Chapter 1
If Tahlia Steelman had known that today would be the first crack in her perfectly polished life, she might have worn different shoes. But she didn’t. She wore the Louboutins—the red ones. The ones that made people stare and whisper and know exactly who she was: heiress, heartbreaker, hurricane. By lunchtime, someone would be crying. By sunset, it would be her.
“Miss Tahlia, it’s time to wake up! Or you’re going to be late,” chirped Helga in that squeaky morning voice that scraped across her nerves like a violin out of tune.
“Get out, Helga,” Tahlia snapped, burying her face deeper into her silk-covered pillows and dismissing the woman with a flick of her wrist. She heard Helga scurry away obediently.
For a fleeting moment, something twinged in Tahlia’s chest at the housekeeper’s hasty retreat—perhaps she could have been less harsh? The thought lingered longer than usual, an unwelcome visitor in her carefully constructed morning. But she shook it off with practiced ease. Sentimentality was for the weak, and she was Tahlia Clarisse Steelman. The help needed to know their place, even if Helga had been there since Tahlia was four, bandaging scraped knees and reading bedtime stories when no one else would.
Tahlia’s morning beauty ritual took precisely forty-seven minutes—no more, no less. A queen must always look her best, after all. A sly grin spread across her face as she spotted a Gucci pencil skirt with edgy silver details and a slit cut just high enough to tantalize. Paired with her favorite red Louboutins, she was ready to conquer the boardroom.
Her honey-blonde waves bounced with each step as she descended the marble staircase, the click-clack of her heels echoing through the mansion’s cavernous foyer. Seventeen steps. Empty house. The familiar rhythm of her isolated existence.
“Your father left a message,” Helga informed her in the dining room, setting down a plate of avocado toast Tahlia hadn’t asked for. “He wishes you good fortune today and asked if you can remind your mother about this month’s board meeting.”
Tahlia stared at the toast. Whole grain. One avocado, precisely sliced. Helga remembered exactly how she liked it. A warm feeling curled up in her chest.
“How paternal of him to pass along messages through the help,” Tahlia retorted, slicing into the toast with unnecessary force. “Did he say anything else? Perhaps inquire about his daughter’s well-being?”
“No, miss.” Helga’s voice carried the slightest tremor of something—disappointment? Pity?
“And has Mother called?” Tahlia asked, though she already knew the answer. Thank heavens—six blessed months without a single direct word from Lucia Steelman.
“No, miss, she hasn’t.”
Tahlia caught the brief flash of genuine sympathy in Helga’s eyes before the woman could mask it.
“You’re excused,” she announced coldly, her voice arctic enough to frost the windows. The last thing she needed was compassion from someone paid to tolerate her existence.
As Helga retreated, Tahlia allowed herself exactly seven seconds to stare at the empty chairs where her parents should have been before pulling out her phone. Her fingers moved across the screen with practiced efficiency: Missing you too, Mother. Hope Monaco is treating you well. Don’t forget the board meeting at the end of the month—your presence would be such a pleasant surprise.
She watched the message deliver, then set the phone down. No response would come—they never did. She had learned to accept that Lucia was simply not mother material. Or wife material. Or human material, really.
With a practiced toss of her hair, she grabbed her Prada handbag and strode out to the circular driveway where her sapphire blue Bentley Continental awaited—a present from Daddy for her twenty-first birthday. A beautiful, expensive substitute for his presence.
Before getting in, she stopped to check her reflection in the side mirror. Perfect makeup, perfect hair, perfect clothes. Not a crack in the armor. A satisfied smirk graced her lips as she slid into the driver’s seat.
“Seriously, I’m too fabulous for mere mortals,” She relished playing the part expected of her—even if some days the performance felt more exhausting than exhilarating.
The Hopevale Hospital loomed before her, a sprawling monument to medicine, and Tahlia felt the familiar thrill of conquest stirring in her chest. This was her latest project—her masterstroke. The new psychiatric wing would be revolutionary: treatment, housing, and research all integrated into one comprehensive program. It would cement her legacy and prove she was more than just daddy’s little princess.
She had arranged to meet Allistair and the girls here after her presentation to the psychology faculty—lunch at Le Bernardine, the upscale restaurant located next to the Hospital, shopping at Neiman Marcus, perhaps convincing Allistair to buy her those diamond bracelets she’d been eyeing.
But first, she needed to navigate the maze of hospital corridors to find the conference room.
She rounded the corner, checking her phone for Allistair’s text about their meeting spot.
The collision happened so fast she barely had time to gasp.
A walking tower of books and papers toppled directly into her path. Horror paralyzed her as she watched in slow motion while vile brown liquid—coffee, her brain registered with mounting dread—arced through the air and landed with devastating precision on her pristine crimson-soled Louboutins.
Amidst the catastrophe, she saw a pair of startled hazel eyes blinking at her from behind chunky black-rimmed glasses, partially obscured by a riot of frizzy auburn hair that looked like it had been styled by a hurricane. The fashion-challenged perpetrator was clad in a shapeless floral dress that belonged in a 1990s thrift store and battered canvas sneakers that Tahlia had half a mind to confiscate and burn as a public service.
Most infuriating was her complete obliviousness to the magnitude of her crime against fashion—and against Tahlia. “Oh! I didn’t see you there,” she mumbled absently as she began gathering her scattered papers, as if destroying someone’s designer footwear was merely a minor inconvenience.
“Clearly you need a new optometrist,” Tahlia retorted icily, lifting her foot to survey the damage. The squelching sound it made only intensified her rage. “And possibly a guide dog.”
The assailant had the unmitigated audacity to chuckle at Tahlia’s perfectly reasonable suggestion. “You’re probably right about the optometrist. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to get in your way. I hope I didn’t hurt you?” Her attention remained frustratingly fixed on reorganizing her fallen academic debris.
Tahlia was about to erupt like Vesuvius. Why was this fashion-impaired waif not falling to her knees and begging forgiveness for assassinating her Louboutins?
“I’m sorry about spilling my coffee,” she continued to ramble, still not looking at Tahlia. “I hope it wasn’t too hot—”
“If I were you,” Tahlia cut her off with surgical precision, her voice dropping to a temperature that could freeze hell itself, “I’d worry less about those discount textbooks and more about the three-thousand-dollar shoes you just destroyed.”
Tahlia’s glacial glare should have made it abundantly clear that she was carefully weighing whether to have Hospital Security drag the girl away in handcuffs or simply end her miserable existence with the very stilettos she had massacred.
“Tally, what happened?” she heard Allistair’s gentle voice as he rushed to her side, flanked by Teresa and Tamara. Her cavalry had arrived.
“What happened?” Tahlia practically shrieked, lifting her foot to display the carnage. “My Louboutins have been murdered!”
The bookish destroyer of worlds slowly stood, finally taking in Tahlia’s blazing fury. She cowered appropriately, arms wrapped protectively around her books, slender frame trembling under Tahlia’s withering gaze.
Something in her defenseless posture triggered an unwelcome feeling of regret—maybe she’d been too harsh on the girl. She looked so small, so scared.
Then the memory surfaced: Tahlia at ten, setting a bowl of broth at Helga’s sickbed. Just trying to be kind. Her father’s belt had come down before she could explain—he was dragging her out by the arm.
“Kindness is weakness, and weakness invites disrespect,” he’d said. “Do you want to be liked, Tahlia, or do you want to be obeyed?” Each word was punctuated by a belt stroke.
The warmth in her chest iced over as she brushed the memory away instantly. This was entirely different.
“It’s all her fault!” Tahlia proclaimed loudly, lifting an accusatory finger like a Roman emperor condemning a gladiator to death. The girl opened and closed her mouth pathetically, reminding Tahlia of a fish gasping for water. She found herself perversely enjoying the girl’s obvious distress.
“I’m so sorry,” she finally squeaked out. “I really didn’t see you coming.”
“Who are you anyway?” Teresa demanded, peering over her Chanel sunglasses. “Never mind, we don’t care,” she added dismissively before the girl could formulate a response. Tahlia noted her friend’s efficient cruelty with a certain cold appreciation.
“Do you even realize who you just assaulted?” Tamara added, hands planted on her hips.
The girl’s eyes darted between them with genuine deer-in-the-headlights terror, clearly realizing she was outmatched.
“I-I’m sorry, I don’t—” the girl stammered, then in a voice barely above a whisper, “Maybe I can have them cleaned for you?”
“Cleaned?” Tahlia asked in genuine disbelief. Did this fashion-challenged peasant just suggest what she thought she did?
“Yes, I can have them professionally cleaned,” she repeated with marginally more confidence, as if repetition could somehow make her ludicrous proposal less insulting.
Tahlia exchanged an amused glance with her cohorts—they were all thinking the same thing—before bursting into laughter that echoed through the hallway.
“Oh darling,” Tahlia drawled with theatrical sweetness that could rot teeth, stepping close enough that the girl could probably smell her Chanel No. 5, “I’ll pretend you were joking, because you clearly lack the mental faculties to grasp your offense. But know this: you will never lay a finger on my belongings. Now disappear before I decide to make this your problem permanently.”
Tahlia turned sharply, ensuring her honey-blonde hair whipped across the girl’s defeated face in a final gesture of dismissal. The obscene squelching sounds from her ruined Louboutins taunted her with each step like a funeral march for fallen fashion.
“Let’s go,” she commanded the girls, her voice cutting through the hallway like a blade. “I need new shoes. Immediately.”
But as they walked away, Tahlia couldn’t shake the image of those haunted hazel eyes. The way the girl had flinched when she’d stepped closer. The tremor in her voice when she’d offered to clean the shoes—not defiance, but genuine distress. For a split second, Tahlia had seen something she recognized in that face. Something that looked painfully familiar.
“That girl is such a clumsy disaster,” Teresa laughed, adjusting her purse strap. “Did you see how she was shaking? Pathetic.”
“Seriously,” Tamara chimed in, “who wears floral prints anymore? It’s like she time-traveled from the clearance rack.”
Their laughter felt wrong somehow, scraping against something raw in Tahlia’s chest. She glanced back despite herself and saw Allistair—her beloved boyfriend—had lingered behind, helping the girl gather her scattered papers. The sight made her jaw clench.
“Allistair!” she snapped, her voice echoing off the walls. “What are you doing?”
He looked up, his deep-blue eyes meeting hers with an expression she couldn’t quite read. “Helping,” he said simply, handing the girl the last of her books.
“Thank you,” the girl whispered, clutching her materials like a shield. Her eyes met Tahlia’s for just a moment—not angry, not defiant, just… hurt. Deeply, quietly hurt.
Something twisted in Tahlia’s stomach. She wanted to look away, but couldn’t. There was something about the girl’s expression that made her feel… guilty? Impossible. Steelmans didn’t feel guilty about putting people in their place.
When Allistair finally caught up to them, his deep-blue eyes met hers with that same unreadable expression.
“I’m sorry about your shoes,” he said finally, his voice low enough that only she could hear. The apology should have soothed her, but something in his tone made her chest tighten.
“Thank you,” she replied carefully, studying his face.
“But I’m not sorry about helping her.”
The words were quiet, matter-of-fact, but they hit her like a physical blow. He wasn’t backing down. He wasn’t apologizing for his actions. He was drawing a line in the sand with the same quiet confidence that had first drawn her to him.
“I see,” she said, voice steady despite the chaos brewing inside her.
“Do you?” His question was gentle but unyielding. “Because I’m not sure you do.”
She didn’t respond. She couldn’t.
Not when those words landed like a blade on the softest part of her.
Not when Allistair—her Allistair—had said them.
“Something came up at the office. I’ll see you tomorrow at the ball. We can talk then.”
The quiet authority in his voice sent an unexpected thrill through her even as it infuriated her. This was the Allistair she’d fallen for—the one who could match her strength without being intimidated by it. The one who saw through her perfectly polished exterior to the person underneath and loved her anyway.
Even when she was being terrible.
Especially when she was being terrible.
“Fine,” she said, lifting her chin in a gesture that was part challenge, part surrender. “But I’m not letting this go.”
For just a moment, something flickered in his eyes—heat, promise, the spark that had always existed between them. Then it was gone, replaced by that careful neutrality that somehow made her want him more than any of his smiles ever had.
As Tahlia put on a new pair of stilettos, she remained blissfully unaware that the trembling girl with the discount wardrobe and watery eyes was the match. The spark. The one threat she never saw coming.
Their lives had been heading towards each other for years—destined to collide. Fate just chose today to light the fuse.
Artwork by @AlexStories
