Love's Ashes, Empire's Dawn

For ten years, my step-brother Mark was my anchor, my confidant, my entire world. Tonight, at a candlelit dinner, I was finally going to tell him I was in love with him.

But just as I started to confess, he raised a glass to a beautiful stranger at the door. "Everyone," he announced with a joy that stabbed me in the heart, "meet my fiancée."

The next morning, my step-father stripped me of the Aura project-my life's work-and gave it to her as a strategic gift for their new alliance.

Mark, my supposed protector, told me not to be sentimental. It was "just business."

Then I found the email, dated three weeks ago. It detailed their entire plan to sideline me, calling my passion "a variable to be managed."

They saw me as a heartbroken girl, a sentimental fool they could easily discard.

But that night, after I fled the restaurant, I ran into him. Julian Thorne. A ruthless corporate shark and my family's greatest enemy.

He offered me a card.

"Crying over them won't fix anything," he said. "But if you want to destroy them, I have a proposition."

I made the call.

"I'm in. What do I have to do?"