Modern Romance August 2026 Books #1-4

Chapter One

SO, IT WAS TRUE. It wasn’t just a rumour.

Cassandra Appleton could see the impact of her words on the people sitting around the table and standing awkwardly at the edges of the Trojan Princess boardroom.

Yes, she could confirm that there was a hostile takeover happening here, now.

The air in the room seemed to be pressing in on her so that it was suddenly hard to breathe.

Except it didn’t feel like air, but water, a heavy weight of water rising up and over her head. As a hot, slippery panic swelled in her throat, her gaze moved automatically to the view outside the window, seeking the light and openness of the sky.

But this was New York, so the sky was only partially visible between the towering skyscrapers.

Her office was on Madison Avenue. The view was iconic. A mix of yellow taxis and instantly recognizable architecture.

She was at the furiously beating heart of the city, and for Cassie, there was no place like it. It bristled with potential and energy and a relentless, unquenchable thirst for life that had justly earned it the title of the city that never sleeps.

It had other nicknames too. The Big Apple was probably the most famous. When she was a little girl, her dad used to tell her that the Appletons were called Appleton because they were the first family of New York.

Like a lot of things her father said, it made for a good story, but it was entirely untrue.

Her shoulders stiffened. Henry had died nearly two years ago, and yet she and her mother were still trapped in the web of lies he had spun during his life, still living with their consequences.

But surely this couldn’t be one of them?

Through the glass, New York life surged down the busy intersection, but she saw none of it. Her reflection, floating ghostly in the glass like a spectre at a feast in her honour, was as disconnected as she felt, but—

‘This is not the end.’

Her voice cut across the taut silence, both startling and steadying her, and like a drowning swimmer, she stopped fighting and let the panic wash over her.

It was a trick she had been perfecting since the day before her fourteenth birthday, when she saw her father untangling himself from a young woman in the street, here in this same city.

Not as young as her, but certainly a lot younger than her mother, his wife.

Something between loss and fury pulsed through her. It had felt seismic, forceful enough to bring the buildings crashing down around her.

But here on the Upper East Side, plate tectonics were no match for the rules of polite society. They were unspoken but absolute. Etched into the marble and brownstone of the city’s grandest beaux arts and Art Deco architecture.

The sin was not the transgression itself, but the public admission of it.

Here in the rarefied air of Manhattan, grievances weren’t aired but managed.

Weaknesses weren’t confessed but were instead whipped into a narrative of resilience.

Scandal was something to be ruthlessly contained.

The facade was paramount. A perfectly curated ‘shopfront’ was not simply for show; it was an impenetrable fortress against scrutiny.

And she’d grown up the daughter of Henry Appleton. Nobody understood that delicate dance of appearances better than her. No wonder she had ended up running a PR agency. Most of her life had been an unintentional apprenticeship for a career in public relations.

‘This is not the end,’ she said again, more emphatically this time. ‘This is not even the beginning of the end.’

Her throat tightened. She wouldn’t let it be.

Trojan Princess was so much more than a career. It had given her financial independence and the power to protect her mother. It had restored the stability and control that Henry had systemically eroded with his lies and his transactional approach to relationships.

So whatever everyone else in this room might be thinking, she was not about to hand her business over to anyone, particularly not a man like Antaeus Tsiartas.

His name was a punch to the gut.

And up until this morning, he had been just a name.

A name attached to a reputation for being a cool-headed, ruthless, brilliant frontrunner in the crypto currency sector.

His business, Aion, was a colossus in that world, but he had a lucrative sideline in acquiring and rebranding smaller startups that attracted his interest.

Her pulse thudded in her throat. And he was also the son of Andreas Tsiartas.

She had heard whispers about Andreas her whole life.

He was her father’s former business partner who, thanks, in part to Henry’s testimony, was now in prison.

She had never wanted to know more. For her, the present was already complicated enough, so her knowledge of the trial was vague.

But she knew that investors had lost life savings.

Big sums of money had been funnelled into a hedge fund and used for personal expenses.

But it had all happened so long ago. To her, Andreas was a phantom from the past. Only now, his son was a very real threat in the present.

No, she thought, her spine stiffening. Now she kicked back against the currents, because she would have a say in where they took her. She would not just let the water close over her head and bowl her and her staff away.

Straightening her shoulders, she cleared her throat. ‘Whatever you came to hear at this meeting, whatever you feared or hoped to hear, this is not the end. I want that thought to be what you take away.’

She had called the extraordinary board meeting this morning almost three weeks after the first director, unbeknownst to her, received a bear hug letter from Antaeus’s lawyers declaring his intention to buy her company.

There had been other letters sent, she knew now, to other directors and shareholders. Friends of her parents who had invested in her business at the start. And the offer was so attractive, some at least would feel compelled to accept it.

And even without having met him, she knew that Antaeus Tsiartas would be compelling.

Which was why they were all here this morning.

She felt a shiver run down her spine, that back-of-your-neck prickle that made her feel as if she was being stalked by some unseen predator.

She had to stop herself from eyeballing each of the people in the room in turn.

These were her people, her staff, her friends—some of them, anyway.

But now, with the confirmation of the hostile takeover hanging in the air, for the first time since she had founded this company, she felt like a stranger among them.

Eva Garcia, one of her senior account executives, frowned. ‘I don’t understand why this is happening. We just had our best quarter yet.’

A low murmur of bafflement rose up to fill the room.

Cassie felt the weight of their fear and confusion settle across her shoulders like the Bulgarian bag she used to improve her squats at the gym.

To her left, one of the original shareholders, a friend of her father’s from back when he still sailed, was avoiding her gaze.

His face was flushed, and she felt a stab of uncertainty. Was he one of them? The traitors.

But this was not the time to start flinging accusations. She was here to reassure, to bolster, to defy the odds.

‘I understand your concern. But we will fight this. I will fight this.’

‘Fight who?’ A voice from the back of the room. Jenny, one of her latest hires. Young, talented, her face taut with panic. She had recently signed a lease for an apartment in Brooklyn. No doubt she was terrified that she was about to lose her job and the means to pay her rent.

Maybe everyone was thinking the same thing, because now the questions came faster, like a dam breaking.

‘Why would anyone want to take over a small company like ours?’

‘What do they want?’

‘Will they keep us on?’

‘Who’s doing this?’

Some of them knew the answer to that question. Others, the more junior members of the team, had not been approached and so were not privy to that information. But then, she hadn’t been either, until this morning.

And she hated that. The subterfuge. The behind-the-scenes machinations. The feeling of powerlessness. All of it just reminded her of how Henry lived his life, and how she and her mom had been forced to live their lives accordingly.

And now Henry’s past had spat out another handsome, self-serving man to threaten the hard-won calm and control of her present.

Marcus Watt, her creative director, cleared his throat. ‘You need to tell them who we’re up against,’ he said quietly.

He was right but saying Antaeus’s name out loud would make it real. Unswerving. Inevitable. Spine-chillingly so.

She knew because she had only found out herself a few hours ago, and the shock was still a visceral thing rippling through her. That a man of such immense power and limitless resources would target her company was unnerving enough.

But that he was the son of the man her father had sent to prison… Suddenly the air felt cold, and yet her skin was on fire as if she had a fever.

Was this just business for him? A neutral, pragmatic, fiscally driven decision to acquire her company as an asset to his growing empire? That would make sense if Antaeus wanted Trojan Princess as part of his vast, diversified portfolio of profitable companies.

Was this what was happening here? Or was it more than that? Was it a cold, calculated act of revenge?

It sounded ludicrous. Like something that would happen in one of those terrible straight-to-TV movies, the kind you watched when you had the flu.

And yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that this was personal.

That Antaeus Tsiartas was coming after her.

But what kind of man would orchestrate such an elaborate, public revenge? He would have to be unhinged, she told herself quickly, trying to stem the panic churning in her stomach.

As she turned towards Jenny, all eyes were on her, waiting.