Chapter 1
How Much Did He Pay You?
Nathaniel Beaumont’s hand settled against the small of my back before the dining room doors opened.
Not possessive enough to look rehearsed. Not distant enough to make anyone question us.
Perfect.
Nathaniel seemed incapable of doing anything that wasn’t.
“You’re thinking too hard,” he murmured.
I kept my smile in place. “I’m about to have dinner with your family.”
“My mother will love you.”
“That wasn’t the part worrying me.”
His mouth curved.
The expression belonged on magazine covers. Nathaniel Beaumont smiling beside another acquisition, another charity cheque, another headline declaring him Manhattan’s most eligible billionaire.
Tonight, apparently, the accessory was me.
He leaned closer. “My father only looks frightening.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be.”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
Nathaniel squeezed my waist lightly, pleased with himself, then opened the doors.
I had walked through grander entrances.
Hart Hotels had once specialized in them.
Marble staircases. Crystal chandeliers. Floral arrangements large enough to hide behind when a guest wanted to avoid someone important.
Still, Beaumont House made wealth feel different.
Older.
Quieter.
More certain of itself.
The dining room stretched beneath a ceiling painted with clouds and gold-leaf constellations. Ten chairs surrounded a table set for four.
Apparently, the Beaumonts believed family intimacy still required enough space to negotiate an international treaty.
A woman rose when we entered.
Vivienne Beaumont looked exactly like every photograph I had seen of her and somehow nothing like them. Silver threaded elegantly through her dark hair, and the black silk dress she wore had probably cost more than my first car.
Her gaze moved from Nathaniel to me.
For half a second, I felt eighteen again, standing beside my father while he introduced me to investors and waited to see whether I would remember every name.
Then Vivienne smiled.
“Aurelia.”
She crossed the room and kissed both my cheeks.
“You’re even lovelier than Nathaniel said.”
“Mother.”
“What? You did.”
Heat touched my face.
Nathaniel looked completely unbothered.
Of course he did.
“I’m glad to finally meet you,” I said.
“So am I. Sit beside me before Conrad starts interrogating you.”
“I do not interrogate dinner guests.”
The voice came from the far end of the table.
Conrad Beaumont didn’t rise.
He watched me instead.
There was nothing openly rude about it. He simply possessed the kind of gaze that made a person want to check whether she had accidentally confessed to tax fraud.
“Miss Hart.”
“Mr. Beaumont.”
His eyes flickered toward Nathaniel’s hand, still resting against my back.
“Your father and I met several times.”
That caught me off guard.
Nathaniel had mentioned their companies crossing paths, but never anything personal.
“I know Hart Hotels had dealings with Beaumont Global.”
“Your father was an ambitious man.”
Was.
The word slipped neatly beneath my ribs.
I took the chair Vivienne indicated.
Nathaniel sat beside me.
“Conrad,” Vivienne said quietly.
“I offered no insult.”
“You rarely need to.”
Nathaniel reached for my hand beneath the table.
A warm thumb brushed my knuckles.
Anyone looking would have seen reassurance.
I knew better than to assume every gesture meant what it appeared to mean.
That knowledge was the only reason I had agreed to come tonight.
Dinner began smoothly enough.
Too smoothly, perhaps.
Vivienne asked about the renovation of Hart House on Madison Avenue. Nathaniel redirected one uncomfortable question about my company’s lenders before I had to answer it. Conrad wanted to know whether I intended to sell any Hart properties.
“No.”
The answer came quickly.
Conrad lifted his wineglass.
“Even if selling one saved the others?”
“I’d consider the numbers.”
“But not the possibility.”
“I consider every possibility.”
Nathaniel’s knee touched mine beneath the table.
A warning or encouragement, I couldn’t tell.
Conrad studied me for another moment.
Then something like approval crossed his face.
“Your father said similar things.”
I swallowed.
“Did you know him well?”
Silence shifted across the table.
Tiny.
Almost invisible.
Vivienne looked down at her plate.
Nathaniel’s thumb stopped moving over my hand.
Conrad answered without expression.
“Well enough.”
Before I could ask what that meant, Vivienne turned toward Nathaniel.
“You said Aurelia studied hospitality management?”
“Business and hospitality,” I corrected gently. “My father thought knowing how hotels worked mattered more than knowing how to pose in front of them.”
Vivienne smiled.
Nathaniel laughed.
Conrad almost did.
The tension loosened.
For the next twenty minutes, I could nearly pretend I was simply a woman meeting her boyfriend’s family.
Nearly.
Nathaniel played the role beautifully.
He remembered how I took my water. Passed me the bread without asking. Once, when Vivienne mentioned a gallery opening I had told him about weeks earlier, he remembered the artist’s name.
It would have been easier if he were careless.
Easier if he made the arrangement feel like an arrangement.
Instead, he kept behaving like a man who might genuinely be interested in me.
That possibility had begun to feel more dangerous than anything written on paper.
Dessert had just arrived when the front doors slammed somewhere beyond the dining room.
No one reacted immediately.
Then Vivienne’s spoon hit her plate.
Nathaniel went still beside me.
Conrad looked toward the doors.
The change in the room was so abrupt that I stopped breathing.
Footsteps crossed the hall.
Unhurried.
Heavy enough to be deliberate.
Vivienne whispered something I couldn’t hear.
Nathaniel’s hand disappeared from mine.
The dining room doors opened.
The man who entered didn’t look like someone returning home.
He looked like someone walking into enemy territory.
Black trousers. Black shirt. No tie. A charcoal coat hung open around broad shoulders, rain darkening the fabric near the collar.
His hair was longer than Nathaniel’s, almost carelessly so, and there was enough stubble along his jaw to make the rest of the Beaumont men look overprepared.
I knew his face.
Everyone in New York knew his face.
Cassius Beaumont.
Three years earlier, he had been on the cover of business magazines as Beaumont Global’s brilliant future.
Six months later, those same magazines had printed words like fraud, misconduct, investigation and disgrace beneath his photograph.
Then he disappeared.
Not literally.
Men with billions rarely vanished completely.
But he stopped attending Beaumont events. Stopped giving interviews. Built another company across town and refused every public question about his family.
The disgraced heir.
The son nobody mentioned.
The man currently staring at his mother.
Vivienne stood so quickly her chair scraped the floor.
“Cassius.”
His expression softened.
Barely.
“Hello, Mother.”
Nathaniel rose.
Cassius looked at him next.
Whatever softness had appeared vanished.
“Nathaniel.”
“Cass.”
The nickname sounded wrong in Nathaniel’s mouth.
Too familiar for the distance between them.
Conrad remained seated.
“You were not invited.”
Cassius glanced at his father.
“I noticed.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Still charming, I see.”
“Cassius.”
Vivienne’s voice held warning now.
He exhaled through his nose.
“I came for something in my study.”
Conrad’s face hardened.
“You don’t have a study here anymore.”
Cassius gave him a slow smile.
“That sounds like something we can argue about after dinner.”
His gaze moved across the table.
Then landed on me.
Everything about him changed.
Not dramatically.
That would have been easier.
He simply stopped.
His eyes narrowed.
I felt Nathaniel shift beside me.
Cassius looked at him.
Then back at me.
Recognition flickered across his face.
Not the ordinary recognition of a man realizing his brother had brought a date.
Something sharper.
Something that made my skin tighten.
Nathaniel stepped closer to my chair.
“Aurelia Hart,” he said. “Cassius, my brother.”
Cassius’s gaze never left mine.
“I know who she is.”
That bothered me more than it should have.
I stood.
If the Beaumont men were going to stare at me like a piece on a chessboard, I preferred doing it on my feet.
“We haven’t met.”
“No.”
His voice was deeper than I expected.
“No, we haven’t.”
I held out my hand.
“Aurelia.”
Cassius looked at it.
Then at me.
For one humiliating second, I thought he might refuse.
Instead, his fingers closed around mine.
Warm.
Firm.
Brief.
The contact lasted barely a second, but his eyes remained on my face afterward.
“You’re Elias Hart’s daughter.”
Not a question.
“Yes.”
Something unreadable crossed his expression.
Nathaniel moved between us slightly.
“Aurelia and I are together.”
Cassius looked at him.
Then he laughed.
There was no humor in it.
Vivienne closed her eyes.
“Cassius, don’t.”
I glanced between them.
“Don’t what?”
Nobody answered.
Cassius’s attention returned to me.
His gaze dropped briefly to Nathaniel’s hand at my waist.
Then something settled in his face.
Understanding.
Cold and immediate.
My stomach tightened.
“What?” I asked.
Nathaniel spoke first.
“Nothing.”
Cassius ignored him.
“How long?”
I frowned. “How long what?”
“Have you been with my brother?”
“Cassius.”
Nathaniel’s voice sharpened.
I answered anyway.
“A little over three weeks.”
Cassius stared at me.
Three weeks.
I could almost see him calculating something.
His jaw tightened.
Then he looked at Nathaniel.
“You really did it.”
Nathaniel’s face changed.
Only slightly.
Enough.
A chill crawled over my arms.
“What did he do?”
Cassius looked back at me.
Vivienne stepped forward.
“Cassius, whatever this is, tonight is not the time.”
He didn’t even glance at her.
His attention remained fixed on me.
For the first time since he entered the room, anger disappeared from his expression.
What replaced it was worse.
Pity.
I hated it instantly.
“What are you looking at me like that for?”
“Aurelia,” Nathaniel said softly.
I pulled away from his hand.
“No. I’d like to hear him.”
Cassius watched the movement.
Then his eyes returned to mine.
“How much?”
I stared at him.
“How much what?”
His gaze flicked toward Nathaniel.
When he spoke again, his voice was calm enough to cut.
“How much did he pay you?”
The room went silent.
Nathaniel swore under his breath.
Vivienne whispered Cassius’s name.
Conrad said nothing.
I felt heat rise slowly from my throat to my face.
Humiliation came first.
Then anger.
Good.
Anger I knew what to do with.
I stepped around Nathaniel.
Cassius didn’t move.
“You came into a room full of people you clearly hate,” I said, “looked at a woman you’ve never met, and decided she must be for sale.”
One corner of his mouth moved.
Not a smile.
“Did I?”
“You tell me.”
His gaze stayed on mine.
“I asked a question.”
“And I’m giving you an answer.”
I moved closer.
“Not enough.”
Something flashed in his eyes.
Nathaniel caught my arm.
“Aurelia.”
I pulled free without looking at him.
“If Nathaniel wanted to buy my company, my loyalty or my time, he couldn’t afford all three.”
Cassius’s expression shifted.
For the first time, I had surprised him.
It felt wonderful.
Then he glanced toward Nathaniel again.
“Interesting.”
“I’m thrilled you approve.”
“I don’t.”
“Then dinner is going beautifully.”
Vivienne made a sound suspiciously close to a laugh.
Nathaniel didn’t.
Neither did Conrad.
Cassius studied me for another long second.
Then he stepped aside.
“Enjoy dessert, Miss Hart.”
I smiled sweetly.
“Enjoy whatever room your father says you no longer own.”
His eyes darkened.
There it was.
A reaction.
Tiny, but mine.
He turned toward the door.
I should have let him leave.
Instead, something bothered me.
The way he had recognized my name.
The calculation when I said three weeks.
The certainty behind that insulting question.
“Cassius.”
He stopped.
I hated how quickly everyone else did too.
He looked over his shoulder.
“If you genuinely thought Nathaniel paid me,” I said, “why?”
For the first time all evening, Nathaniel looked nervous.
Cassius noticed.
So did I.
Slowly, Cassius turned back toward us.
His gaze settled on his brother.
Then on me.
“Ask Nathaniel.”
My heartbeat stumbled.
Nathaniel’s voice hardened.
“Leave.”
Cassius smiled then.
A real one.
Cold. Beautiful. Terrible.
“Better question, Aurelia.”
He opened the door.
“Ask him why he chose you.”
Then Cassius Beaumont walked out.
And beside me, Nathaniel said absolutely nothing.
