Prologue: Mr. Brightside

She needed her sister but Bianca Montgomery was gone. Binks had been gone. It was coming up close to one and a half-years since her sister and Maggie Stone had moved to France and in all the time Kendall had never missed her sister more than she did at this moment.

Zach Slater was right.

He was right. She knew that now. She knew that the "Cambias Curse" that he had spat about was real, if only in the minds of the people involved. She could see it in the way Ethan fought for his inheritance and the way Zach fought to keep it away.

She had seen it growing in Ethan. The hardening in his brown eyes, the cold detachment with which he treated his workers, the ruthless behavior he exhibited when dealing with his corporation. The change had been slow but it had been steady and it never stopped. The only glimpses left of the Ethan Ramsey who she had fallen in love with, was in the way he touched her just as soft and just as gentle as he had the first time. For those few moments they shared at night she had her Ethan again. But the sun would always dawn and he was gone.

The winter sun had risen this morning and painted the sky and everything beneath in shades of violet and blue and she'd watched him sleep, knowing it would be the last time she woke up beside him. He slept on his stomach, but she noted the slow rise and fall beneath the tinted sheet and the lock of thick black hair that broke loose from its disheveled mess and fell across his dark brow she swept it back up with the rest letting the silky lock run through her fingers and marking the way his eyelashes fluttered when she was so close to him.

She gasped when his hand had begun to move across the bed sheet, his long fingers searching the cold and empty bed beside him. She had known what he was looking for, because even in his sleep he needed her and she'd moved over, letting his fingers tickle over her skin and his sinewy arm snake around her naked waist. As she laid pressed against his chest, his dark skin feverish next to her own, she breathed him in, hoping to put to memory the scent of soap and spice but even then she knew it would never stick.

Kendall dropped her pen when her vision blurred and she quickly wiped away another tear before it spilled onto the letter she was writing. She hated her confused hormones, they only delayed her from completing her mission. And if she were ever going to finish this stupid letter of lies she was going to have to stop crying.

He'd built the house she was sitting in now. He'd built it with every intent of shadowing any house inside the city limits of Pine Valley or out. It was a massive home built with a Victorian flare and filled with a perfect blend of classic antiques and the most advanced modern amenities. It was a thing to be envied by his father and it modeled everything Ethan had slowly become. He'd let her have a hand in every aspect of the design with more ease than a husband would have a wife.

She knew he wanted that, he wanted to call her his wife, he wanted her to wear his band and be bound until death parted them. But he had never mustered the courage to ask, always too afraid that her answer would be no, which would ultimately snowball into the always unspoken subject of Ryan Lavery.

Kendall folded the soft paper three times, the way she had learned in school, and slipped it into the envelope she'd addressed.

She'd seen the truth in Zach's words, saw it blossom in Ethan. Watched, his bitterness grow inside his calm and pleasant shell. She'd tried to voice her concerns, tried to find a sympathetic ear, but Ethan always had of saying what people wanted to hear. Sometimes he had a way of saying it to well. With reassurances from people she trusted, Kendall had pushed the thought away, had focused on more urgent problems only to be confronted with the unforgivable.

Ethan had lied to her.

He'd not only lied to her but to everyone else as well. His allegations, his lies, had shattered not just one person but many and he'd done it all in the pursuit of ruining his father of holding onto an empire he saw as his birthright.

That was why Kendall had only once choice when the doctor had come back to her in that tiny little office to deliver the confirmation she needed. It had been more than a month since he had told her and she had made all the right arrangements, called all the right people, made all the right connections. She was set in every aspect but in her mind. What she was doing was wrong? What she was doing would be unforgivable in Ethan's eyes especially after the childhood he had led? But she didn't care. She couldn't care. She was going to

Kendall placed the envelope where she knew it could not go missed. Even if he spent the afternoon in the study or in the parlor room as he usually did, he was bound to come here. Sighing, she turned to her luggage which sat neatly packed and piled next to the bedroom door. She'd packed much lighter running from Pine Valley than she had for any weekend getaway that Ethan had brought her on, but she needed to move quickly and didn't need excess baggage holding her up.

If Ethan were to come home early, which wasn't likely but with Kendall's luck a likely possibility, he would read her letter and know that she was running. She knew him, he would do what he could to stop her, to talk things out and if that meant shutting down a major airline then so be it. She knew he could do it and he would, in two short years Ethan Ramsey and Cambias Industries arm had grown quite long. He would meet her in baggage claim or in her seat on the runway and she would look in those doe eyes of his and she would crack.

Kendall Hart would crack. Again.

The thought sickened her but she knew she would. She would go back to him and she would tell him everything and God knew what kind of person their child would grow to be.

Tying back her unruly hair, Kendall Hart gave her bedroom one last look. It was so big and dark and cold. Everything Ethan now symbolized. Wiping from her lashes any sign of weakness, she slid into her fox trimmed coat and fastened the three small buttons at the breast. This was it. She was leaving now. The actually physical action seemed to be draining her and, it took effort for Kendall to perch her large shades onto her slim nose and, swing her tote onto her shoulder. With a deep breath that she'd been holding for too long, she walked away.

Every morning Ethan Ramsey woke with the same thought. Why wouldn't his father just let go? It wasn't as if Zach Slater didn't have his own empire to run, so why did he have to keep butting into Ethan's. Why couldn't he just learn to mind his own bloody business? Why did he feel compelled to strip away the only birthright Ethan had? What kind of man would do such a thing to his only child?

A man who denies his own son is whom, a bitter thought would answer and so Ethan would start his day with bile threatening the back of his throat. It was the same bitter feeling that surrounded him as he walked into his home wanting nothing more than to see Kendall.

Ignoring the maid and another faceless servant he ascended the stairs, an index finger tucked beneath his tie as he loosened the knot. He'd always disliked things wrapped so tightly about his neck and ties were no exception, untying them before they'd served their purpose was an offense that had gotten him into more trouble in school than scuffling or smoking. But his primary school days were over and he was a grown man with a woman he was anxious to see waiting for him.

He'd had a bitch of a day, another round in the American courts with what biology had named his father, and he was in no mood to be bothered with anything but the trivial. It felt like forever before he had his hand on the oval doorknob to his private quarters and as he walked in and odd sensation swept over him.

It wasn't as if the scene was out of sorts. Everything was exactly how he had left it that morning: the large sleigh-bed made, the crystal lamps upright and off, the massive oak-wardrobe closed, there was not a single item out of place, not a garment of laundry left forgotten on the floor. But like a Pomeranian the thought nagged at the corners of his mind.

Eyes narrowing, he crossed into the empty room, sliding his tiny grey mobile into the pocket of his black coat. No, it wasn't his imagination there was something not quite right about the air in his room.

"Kendall?" His voice was uncertain and weak and he didn't like the vulnerable tone that rang in it. "Kendall," he repeated, sliding his wool coat down his arms and tossing it onto the bed. The only answer he received was the echo of his own footsteps as he walked around his massive bedroom.

Opening the door to the bath, Ethan had no good reason to turn on the light, the setting sun was streaming through the french doors behind the large clawfoot bathtub and it reflected off of every sterile white porcelain surface. Revealing to him the spacious bathroom Kendall had designed but there was no sign of the designer herself.

Where was she? He questioned, biting into his bottom-lip as he shut the thick door with a snap.

He'd spoken with her less than an hour ago and she had failed to mention that she was going anywhere. Maybe, he'd forgotten, maybe she had told him she was going to Fusion or popping over to her mother's flat.

Yes, that was the most likely outcome. He would just give her a ring on her mobile and that would be the end of it. Ethan chuckled lightly to himself, he had gotten himself worried over nothing, just a lack of communication.

But just as Ethan reached to retrieve his coat, something bright caught his eye. It was a letter. For a moment he was surprised that he had missed its presence before, the bright pink envelope against his white pillowcase but he quickly recovered and snatched it up, revealing the initials he'd had monogrammed in mint-green thread. It wasn't sealed and he easily opened with a flick of his ring-finger and pulled out the letter intended for him.

The stationary was easily recognizable. It was Kendall's. He'd bought it with the intention she use it to write her sister, Bianca, but Kendall had proved to be more of a telephone and email girls and so he had taken no offense when she'd left it unused and forgotten on the desk in his drawing room. But to see that she had found use for it did bring a hint of a smile to his face.

There was no doubt in his mind that the large and loopy penmanship belonged to Kendall and the rhythm of the letter also fit her style, but it was the words inside those that sent Ethan's mind reeling.

His Kendall wouldn't write those things. His Kendall wouldn't do that to him. His Kendall wouldn't leave him this way. His Kendall couldn't.

But she had.