The eighty-inch screen in the Croft-Sterling executive conference room displayed a high-definition close-up of a perfectly manufactured tear.

"We didn't come back to cause trouble," Chloe Jenkins whimpered, dabbing at the corner of her eye with a pristine white tissue. She was seated on a plush ve

The morning after the television interview, the executive floor of Croft-Sterling felt different. The air was charged. Employees who usually avoided Vivienne’s gaze out of sheer intimidation were offering subtle, approving nods as she walked past their glass-walled offices. The stock price had opene

The rain lashed against the floor-to-ceiling windows of Julian’s penthouse library, but Vivienne Croft didn’t hear the storm. The only sound registering in her mind was the rhythmic, frantic clicking of her own heels against the mahogany floorboards.

Pacing. She was pacing like a caged animal.

"