The Blue Ridge Mountains were supposed to be a sanctuary. Here, the air was thick with the scent of damp pine and woodsmoke, a world away from the metallic tang of Manhattan’s corporate warfare. The cabin was a humble structure of weathered cedar and fieldstone, tucked so deeply into the valley that even the satellites seemed to blink past it.
For three months, the world thought Ethan Blackwood and Lila Laurent were dead casualties of the spectacular collapse of an empire.
Inside the cabin, the fireplace crackled, casting a warm, flickering amber over the room. Ethan sat on the rug, his shirt discarded, revealing the jagged, silvery scar on his shoulder. He wasn't the polished titan anymore; he was leaner, his hair longer, his eyes clearer. He was a man who had traded a throne for a life
