* * *
I raise my eyes to look at him again, in time to see him place the knife on the ground at his feet. My captor comes at me, crouching in front of me, placing his gloved hands on my knees and pushing them wider.
This is how I die.
Through my gag, I scream.
Chapter One
AVERY
Present Day
Joshua Grayson is sitting in my father’s office, discussing a business deal as if today is any other day.
But it’s not any other day. It’s THE day. And everyone is acting like it’s not.
Just moments ago, I watched him glide out of the Capulet Corporation's private elevator reserved only for family members. Perhaps that should have been my first warning that things were not going to go well. He winked at me as he passed me in the corridor, like he owned the place, casually unbuttoning his jacket as he scanned my father’s office. Maybe he was wondering how he would decorate the place once his name was on the door.
Fuck that. When Daddy retires, this will be my office. I would have been content to study something arts-related, use my creativity, but you can't run a billion-dollar company with a degree in art history. I graduated summa cum laude from Stanford University with a degree in political science, not because I was interested in politics, but because it was the best subject for the Capulet heiress to study. I worked twice as hard as everyone else, graduated top of my class, and spent my free time working weekends and summers for my father, while my peers drank and fooled around and generally had fun.
And in the years since I graduated, I've been the first person here every morning, and the last to leave, apart from my father.
Not to mention, getting this corner office is kind of my birthright. I’m not giving up the best view in the building for any man, especially not Joshua Grayson.
There’s nothing really wrong with him, and that’s part of the problem. He’s older than me, having just celebrated turning forty, but that’s not a concern. Attractive in a smarmy sort of way, with his perfect white smile and his Ivy-League smirk, Joshua Grayson is exactly the kind of man I would choose to run a company — but not the kind of man I would choose to take to bed. Maybe it’s the way he looks at me like I’m a child, all the more disturbing since he’s known me my entire life. I’m all grown up now, but I know when he talks to me he still sees the shy teenage girl who had a habit of hiding behind her older, more confident sister.
“Avery,” he nods, standing when I enter the room. “Happy birthday. Nice to see you before the big night.”
“Thank you,” I nod my hello, as bile burns in my throat.
“The weather’s perfect for a rooftop soirée,” he adds, trying to keep the conversation going. When he smiles, a deep dimple creases his right cheek. I’d like to stab my manicured nail into his dimple and wipe the smile right off his face. He has one of those deep voices that makes my chest hum when he speaks, but I can’t say I enjoy listening to him.
“Perfect,” I agree. I try so hard to be cordial, but it’s already exhausting. I don’t want to be talking to this guy. I don’t want to be here. It’s my twenty-fifth birthday, and I want to be having shots off some half-naked bartender’s abs, not making small talk about the fucking weather with the guy my father wants me to marry.
“Well, I should let you two get on with it. I’ll see you both tonight.”
“Bye,” I say, a little too loudly, a little too saccharine sweet. Josh is smart. He knows I can’t stand him. So far, it hasn’t swayed his quest to put a ring on my finger and a hefty percentage of Capulet stocks into his share portfolio.
I watch him button his jacket as he stands and leaves the office, making sure to brush past me with his elbow as he exits. His hands are big, but sophisticated, perfect for playing the piano. I wonder what he’s like in bed, if he’d wrap that hand around my throat while he was inside me, or use it over my mouth to stifle a moan, and even though my cheeks pool with blood at the thought of fucking the guy who’s just finished a business meeting with my father, something cold settles in my stomach.
Resignation. Loss.
It is something like dying, this process. I might be obedient and poised by day, nodding my head and smiling when it’s appropriate, but in the dark my nightmares come to feed off me, hungry little vampires that sap me of every bit of strength and bravery that I possess. I bolt upright in the dead of night, when the only light is red numbers on my bedside table that tell me how many more hours until it’s light again — the dark hours when all I can think about is how to stop the full-force collision my fate is careening toward.
I wait until the door swings shut before I turn to my father, letting out a breath. “Jesus fucking Christ, can you let me know next time I’m about to be ambushed by my stalker?”
“Avery!” My father says sharply. He’s already drinking, a tumbler of whiskey in his hand as he turns from the window to address me.
“Happy birthday, dear daughter,” I say in a silly voice, pretending to be him. “Why thank you, Daddy! I’m so glad I get to be paraded around San Francisco like a mail-order-bride on my birthday! How sweet of you to remember.”
I flop down into the chair facing Daddy’s large mahogany desk, the one that I’ll be replacing with sleek glass and metal when it’s my time to move in and let him retire somewhere exotic and remote. All of his old-school furniture makes the place feel stuffy, confined, even though this office takes up half the top floor of Capulet Corp.
“What was he doing here, anyway?”
My father looks at the ground. Panic floods me. “Daddy?” I raise my eyes in disbelief when he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a red Cartier box, setting it on the desk between us as if it’s a bomb.
I snatch up the box, praying to the Jesus I just blasphemed ten seconds ago that there’s a necklace or a pair of earrings, anything but—
An engagement ring. The diamond sticking out of the box is obscenely big. Princess cut, at least five carats, a diamond that could take somebody’s eye out if you punched them while wearing it.
“What did you do,” I mutter, my eyes fixed on the diamond.
“Avery —”
“What did you DO?!” I yell, closing the box and throwing it at the window. The glass is thick, bulletproof, and not in the least bit bothered by my lazy overarm toss.
“Keep your voice down,” my father hisses. “For God’s sake, Avery, get your shit together. Don’t you dare fuck this up.”
“We said one more year.”
“Things change.”
“Dad,” I say emphatically. “What about Will?”
“It’s not like you can’t see Will,” he says casually. “You can love one man and be married to another. This is a business transaction, Avery. You and your children will still have everything your hearts desire.”
I swallow a sob. “I don’t want to have Joshua Grayson’s children,” I say forcefully. “Children should come from love, not obligation.”
“You and your sister came from obligation,” he says. “And your mother and I loved you just the same.”