Prologue
Santiago
I’m standing at the bar at another fundraiser, this time in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern. The place is packed with captains of industry, politicians, and other varieties of rich and famous, and I’m rapidly losing patience with the endless list of social events on my calendar.
This gala is to raise money for more computers in schools—a worthy cause—and it’s aimed at the tech industry. So, as the CEO of VZ Industries, a very successful research and development company, I should find this a prime hunting ground for more investors.
Yet I’m bored, and restless, and I’m tired of being here already.
I don’t do small talk, and so I’ve run out of my meagre store of conversation already, and it’s only been half an hour.
There are people waiting to talk to me—I can see them considering approaching out of the corner of my eye—but I’m done for the evening, and, having already made a large donation to the cause, I can see no benefit from staying any longer.
And then I see her.
She’s standing down the other end of the bar, a wealth of glorious blonde hair cascading over her shoulders, wearing a strapless gown of rose-coloured silk.
Her face is picture-perfect beautiful, with arched golden brows, a determined little chin, and a rosebud of a mouth.
She’s waiting for her drink, and she looks nervous, fingers moving restlessly on the clutch bag that matches her gown.
The barman pushes a flute of champagne in her direction and she grabs at it, lifting it to that perfect mouth and taking a little sip.
She must have felt me staring, because that’s when her thick, silky lashes lift and eyes of deep midnight-blue meet mine, and a current of electricity abruptly charges the space between us.
It’s instant and hot, and I know from the way her eyes widen that I’m not alone in feeling it, that she feels it too.
There’s a moment when we stare at each other, and everyone else at this pointless gala disappears. It’s only her and me at the bar, caught in this intense pull of attraction that neither of us can break.
Colour sweeps across her lovely face, and before I can think better of it I’m moving towards her.
It feels as if she is the most beautiful and fascinating thing I’ve ever seen, though logically I’ve seen—and had—plenty of other beautiful and fascinating women before.
Except she is different and I’m not sure why.
This attraction is a force of nature, elemental almost, and I’ve certainly never felt it this intensely before.
Her colour deepens as I approach, her gaze locked with mine, and her mouth begins to curl as I get closer.
It’s welcome I see in those lovely blue eyes, as well as an acknowledgement of the need that gets more intense as I stop right beside her.
Her cheeks are almost the same shade of rose as her gown, and it makes the blue of her eyes even deeper.
She doesn’t look away. We’re two stars held in each other’s magnetic field, orbiting each other, unable to pull free.
I open my mouth to introduce myself.
Then a man steps into view next to her, his arm sliding around her waist and drawing her close. Her smile falters, the glow in her eyes dims, and her lashes veil her gaze.
He’s familiar, this man. I have his dark eyes and his broad shoulders, though my hair is still black. His is salted with white.
He gives me a vicious smile, because he knows he’s won this round in our endless battle. He saw my reaction to this woman and he knew what it meant. He knew what I wanted, and now he’s smug in victory, since what I wanted he now has.
That beautiful woman is clearly his, and he makes that quite clear by pulling her even closer. All I’m left with is her last, burning glance before she allows my father to lead her away from the bar and back into the crowd.