pectations. The biggest expectation was that I, Madisyn Clarkson, heiress to the Clarkson o

oolish infatuation with his perfect smile and public charm. He

night of the Lester F

ng I saw was a boy. He couldn't have been older than me, standing alone outside the velvet ropes, holding

he looked so much like Ryan. The same bone structure, the same dark hair, the same piercing blue e

r. The family' s d

k. The Lesters, the family who owed her everything for her silence, refused to even acknowledge her dea

a constant, quiet ache. Seeing the pain in this boy' s eyes, the pain of a mother lost and disrespected, it resonat

. The Lester matriarch, Ryan' s grandmother, a woman

nsion. "You see that unfortunate business outside? A sad, troub

He' d just belittled Ethan to a group of repor

arried, you will have duties. You will learn to manage

ped in. He was a mountain of a man, an oil tycoon who built his empire from noth

PR tool. And frankly, the Clarkson name doesn' t need to be associated with a family that treats its

old woman to Ryan. "You' r

y father took my arm, and we walked out, l