Chapter 7
Celeste scrambled backward on the marble floor, her heels slipping on the crushed white flowers and velvet boxes. The fear in her eyes was primal. She had known this day might come, but she had arrogantly believed her family’s power could keep the ghosts buried forever.
"I don't know!" Celeste cried, holding her hands up defensively. "I told you, it must have been a mistake at the jeweler! They must have mixed up the order!"
"You are lying to me," Nolan said softly. He stopped a few feet away from her, his towering, masculine frame casting a long, dark shadow over her ruined dress. "This is an Ashford heirloom. It has not left the family vault in twenty years, until the day I gave it to you. The jeweler only polished it. He did not engrave it."
"Then I don't know how it got there!" Celeste shrieked.
Nolan slowly turned his head, looking back at Mae. The young maid was kneeling on the floor, holding little Nora tightly against her chest. Tears were streaming down Mae’s fair cheeks. She stared at Nolan’s face, tracing the angular jawline, the high-bridged nose, the deep blue eyes that mirrored her daughter's perfectly.
"Mae," Nolan said, his deep, raspy voice dropping into a gentle, demanding register. "Come here."
Mae hesitated, her entire body shaking, but the absolute authority in his voice pulled her forward. She stood up, holding Nora’s hand, and walked slowly across the shattered glass and sheet music. She stopped beside Nolan, looking down at the terrified woman on the floor.
"Do you know this ring?" Nolan asked Mae, holding the gold band out to her.
Mae reached out with trembling fingers. She didn't take the ring, but she traced the air just above the diamond.
"You gave it to me," Mae whispered, her voice cracking as a dam broke inside her mind. "We were by the water. You told me... you told me we were going to disappear together. To get away from the syndicate."
Nolan’s chest tightened. A sudden, violent headache spiked behind his eyes. Flashes of memory, blurred and disjointed, fired through his brain. A beach. A laugh. A woman with fair, rosy skin and bright eyes. A car crash. Waking up in a hospital room surrounded by the Wainwright family, being told he had been in a coma for months.
"I don't remember," Nolan breathed, his voice raw.
May you like
"Of course you don't!" Marcus Wainwright groaned from the other side of the room. The older man pushed himself up on one elbow, blood pouring from his shattered nose onto the marble. He coughed, a cruel, bloody smile twisting his face. "The doctors told us you had retrograde amnesia after the accident. You forgot the last two years of your life. It was a gift from God."
Nolan turned his cold, sharp eyes onto Marcus. "Explain."
