The Secretive Billionaire

Talia's POV

The slap came out of nowhere.

My cheek stung, my ear rang, and I stumbled back against the wall of the storage room with my hand flying to my face. I did not need a mirror to know a red mark was already blooming across my skin. They always bloomed fast on me, like bruises were the one thing my body did without being asked.

Celeste stood in front of me, her hand still raised, her face twisted with fury. Blonde hair perfect. Pale blue gown flawless. But her eyes were wild, like a wolf that had been cornered by something smaller than itself.

"Look what you did," she spat.

I looked. I saw nothing.

She pointed at her own chin, at a tiny red bump I would never have noticed if she had not shoved her jaw in my direction.

"There's a pimple," she shrieked. "On the day the Alpha of Shadowfang arrives. You did this. It's all because of your ugliness and your bad luck. It has contaminated me."

I did not say anything. I learned years ago that silence was safer than words, and cheaper than pride.

"You think because the Alpha is coming, you can make yourself noticed?"

"No."

"Then why were you looking at me like that?"

I lowered my gaze.

It was the answer she expected, and the only one that usually ended the conversation before it became more expensive.

In Cresswood, arguing could cost a person more than pride. A servant who spoke back might lose her supper, her blanket, or the right to sleep indoors. I had learned to weigh every sentence before allowing it past my teeth, because even an innocent answer could become an excuse for punishment in the hands of someone who wanted one.

Celeste stepped closer.

Her perfume was sweet and thick, with a faint floral note that seemed designed to cover the smell of something sour underneath.

"Vivienne wants you in the kitchen before sunrise," she said. "You are not to leave unless someone orders you to. If the Alpha asks whether there are any other unmated women in this household, you will say no."

My fingers tightened at my sides.

I nodded. "Do you understand?"

"Yes."

Her lips curved. "Good. You are almost useful."

She turned and walked out, leaving the storage-room door partly open behind her.

The lock remained on the outside.

I waited until her footsteps faded into the corridor before I let my shoulders loosen. My hands were trembling, and the skin beneath my cheek had already begun to swell. It would turn purple before nightfall, then yellow at the edges over the next few days, provided no one struck the same place again.

I crossed the room and stood before the cracked mirror above the basin.

The face looking back at me was the one Cresswood knew.

My brown hair hung unevenly around my shoulders, dry from years of being washed with harsh soap and rarely brushed. My eyes appeared smaller than they were, my skin duller, and the narrow line of my jaw seemed to belong to someone older and more exhausted than twenty.

I hated that face.

Not because it was ugly, but because it was a lie I had been forced to wear for fifteen years.

My fingers slipped beneath the collar of my dress and found the silver chain resting against my skin. The small stone hanging from it was smooth and cool, its surface almost black in the weak morning light.

My mother had tied the chain around my neck fifteen years ago.

I had been five years old.

The house had been burning when she found me. Smoke filled the hallways, flames climbed the curtains, and the heat had grown so fierce that I could barely keep my eyes open. She knelt in front of me with ash across her face and blood running from a cut above her eyebrow.

"Never remove the glamour charm before your twentieth birthday," she had whispered.

Her hands had shaken as she fastened the chain.

"Wear it, and they will not see you. Keep wearing it, and they will not hurt you."

Then she had pushed me toward the back door and turned toward the flames.

I had never seen her again.

Everyone in Cresswood said she died in the fire. They said I had caused it, although no one had ever explained how a five-year-old child could have set fire to an entire house. They called me cursed, said my mother had sacrificed herself because she could no longer bear to look at me, and treated every misfortune that followed as proof that they had been right.

They were wrong about the fire.

They were wrong about my mother.

I could feel it, even after fifteen years of silence, in the stubborn part of me that had refused to let her become a memory. She was somewhere beyond Cresswood, and if she was alive, I would find her.

Three years after the fire, I learned my mother's name.

I was eight. It was winter, and I had been sent to scrub the pots until the kitchen fires died. When I finished, I did not go back to the storage room. I went where I always went-the narrow passage behind the dining hall, where the wall was thin and the voices came through.

Vivienne was inside. So was Celeste. I could hear the clink of glass and the low crackle of the hearth.

"Say it again," Celeste said. "The name."

"Ashford." Vivienne's voice was flat and uninterested, the way she spoke when she was already bored of a thing. "Seraphina Ashford. That was the woman's name before she married your father."

"Was she anyone?" Celeste's voice sounded.

"She was no one. A girl from a minor house with a pretty face and no fortune. She died in that fire three winters ago and did us all a favor."

"And the girl?" Celeste had asked.

A pause. I remember the pause more clearly than anything else in the room. It was the kind of silence that has a smile inside it.

"The girl keeps trying to answer to Cress," Vivienne said. "She will not. Not one of Edmund's daughters will carry that name unless I say so. Whatever comes to this house-the titles, the gold, the standing-all of it belongs to you, Celeste. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Mother." Celeste replied.

"Say it back to me."

"Whatever comes to this house is mine."