If it was all a lie, then why does it still feel like the most real thing that ever happened to her? This is the one question that has stayed buried at the center of all of it, the one that keeps Evelyn awake long even after all the dust settles. What happens when the most dangerous woman in the room finally lets someone in and finds out he was the one person she should never have trusted. Evelyn Sterling was just twenty-six when her father died and left his empire to her but along with it came his enemies, those that surrounded him both in the empire and beyond and a war she never asked to inherit. She handled it the only way she knew how, that morning, she straightened her spine and walked straight into the boardroom, making it clear that she was there to stay, making sure not even one person in that room doubted for a single second that she was exactly where she was supposed to be. While at it, nothing prepared her for what hit her next, Lucien Vale. He was that calm, sweet and caring man who seemed to be every lady's dream. And unlike all the other men, Evelyn had gotten to meet up with overtime, he did not contest her with any power play or any transparent attempt to get close to her money or name. Instead, he just... showed up, listened to her when she spoke and was observant enough to notice what no one else did. And for the first time in the longest time, he made her feel like she was the only person in the room. She knew better, had always known better but she let herself fall for him regardless. They had a beach wedding on a Saturday in Malibu, with the Pacific at their backs while she told herself deep down that the fear in her chest was just nerves and in a few months they had a daughter Aria. The morning Evelyn held her for the first time she burst into uncontrollable tears, crying in a way she hadn't since she turned eleven years old, watching her mother died of cancer. Now she had her own child and that should have completed everything or so she thought, now that she was married to the love of her life and had a child of her own. The signs were there long before Evelyn even understood what she was seeing. Lucien had made a large cash withdrawal whose receipt she found in his jacket pocket and when she asked him about it, he had a smooth explanation which she accepted and made metal notes of. Then she saw a stranger staring intently at Lucien during a dinner party from across the room with a recognition that wasn't friendly and when he saw it steered her away without explaining why. And the few nights after Aria was born, he disappeared for three hours and came back with hazy eyes which he blamed on exhaustion. She noticed all of it but couldn't say a word because she didn't have the right frame to put it in. Then she found the photograph. The woman with pretty blue eyes and wavy hair carrying a little boy that had the same striking features as her husband and Lucien himself, had his hand resting on the woman's back in the familiar way of a man who was happy to be home. And just like that, Evelyn Sterling's picture perfect life cracked straight down the middle , crumbling right before her eyes because the photograph she had seen was only the beginning. Behind it, everything else began to unfold; his dead father, the fifteen-year plan and the hitman with her name and her daughter's name on a list and eventually the death of daughter, little Aria. She didn't scream or let it break her, instead she picked up her phone, and got to work.