The Van Alen Legacy

As she ran through the hallway, everything suddenly went black. Someone had turned off all the lights in the palace. She had a feeling she knew who that someone was.

Fine, but like you, Jack, I can see in the dark. She found the door that led to a secret staircase that led down to the basement, past the kitchens, and into the lower dungeons, a relic from an earlier century. Not many knew that the H?tel Lambert had been built on the ruins of a medieval castle, and that the castle’s foundation hid layers of secrets.

Oh god, please don’t let that have been a skeleton I just stepped over, Schuyler thought as her sandaled foot landed on something that crunched in a disturbing way.

She could see the outlines of the steps, ruined and steep, down, down, she had to go down . . . She had to get away.

Oliver!

Nothing.

She would have to send for him later somehow.

Because she was there at last. In the very lowest depths of the dungeon, in the solitary prison cell that had housed who knows how many prisoners, who knows how many miserable souls behind its iron bars.

He’ll never find me here.

She felt dizzy and light-headed, and her whole body was trembling uncontrollably as she stepped inside.

And fell straight into the arms of her former love and current pursuer.

Jack Force.

His grip was like a vise. His voice was colder than the air around them.

“I told you, Schuyler, you’re not the only one who knows the secrets of the H?tel Lambert.”





SIXTEEN

Bliss


The good thing about fashion people is that they were usually oblivious to other people’s reactions. So Henri never noticed Bliss’s agitation as he chatted about the latest gossip back in New York. Most of the news was so gloomy: what magazines had folded, what designers were out of business. “It’s awful right now, just awful.” Henri shook his head. “But you know, life goes on . . . and our motto is Never surrender. There’s still work out there,” he said with a well-meaning glance. “I mean, I know it’s a lot to ask of you, and I completely understand if you’re not ready . . . ?” He peered at her over his glasses.

It was only then that Bliss realized with a start that Henri was talking about her going back to work.

Sensing her hesitation, which he took as a sign of surrender, Henri went straight into business mode, setting down his glass and picking up his BlackBerry. “It’s nothing too difficult, just something easy to get back in the swing of things. You know Muffie Astor Carter’s yearly fashion show for charity? She hosts it on their estate out on the East End?”

Bliss did. Her stepmother used to complain that Muffie never gave her a front row seat even though BobiAnne always ordered a trunkload of clothes at the show.

“You’d be perfect for it. Can I tell her you’ll do it?” Henri wheedled.

“I don’t know . . .” Modeling. How precious it seemed now, how trivial. How much fun it would be to go back to that old life—go-sees, fittings, gossiping with the hairstylists and having designers fawn over you, getting your makeup done, going to parties—did this mean that life was still open to her? She had completely given up thinking about it. Had totally assumed that that life was over, given what had happened. But what had the Visitor said? No one must suspect. After all, it had been a year. No one would fault her for going back to work, would they?

And wasn’t the best way to deal with grief and loss to find something to distract you? And what could be more distracting than a big, silly, frivolous fashion show? As Henri had said, look at those people who had lost a lot of other people’s money and caused the crash—weren’t they all going about their lives as if nothing had happened? Hosting charity benefits and shopping at Hermès while the victims of their financial recklessness cried into their crystal wineglasses?

She remembered a young widow, a teacher from Duchesne, who had gone back to teaching after her husband passed away suddenly. Going back to work, going back to her old life . . . it suddenly seemed . . . not impossible.

Get rid of him, the Visitor had ordered. Well, giving Henri what he wanted was the surest way to secure his exit. As soon as her agent was assured he had his old client back, he was certain to announce he had pressing concerns elsewhere. Asking about her welfare was probably just a pretense to see if he could book her for the show.

“Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath and letting it out in a long exhale.

“Okay?” Henri raised an eyebrow.