Bitter inheritance

Bitter inheritance

### Chapter One: The Reading of the Will

Elena Voss had buried her father on a Tuesday, and by Thursday she was sitting across a mahogany table from the man who had destroyed him.

Damian Cross hadn't changed in the three years since she'd last seen him — not really. He still wore black like a uniform, still had that particular stillness that made a room feel smaller. The only difference was the thin white scar through his left eyebrow, new since the fire, since the night their fathers' partnership had ended in ash and lawsuits and one broken man who never fully recovered.

"You shouldn't be here," Elena said.

"Your father's lawyer disagrees." Damian didn't look up from the folder in front of him. "Sit down, Elena. This concerns you."

She hated that he still said her name like he owned the syllables.

The lawyer, a tired man named Aldridge who'd handled Voss family business for two decades, cleared his throat and began reading. Elena barely absorbed the legal language — the house, the accounts, the small mercies her father had left her. It was the final clause that made the room tilt sideways.

"The Voss House share of Ledger & Cross Auctions," Aldridge read, "forty percent, held in trust since the dissolution of the original partnership, is to be released only under joint signature of both surviving principals — Elena Voss and Damian Cross — or forfeited entirely to the state."

Elena's fingers went cold around her coffee cup. "That's not possible. My father hated him. He would never—"

"Your father," Damian said quietly, "was many things. Sentimental was not usually one of them. But apparently he believed we'd need each other eventually."

"I don't need you."

"Then forfeit forty percent of your inheritance out of pride. I won't stop you." His eyes finally lifted to hers, dark and unreadable. "But I don't think you will. I know what that gallery meant to him. I know what it means to you."

She hated that he was right.