The invitation was thick, cream-colored, and embossed with the Crowe family crest. It wasn't a request; it was a summons to the heart of his empire.
Elara's fingers trembled as they traced the raised, predatory bird, its wings spread as if ready to strike. The paper felt like a layer of skin peeled from her own body, still warm with the threat of what was to come. She stood in the penthouse studio, a cage of his making, surrounded by the ghosts of her own art. The air was thick with the scent of turpentine and dread, a perfume she'd come to associate with him.
"A weekend," Alistair had said, his voice a silken threat over the intercom that morning. "The Hamptons estate. To focus on your work without… distraction."
The word 'distraction' had been a blade aimed at Sophie, at the life she was systematically being severed from. Now, standing before the open suitcase on her bed, every item of clothing she folded felt like a surrender. A black cocktail dress, a whisper of silk he'd expect her to wear. Soft cotton trousers, a lie of comfort. Each one was a prop for a role she never auditioned for.
The private jet was a study in silent, pressurized luxury. The hum of the engines was a constant, low-grade scream matching the one in her soul. Alistair sat across from her, a king on a throne of polished mahogany and supple leather, his attention consumed by a tablet glowing with numbers that dictated fates. He was a sculpture of controlled power, his charcoal suit a weapon, his stillness a storm warning. He hadn't looked at her once since the wheels left the tarmac, and the neglect was more intimate, more possessive, than any touch.
Her stomach plummeted with the plane's gentle descent. Through the oval window, the world transformed. The chaotic sprawl of New York gave way to the manicured, ruthless beauty of the Hamptons. Vast, emerald-green lawns swept down to the razor's edge of the coastline, where the Atlantic crashed against the shore with a fury that felt like her own. And there, nestled between ancient oaks and a private, windswept dune, was the estate. It wasn't a home; it was a fortress of old money and older sorrows, a monument to the dynasty she was accused of destroying.
The jet touched down with a whisper, a predator returning to its lair. As the cabin door hissed open, the air that rushed in was salt-kissed and cold, carrying the scent of brine and blooming roses — a beautiful, decaying sweetness. Alistair finally stood, his gaze sweeping over her, a collector assessing a newly acquired piece.
"Markus will see you to the house," he stated, his tone devoid of the desperate hunger from their last encounter. He was back to being the architect of her ruin. "I have calls to make."
He strode down the steps without a backward glance, swallowed by the waiting black SUV. Elara stood frozen at the top, the wind whipping strands of hair across her face like tiny lashes.
Markus appeared beside her, his presence a solid, silent comfort she didn't want to feel. He took her single, modest suitcase, his gaze following Alistair's departing car.
"The main house is a ten-minute walk," he said, his voice low, meant only for her. "It's a beautiful path. Gives you time to think."
They walked in silence, the crunch of their feet on the crushed-shell path the only sound. The estate was immense, a kingdom unto itself. It screamed of generations of Crowes, of legacy, of a history that had branded her the villain.
Markus slowed his pace, his eyes, usually so unreadable, filled with a grave warning. "He's not the man you think he is," he said, the words quiet but absolute. "The man who held you last night… that's the ghost. The man who owns this land, this history, is the reality." He stopped, turning to face her fully, the sea wind tugging at his jacket. "What he's planning for this weekend… it's the final stage of the blueprint. It's about total isolation." He held her gaze, his own filled with a pity that felt like a verdict. "Just remember, you have a choice. You can always walk away."
Elara's heart hammered against her ribs, a trapped bird. Walk away? Into what? The abyss he'd created around her? The debt? The oblivion?
Before she could form a response, a sleek golf cart pulled up, driven by a uniformed staff member with a face as blank as a closed door. The moment of potential rebellion was over, snuffed out by the seamless machinery of Alistair's control.
She was shown to a room that was less a bedroom and more a gilded sepulcher. Ocean-view, tastefully furnished in muted blues and grays, a vase of fresh white peonies on the mantel. It was perfect. It was suffocating. The door clicked shut behind the retreating staff member, the sound final, like a lock engaging.
Her suitcase had been placed on a velvet-upholstered bench. As she unzipped it, her blood ran cold.
There, folded atop her clothes, was a sketchbook. Not a new one. Her sketchbook. The one she'd carried a decade ago, its cover worn soft, a faded coffee stain on the corner from a café where she'd last felt innocent. The one she'd lost the summer her life fell apart.
Her breath hitched. She reached for it with trembling hands, the familiar texture a physical blow. She opened it.
The pages were filled with the hopeful, clumsy drawings of her youth. Studies of sunlight, sketches of her father smiling, dreams of a future that was stolen. And tucked between the pages, a single, pressed flower — a daisy, from the field behind their old house.
He hadn't just found it. He had kept it. For ten years. This wasn't just a reminder of her past; it was a violation of it. He had touched these pages, his predatory eyes scanning her innocent dreams, tainting them. The precision of his cruelty was a masterpiece.
A soft knock came at the door, making her jump. She slammed the sketchbook shut, clutching it to her chest like a shield.
"Elara?" Alistair's voice was smooth, devoid of the earlier ice, laced with a deceptive warmth that was more terrifying than his anger. "Dinner is in one hour. I've had a dress laid out for you in the adjoining dressing room. I expect you to wear it."
The door didn't open. He didn't need to enter. His presence was in the air, in the dress she hadn't seen yet, in the sketchbook in her hands. He was the house, the land, the very air she breathed. Markus's words echoed in the opulent silence, a taunt.
You can always walk away.
As Alistair's footsteps faded down the hall, Elara looked from the haunting sketchbook in her hands to the vast, darkening ocean through the window, and knew with a chilling certainty that made her bones ache:
The doors here weren't just locked. They were walls.