Rising From Ashes: The Divorced Heiress

She didn't know how long she lay on the cold marble, the chill seeping into her bones, until a vibration against her hip startled her. Her phone. The screen glowed with a name: Ethan Hayes.

He was the only person left who might answer her call. Her fingers trembled as she accepted it, her voice a raw, broken thing. "Hello?"

"Sera? Are you okay?" Ethan's voice was tight with worry. He had been at the party. He had seen everything. "I saw the guests leaving. What did he do?"

She couldn't form words. A sob caught in her throat, silent and agonizing.

The silence was answer enough. "Stay right there," he said, his tone firm. "Don't move. I'm coming."

It felt like an eternity later, but was probably only fifteen minutes, when the ballroom doors creaked open. Ethan stood there, his face etched with concern, a simple canvas bag in his hand. He must have sweet—talked a security guard to get back in. His eyes found her huddled on the floor, and a look of profound pain crossed his face.

He didn't press her with questions. He just walked over and handed her the bag. "I thought you might want to change," he said softly.

A wave of shame washed over her. She was still in her white "battle dress," a pathetic uniform of her utter defeat. Ethan, ever the gentleman, turned his back, giving her the privacy of the vast, empty room and a decorative screen to change behind. She pulled on the soft jeans and simple sweater he'd brought. They felt like a lifeline to a world she no longer belonged to.

When she emerged, Ethan's gaze immediately fell on the dark, angry bruise forming on her wrist. His expression hardened. "Did he do this?"

Seraphina pulled the sleeve of the sweater down, hiding the mark. "Thank you for coming, Ethan. But I'm fine."

"Fine?" The word exploded out of him. "How can you say you're fine? How much longer are you going to live like this? Sera, for God's sake, leave him!"

A bitter, humorless laugh escaped her. "I tried."

"This isn't your fault! He's a monster!"

Something inside her snapped. The self—loathing she'd been drowning in erupted to the surface. "No!" she screamed, shoving him away with surprising force. "It is my fault! I'm the monster! I killed my sister! You need to stay away from me!"

She was spewing the poison she'd just fed Julian, letting it contaminate the one clean thing left in her life.

Ethan stared at her, his face a mask of shock and disbelief. "Sera, what are you talking about?"

She couldn't explain. She couldn't bear the pity in his eyes. She turned and fled, running from him, from the ballroom, from herself. She just needed to get back to her room, the one place in this gilded cage where she could curl up and disappear.

She ran down the long, silent corridor. The head housekeeper, Maria Kowalski, saw her, her kind eyes full of worry. "Mrs. Astor," she began softly, "Mr. Astor... he is in a terrible mood."

Seraphina gave a hollow nod. She knew. She was the cause.

She pushed open the heavy door to the master suite, and her heart stopped. The blood in her veins turned to ice.

Julian Astor was sitting at her vanity. The delicate, feminine space was grotesquely warped by his large, imposing frame. And in his hands, he held her private diary.

The small, silver lock had been pried open, broken.

"Give that back," she gasped, lunging for it. It was a desperate, futile motion.

That book held everything. Her secret grief over Isabelle's death. Her fear of Julian. And, buried deep in the earliest pages, the faded ink of a young girl's naive love for him.

He stood, easily evading her grasp, his height making him seem like a giant. He flipped to a page near the beginning, his eyes scanning the lines. Then, in a voice as cold and dead as a winter morning, he began to read.

"'...I'm so jealous of her. I hate that she has everything. Especially Julian's love. Sometimes I wish she would just... disappear...'"

He snapped the book shut. The out—of—context words, the innocent, angry scribbles of a teenage girl, were now a confession. A motive.

The room spun. The feeling of being stripped bare, of having her very soul held up for his contemptuous inspection, stole the air from her lungs. She couldn't breathe.