. It was like I’d swallowed broken glass and the shards jangled together in my stomach with each shallow breath I took. Everything had led up to this moment. Once the elevator stopped and the doors opened, things were going to get much harder.
My gaze flicked to the panel of buttons, and my nerves made my finger itch to reach out and press one—any floor below the one that was already illuminated.
He must have sensed my trepidation because his grip on me tightened. If he’d meant to reassure me, he failed. My pulse climbed higher with each floor we passed, and my heart ground to a halt the same moment the elevator did. He dropped my hand and stepped away from me, putting a professional amount of distance between us.
“Thank you for coming with me,” he said in the quiet before the doors peeled back with a mechanical whine.
Like I had a choice.
I sucked in a deep breath, both wanting and dreading the next part.
He gestured through the now open doors. “After you.”
My knees wobbled beneath my skirt, but I held my head up and fixed an indifferent expression on my face as I stepped into the hallway. I was Marist Hale on the outside, the perfect goddess, ready to rule alongside the other Olympians. And inside, I was the monster Medusa, preparing to take my victims.
I’d only made it a few steps before my husband turned a corner and spotted me in the hallway.
“Marist?” Royce’s questioning look shifted from me to the man at my side.
As my husband’s gaze crawled upward, his eyes widened, and the distance between us filled with ice. Darkness overtook his expression, and he turned to stone.
Gone was the unease that had plagued Macalister in the elevator moments ago. In the hallway, he was as comfortable as a general heading into a battle with twice as many men as his opponent. Bright, cruel victory flashed in his eyes.
I was the secret weapon he’d just deployed against his son, and a sinister smile spread across his lips.
ONE
Eight Months Ago
MY HEART THUDDED ERRATICALLY IN MY CHEST like it had been placed inside a box and kicked down the grand staircase I was hanging on to. My fingers dug into the carpeted step, desperate not to fall, even as gravity seemed determined to pull me away.
Only it wasn’t gravity. The unstoppable force working to rip me from the stairs was solid and cold and named Macalister Hale.
The Minotaur.
I feebly tried to push his hands away, but whatever Alice had done left me crippled and powerless.
“No,” I whisper-sobbed when icy hands slid under my body and began to collect me. He blurred again into an indistinguishable shape as he sat on the steps and pulled my shoulders across his lap.
I did not want to die in Macalister’s arms, and certainly not moments after mistakenly telling him I loved him.
But I couldn’t convey anything, couldn’t organize my thoughts. They sifted through the holes Alice’s drug had created in my mind, disappearing forever. The only thing I could hold on to was my fear. Not that I was dying, even though I was certain I was, but that I’d never truly know how Royce felt about me.
Had his declaration of love just been for show? A lie told as he played his role as the prince of Cape Hill?
“Marist.” When a cool fingertip gently brushed a lock of hair back out of my eyes, it added to my horrible disorientation. Macalister’s voice was uneven. Nervous. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
The light from the chandelier in the entryway was growing darker with every slow blink, and the hideous halos around it stretched longer. I was running out of time, and my brain was shutting down.
“Hera,” I croaked.
The body beneath me tensed.
Zeus’s wife Hera was beautiful, but she didn’t have any redeeming qualities. She was jealous and vengeful and cruel toward her husband’s lovers. Even if Macalister didn’t understand my deeper meaning, he’d still know who I was talking about. The Hale family had dressed tonight for the masquerade party in a Greek mythology theme, and Alice had gone as Hera. The queen of the gods of Mount Olympus.
He would understand, though. He’d insisted on reading nearly every book on mythology I owned.
“What did Alice do to you?” His voice was quiet horror, but it still boomed down the stairs.
“Poison,” I whispered. “Dying.”
A pained grunt slipped from my lips as Macalister stood, shooting to his feet and carrying me up with him. The ache in my stomach was sharper and more violent, and I had no choice but to cling to the fabric of his tuxedo jacket. His first step down the stairs made my nausea increase ten-fold.
“What the fuck?”
It came from far away, across the room in a very angry, very male voice.
I tried to see him, but it was a hazy blot of white on black at the entryway. Instead, I had to picture Royce staring up at us. Me draped in his father’s arms, the train of my green Medusa dress dragging over the red carpeted stairs as I was swiftly carried down them. His father descended the staircase like I weighed nothing.
Macalister ignored his son’s furious tone, and once he’d reached the main floor, his shoes clapped out a loud, biting rhythm. It was a song of urgency as he stormed toward the door, and his voice was nearly as quick as his feet. “Is your driver still out front?”
“What?” Irritation simmered in Royce’s words. “Put her down.”