The Heiress's Revenge: No.12 No More

Eleven months in, my boyfriend announced his soulmate to the entire internet. Her name wasn't mine.

Chase Holloway: [@Candice. Finally. The waiting's over. I knew you'd come back to me.]

His friends poured into the comments like it was already a wedding.

A friend: [Chase ran through twelve stand-ins and still came home to the real thing. Legend.]

Another friend: [@Adriana, you're No.12, sweetheart. Take the hint and clear out.]

I read it twice, sitting in the apartment I pay for.

Cute.

I've walked away from a lot of men. Chase is the first one stupid enough to think he's the one doing the walking.

He has no idea what I am. He doesn't know that the label that just signed him, the one he thinks made him, answers to my family. That his whole shiny little future is a single thread, and I'm the one holding the other end.

My father asked me for exactly one thing in my entire life. The only condition he ever set.

"You start everything and finish nothing, Adriana. You drop people the way you drop hobbies. I can't hand a company to someone like that."

"Stay with one person. One year. Show me you can see something through, and Ashford Group is yours."

So I reined it in. I picked Chase, and I stayed.

We're seven days short of a year.

And he wants to dump me early.

Love, I can live without.

The inheritance, I take.

Seven days.

Chapter 1

"Why are you still here?"

Chase came through the door with Candice on his arm, saw me on the couch, and the smile curdled right off his face. "Was my post not clear enough for you?"

I set my tablet down. Took my time about it.

"Did you forget something?" I said. "This is my apartment. The lease is in my name. The three grand a month is mine too."

Red crept up his neck.

Chase makes music. A little talent, no money. Eleven months together, and I paid the rent, I covered every check, I bought him the guitar he writes his sad little songs on.

He cleared his throat, then jutted his chin like the words were costing him. "I won't need your money anymore. I'll pay my own way."

Candice gave me a slow once-over and opened her mouth, all sugar.

"Our Chase just signed with Ashford Media," she said. "He's going to be huge. Rent like this is nothing to a man like him."

Ashford Media.

My father's company.

He doesn't know it, but a man like Chase doesn't get signed to Ashford on talent. He got in because I made one phone call. I even flagged the clauses in his contract that mattered, sat there and put my finger on them. He was too busy picturing his face on a billboard to read a single line.

His whole future is a string, and I'm holding the other end.

And here he is, sawing through the boat before he's even reached the shore.

Interesting.

I didn't let any of it show. "Say whatever you want," I said. "The lease is plain. Seven days left this month. Until then, I live here."

Because I couldn't leave. The minute I moved out, my father would know Chase and I were finished. So I'd keep it quiet.

Seven more days. That was all.

Chase took my calm for clinging. He arched a brow.

"You think camping out here is going to change my mind?" he said. "You're No.12. That's all you ever were."

I looked at Candice properly for the first time. Twenty-six, poured into a dress two sizes meaner than she was, all curves and effort.

This was the great love of his youth?

Tasteless.

Chase didn't bother with me after that. He steered Candice toward the bedroom.

"Watch if you want!" he tossed over his shoulder. "Front row's all yours, No.12. Enjoy the show."

He left the bedroom door open.

He didn't forget. He left it. On purpose.

The sounds started a minute later. Her giggling. His breathing, pitched loud enough to carry down the hall.

My hand closed around the edge of the tablet until my knuckles went white.

Not because it hurt.

Because I was furious.

The Ashford heiress, sitting in a rented apartment, made to listen at a wall like hired help.

I got up, shut the door to the spare room, and put my headphones in.

Seven days.

I could do seven days.

The call came the next morning.

"Adriana." My father's voice, easy as ever. "My birthday's the day after tomorrow. Bring your boyfriend to the party."

My thumb stopped on the screen. Something pulled tight at the base of my throat.

"Dad." I kept it level. "You know I told him I'm just a regular salary. Nine-to-five. I bring him to the house and the whole story falls apart."

He laughed. "I'm not going to give you away. Bring him as a business contact, then. It's been almost a year. I want to see the two of you with my own eyes." A pause. "If you've really found something real, I'm happy for you."

I didn't say anything.

There was no version of this where I said no.

My whole life, my father has asked me for almost nothing. He built an empire and never once forced my hand. He set a condition exactly once.

The one-year deal.

Chapter 2

"Fine," I said. "I'll bring him."

That evening, Chase and Candice came home and stopped dead in the doorway.

The dining table was buried under food. All of it cooked by me. All of it things Chase used to love.

"What is this?" He frowned at me. "Playing house? Cooking your way back into my good graces?"

I let the jab slide off.

"I have something to run by the two of you," I said. "Day after tomorrow a client's throwing a birthday thing. Everyone's expected to bring a plus-one. Chase, you play my boyfriend for one day. After that, I'm out by the end of the month. Clean break."

He shook his head on reflex. "No. I can't. I'm not doing that to Candice."

I took a card out of my bag and set it on the coffee table.

"Ten grand," I said. "For one day."

The room went quiet for a few seconds.

Chase stared at the card. His throat moved.

I knew he was broke. The label had signed him up for a run of paid workshops, and the bill wasn't small. He needed this.

"But" He glanced at Candice, wavering.

"It's fine." Candice smiled like she was doing charity. "Babe, just help her out. A clean break is the decent thing to do." Then the math flickered behind her eyes. "Ten's a little light, though. Make it fifteen."

I almost laughed.

This woman did business better than I did.

"Done," I said.

Chase looked at her, then at me, and finally gave a slow nod, like he was signing away a kidney.

Fifteen grand for one afternoon, and he was the one making the sacrifice. Sure.

My father held his birthday at the Ashford Hotel, same as every year, the room thick with industry people. Chase and I folded into the crowd without a ripple.

My father worked the room, then came to find me.

"Mr. Ashford," I said, polite as a stranger. "This is my boyfriend. Chase."

He took Chase's hand and looked him over, top to bottom.

"Good-looking kid. Music, I hear?"

"Yes, sir." A small, careful note in Chase's voice. "I'm signed to Ashford Media. One of your companies, actually."

My father slid me a look. The kind that said, you opened that door for him?

I pretended not to catch it.

He clapped Chase on the shoulder. "Good for a young man to have ambition."

Chase held it together the rest of the night. I'll give him that much.

Near the end, I stepped out toward the restroom.

"Sorry I'm late."

I froze.

Candice stood in the doorway, beaming.

I caught her by the arm and pulled her in. "What are you doing here? Today is me and Chase. You don't have a part in this."

She folded her arms. The smile was still there, but something cooler sat behind it now.

"I came to blow your cover," she said.

My pulse kicked once, hard.

She watched it land on my face and pressed a hand to her mouth, delighted.

"That Mercedes you pulled up in today," she said. "Eighty grand, easy. A nine-to-five salary doesn't park a car like that." Her eyes went bright and greedy. "So either you're lying to Chase about what you make, or you've got money coming in from somewhere you really don't want him to know about."

I kept my face still.

That Mercedes was the most low-key car I owned.

Chapter 3

"That car's financed," I said. "I needed it for work"

"I don't care how you got it." She cut me off. "Sign it over to me and I keep your secret."

I looked at her for a few seconds.

She was greedier than I'd given her credit for.

When I didn't answer, she laughed, easy and pleased. "Okay. Then I'll walk back in there and tell everyone the truth. That you dragged your ex here to play pretend so you could close a deal. That you're a fraud without a shred of integrity."

She turned for the door.

I caught her. "Don't."

She stopped, and the smile she gave me was pure triumph. "So Mr. Ashford's a big client of yours. That's it, isn't it? Then pay to make the problem go away. You can't run a business this tight-fisted."

I rolled my eyes.

Let her guess.

She wasn't wrong, though. The only move I had was to bleed a little to stop the bleeding.

"Fine," I said. "The car's yours."

I ran the transfer right there, online, while she watched.

Ten minutes later her phone chimed. She checked it and smiled, satisfied.

"Thanks."

I held her eyes. "Does Chase know this is who you are?"

She gave a small, indifferent shrug. "What he loves is the eighteen-year-old me. Not the twenty-six-year-old standing here." A pause, almost thoughtful. "One day he'll figure out that even the real me can't live up to the girl he keeps in his head."

She looked at me then, and for the first time there was nothing fake in it.

"So I grab what I can while there's something to grab. I'm not like you. I don't go lovesick and pay some man's rent."

She left.

She didn't look back.

I stood there a long time.

She was right. She saw the whole thing clearer than I did.

Back in the ballroom, my father had his phone out.

"Chase, let me add you," he was saying. "We should stay in touch."

I crossed the room fast enough to nearly clip a waiter.

If my father pulled up Chase's profile, the post was sitting right at the top. The whole thing would come apart.

"Mr. Ashford, his phone's dead," I said. "Next time."

I leaned in and dropped my voice. "You're the boss. Adding a junior signing to your contacts? People will talk. It's not a good look."

He paused. "Fair point."

He put the phone away.

Chase looked confused. He didn't call me on it.

Chase rode shotgun the whole way home and said nothing.

He was angry. I just couldn't tell about what.

The second we were through the door, he flung his jacket at the couch.

"So that's what you are," he said. "Cheap."

I blinked.

"You were all over Mr. Ashford. Did you sell yourself to close your little deal?"

So that was it. He had it exactly backward.

I didn't feel like correcting him.

"What?" I said. "Jealous?"

He laughed, cold. "Jealous? Of you? You're No.12. I'm not about to dirty up what I had."

No.12 again.

If it weren't for the deal, I'd have slapped the smug clean off his face.

"Chase," I said. "What about you?"

He frowned, lost.

I looked at him and let my voice go flat. "You ran through twelve of us. That's not dirty?"

"You kept us around as fill-ins. That's not dirty?"

His face went redder. His voice climbed.

"That was loyalty. Loyalty to love, to what's in my heart. I have only ever loved one person in my entire life. The rest of you were passing through."

Loyalty to love.

He made cheating sound like a calling. I nearly applauded.

I've dated a lot of men.

Chase ranks fiftieth.

Chapter 4

I trade men out every couple of months because every last one of them eventually asks me for money.

My rule is simple.

You borrow, we're done.

I love dating. I'm nobody's fool.

I can look any of my exes in the eye. Chase, waving his loyalty-to-love flag, was running the filthiest game of all of them.

He was done being argued with. He yanked out his phone, worked up.

"I love Candice and only Candice. I'll post it right now. I'll propose to her in public."

My chest seized.

"No!" It was out before I could stop it. "Wait four days!"

He shot me a look, confused.

I reeled myself back in and made my voice as easy as I could.

"I'm closing a contract with the Ashford Group. Four days and it's signed. Then I move out, like we agreed. Clean break."

The part I left out: I needed midnight, four days from now, to clock a full year. The whole inheritance turned on it. If he announced before then, my cover died and the deal died with it. After midnight, he could post whatever he liked. By then the only thing he'd blow up was himself.

He looked at me like I was something on the bottom of his shoe.

"You'd use love itself to turn a profit. You're disgusting."

I didn't care how he saw me.

I needed the four days.

I lowered myself another inch.

"Chase. I've been good to you all year. I paid the rent. I covered the meals. I bought you that guitar. I'm not asking you for anything. Four days. You don't have to lift a finger."

I brought up the past, thinking it might soften him.

He only looked more revolted.

"No.12. How long are you planning to cling to me?"

That was when Candice came out of the bedroom.

She'd heard all of it. She leaned in the doorframe and watched me, enjoying herself.

"What contract?" she said. "What's it worth?"

I made up a number. "Two million. Hundred-grand bonus."

Her eyes lit up like a slot machine.

"And what do we get for helping?"

There it was. Money, again.

I set my jaw. "I'll split it with you. Half. Good enough?"

I let a beat pass. "Weddings aren't cheap."

Chase started to refuse, but the word wedding snagged him, and he hesitated.

Fair enough. He wasn't famous yet. Where was he going to find money for a wedding?

He was about to nod when Candice cut in, sharp.

"No. I want a hundred thousand."

That stopped both of us.

Then her eyes filled, right on schedule, and she turned to Chase.

"Babe, my mom's heart is failing. The doctors want seventy-five thousand for the surgery. Then recovery, a home nurse after that. I never had the heart to tell you."

The tears spilled over, pretty as anything.

"I'd already decided. If we couldn't find the money, I was going to sell a kidney."

She wept, lovely and tragic.

Her acting was terrible.

Chase bought every second of it.

He pulled her in, stricken. "Candy, why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want you to worry."

She folded into his shoulder and cried harder.

Chase looked over at me. He took his time about it.

"Okay," he said. "A hundred thousand."

The corner of my mouth tugged into something cold.

Same as every man before him. Here to drain money out of me.

I kept it off my face.

"Fine."

Chapter 5

I took out a pen and a sheet of paper and wrote an IOU.

Adriana Ashford owes Chase Holloway one hundred thousand dollars, to be repaid within one month.

Candice took it, read it over, and tucked it away like it was made of glass.

She smiled at me. A little gloat in it.

I smiled too.

Four more days.

In four days we'd see who got the last laugh.

I wrote it out carefully. The name on it mattered more than the number. In four days they'd understand why.

On the last day, my bags were already packed.

Two hours left on the one-year deal.

For four days I'd listened to the two of them through the master bedroom wall, watched them paw at each other across the living room, swallowed whatever Chase threw at me.

"No.12, take the trash out."

"No.12, get out of the bathroom. Candice wants to shower."

"No.12, your cooking's too salty. Candice can't eat it."

No.12.

He never used my name. Just the number.

I took it.

That morning, Chase got a call.

"Seriously? That's amazing!" He was shaking with it. "Ashford's putting out an album for me. Songs written by an actual name producer."

Candice lit up too. "Babe. You're going to be a star."

I listened from the spare room and felt my mouth curve.

An Ashford album. A name producer.

I'd arranged that a month ago. Back when I still thought Chase was someone worth betting on, when I wanted to give him a leg up.

Funny, looking at it now.

His voice carried through the door. "Second it hits midnight, I'm going public with you."

I shook my head at the wall.

Does he really not read a word he signs?

Because that contract has a clause in it.

During the contract term, the artist shall not publicly disclose any personal relationship. Doing so constitutes a breach.

And the price of a breach?

I almost laughed just thinking about it.

One hour left. I called the house.

"After midnight," I said. "Come get me."

Chase leaned in the doorway and lifted a brow. "Lined up the next one already?"

I smiled. "We broke up. You're still this interested in my life?"

He scoffed. "Don't flatter yourself, No.12. And do me a favor, once I'm famous, leave my name out of your mouth. Stay out of my orbit."

I smiled and said nothing.

Midnight came. I texted my father.

The year's up.

He sent back a thumbs-up.

Good girl. Tomorrow I announce it. You're the heir to Ashford Group.

Something in my chest unclenched. I smiled for real, the first time in longer than I could remember.

The house had sent a location. Ten minutes out.

I carried my bags to the living room.

Then a notification lit my phone. Someone I follow had posted.

Chase had actually done it. Right on the stroke of midnight.

Chase: [@Candice. Here's to the rest of our lives.]

Candice fired back within seconds.

Candice: [@Chase. The rest of our lives.]

The comments filled in, all their friends at once.

A friend: [It's official! Wedding next?!]

A friend: [Chase finally landed his first love. Congrats, man!]

Chase and Candice looked at each other, glowing, and kissed right in front of me.

Three seconds later, his phone rang.

Chapter 6