Serena Ashford didn't speak. She knew better than to argue with a beast. In the world of the privileged elite, words were for negotiation, but for a predator like Simon Ashford, they were merely playthings to be twisted into weapons. She understood that if she lost her composure now, she would be playing right into his hands.
She remembered the past with a clinical, painful clarity. Eight years ago, she had been a golden child, a woman of such staggering talent that she had pulled Ashford Industries from the brink of stagnation and elevated it to a height the family had never dreamed of. She had saved the company, yet she had been cast out because that very success had terrified the Grand Lady Ashford and her "rightful" heirs. Her excellence had become her crime.
Simon, the spoiled heir,
