Chapter 287

The standfirst glared at me, mocking: ‘Ashton Laurent and Lea Lopez at Business Dinner. Romance Confirmed?’ My phone screen glittered with the photo, Ashton seated at a long table, Lea leaning close, a smile curved just so, her hand grazing the stem of her glass as if she were starring in some perfectly staged advert for power couples. The article went on to describe them as a natural match, old friends with a shared history, equals in ambition and ruthlessness. A note at the bottom added, almost casually, that Ashton’s ex-girlfriend, a jewellery designer based partly in Paris, had been absent from public view, ‘perhaps laying down roots abroad’. That last line twisted like a knife. I forced myself to breathe. This was not the first time I had seen Ashton in the news with another woman. Rowan Hale had once plastered her smile across the tabloids beside his. That story had been nothing but a manipulation on Rowan’s part, designed to drag him into her spotlight. I had sworn I would not b