Their Greatest Sin

Chapter 1:The Assignment

Seraphina Vale knew something was wrong the moment Celeste Laurent closed the office door.

Celeste never closed doors.

Not unless a client was screaming, a vendor had failed, or someone’s wedding had become a disaster expensive enough to make headlines.

Seraphina paused beside the desk, one hand wrapped around an iced coffee she had bought three hours earlier and forgotten to drink.

The Laurent Events office was chaos in its usual elegant form. Fabric samples covered the long oak table. Half-built centrepieces crowded the shelves. A delivery of ivory peonies waited near reception, their sweet scent filling the room so heavily it made Seraphina’s head ache.

Outside the glass walls of Celeste’s office, two junior assistants argued quietly over a seating chart.

Inside, Celeste sat behind her desk with both hands folded beneath her chin.

That was worse.

“Sit down,” Celeste said.

Seraphina did not move. “Who cancelled?”

“No one cancelled.”

“Then who died?”

Celeste blinked once.

Seraphina sighed and lowered herself into the chair opposite the desk. “Sorry. Bad joke.”

“No,” Celeste said softly. “Just very you.”

That should not have made Seraphina uneasy, but it did.

Celeste Laurent had been her boss for almost two years. Demanding, brilliant, impossible to impress, and somehow kinder than she allowed anyone to know. She had hired Seraphina as a temporary assistant after Seraphina had arrived in the city with one suitcase, a thin reference letter, and an expression that had apparently convinced Celeste not to ask too many questions.

Since then, Seraphina had made herself useful.

She remembered names. She kept schedules in order. She knew which suppliers needed chasing, which clients needed reassurance, and which ones needed Celeste to speak to them directly before an argument became a disaster. She could find a missing invoice, replace a cancelled floral delivery, and rebuild a seating plan in twenty minutes when someone important suddenly decided they could not sit near their sister.

She was good at her job.

Quietly good.

The kind of good that kept things from falling apart without anyone noticing who had held them together.

Celeste slid a black folder across the desk.

“We got the Blackwood contract.”

For a moment, Seraphina only stared at the folder.

The words sat between them.

Blackwood.

Her fingers tightened around the plastic cup.

Celeste continued speaking, unaware that Seraphina could no longer hear her properly.

“It is the Blackwood Foundation’s annual gala. This year they are hosting it at the Devereux Grand. The guest list is enormous, the budget is ridiculous, and every major event company in the city wanted it.” Celeste smiled, though the expression faded when Seraphina did not respond. “It could change the business, Sera.”

Seraphina set her coffee on the desk with deliberate care.

“No.”

Celeste’s brows drew together. “No?”

“I cannot go.”

“It is a six-week contract.”

“I know.”

“Seraphina—”

“I cannot work on it.” Her voice came out thinner than she intended. “Please. Assign someone else.”

Silence settled over the office.

Celeste leaned back in her chair, studying her. She was not angry.

That somehow made it worse.

“You know the Blackwoods,” Celeste said.

Seraphina stood too quickly, her knee striking the underside of the desk.

“I know of them.”

“That is not what I asked.”

Her heart began to beat too fast.

She hated that name.

Hated that a single name could make her feel eighteen again—too young, too hurt, and trapped in a room full of people who had already decided she was guilty.

Damon Blackwood.

Lucian Ashcroft.

Cassian Devereux.

She had spent years training herself not to think about them.

Not to wonder where they were.

Not to search their names online when loneliness became too heavy and sleep would not come.

She had failed once.

Only once.

A photograph had appeared in an article about Blackwood Global. Damon stood in the centre of it, colder and broader than she remembered, dressed in a suit that probably cost more than the rent on her old apartment. Lucian stood beside him with that unreadable expression she had once spent hours trying to decode. Cassian had been smiling for the camera, beautiful and careless and cruel in a way that had made her chest hurt.

She had closed the page before reading the article.

After that, she had promised herself she would never look again.

“I do not work with people I know,” Seraphina said.

Celeste glanced at the folder. “You work with people you know every week.”

“Not like them.”

The response came too quickly.

Seraphina looked away before Celeste could read her face.

She could feel herself slipping into old habits: trying to make herself smaller, trying to soften the refusal before it became a problem, preparing an apology for something she had not done.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket.

Every muscle in her body tightened.

She did not take it out.

Not yet.

Celeste’s expression changed. Not pity. Concern.

“You do not have to explain,” she said. “But I need to understand whether this is personal discomfort or a safety issue.”

Seraphina’s throat tightened.

“I do not know.”

It was the most honest answer she had.

For a moment, only the distant noise of the office filled the silence.

Then Celeste opened the folder.

“I am not asking you to lead the event,” she said. “I am leading it. You would be there as my assistant.”

Seraphina said nothing.

“You know the schedules better than anyone. You know which vendors need chasing, which invoices are still outstanding, which client requests are impossible, and which ones merely sound impossible because people enjoy shouting.” Celeste’s mouth softened slightly. “I need you to keep me organised while I deal with the clients.”

That was different.

Not better.

But different.

“You will not be expected to meet with Damon Blackwood alone,” Celeste continued. “You will not be asked to make decisions beyond your role. If someone speaks to you inappropriately, pressures you, or makes you uncomfortable, you come directly to me.”

Seraphina looked at the folder again.

“The event is in Bellrose,” she whispered.

Celeste nodded. “I know.”

“I left there.”

“I know that too.”

“And I do not want to go back.”

Celeste was quiet for a moment.

“I will not force you to tell me why,” she said. “But I cannot pretend this contract is small. I need support I trust, and I trust you.”

The words should have comforted her.

Instead, they made guilt settle heavily in her chest.

Celeste trusted her.

Laurent Events needed the money.

And Seraphina knew exactly what the performance bonus from a contract this large could do. It could repair the emergency fund she had used after leaving Gideon. It could cover the remaining legal fees. It could let her breathe for the first time in months.

She hated that she had to think about money before she thought about herself.

But she did.

“I will not be alone,” Seraphina said.

“You will not.”

“I want my own room.”

“Already included.”

“And I want to be able to leave if I need to.”

Celeste nodded immediately. “Any time.”

Seraphina pressed her lips together.

There was still time to refuse.

There was always time to walk away.

But walking away had shaped too much of her life already.

She had run from Bellrose at eighteen.

Run from Gideon at twenty-five.

Run from every memory that tried to convince her she was weak for surviving.

Maybe returning did not mean she had failed.

Maybe it meant the past did not get to decide where she worked, where she lived, or what she was allowed to build.

“I will go,” Seraphina said quietly.

Celeste did not smile in triumph. She only nodded.

“Good. We will make a plan.”

Seraphina reached for the folder.

Inside were venue plans, guest estimates, floral proposals, catering schedules, and an invitation mock-up in black, gold, and deep red.

At the top of the client contact sheet was one name.

**Damon Blackwood**

Chief Executive Officer, Blackwood Global

Below it:

**Lucian Ashcroft**

Managing Partner, Ashcroft & Vale

And beneath that:

**Cassian Devereux**

Owner, Devereux Grand Hotels

Seraphina’s breath caught.

Ashcroft & Vale.

Her gaze locked on the words.

For one impossible second, she wondered whether she had read them wrong.

But there it was.

Lucian’s name.

And hers.

A law firm.

Her surname beside his.

Ten years without a word.

Ten years believing she had been erased from their lives.

And Lucian Ashcroft had built something that carried her name.

“Seraphina?” Celeste asked quietly. “Are you all right?”

No.

She had not been all right from the moment the Blackwood name entered the room.

But now she understood something far worse.

The men she had spent a decade trying to forget had not forgotten her.

And in three days, she would be standing in the same room as all of them.