Chapter 1 : The Girl in Yellow
Bad days were normal. But today was the kind that would rank in the top three.
Her interview had been a slaughter. She’d rehearsed answers on the subway, white knuckling her battered tote bag. But the second she’d sat before those sleek suits she’d known it was over.
They’d not asked about her qualifications. Instead, they’d smiled as they eviscerated her for “employment gaps” and “reliability concerns.” Thirty-three and already too old to be “moldable.”
We’ll be in touch.
They grinned like sharks after a feeding frenzy.
Rowan stood now before the gleaming tower, Manhattan’s spring wind nipping through her cheap blazer. Her feet were sore, her head throbbing, and the subway token she’d used was money she’d never see again. Twenty blocks back to Queens, back to her drafty apartment with the busted radiator.
Traffic buzzed, business types clutched briefcases and vendors pried open carts with sizzling oil.
Around her the city roared on with its normal cacophony. But for Rowan, the white noise pressed into her chest like a weight.
Thirty-three and can’t even get a secretary job.
Vance Tower loomed across the street, it was excessive. Sixty stories of steel and glass reaching for the sky, a monument to things she could never have. They all knew the rumors—the marble lobby that cost more than whole neighborhoods, the billionaire who lived on the top floor like some modern-day king.
Asher Vance.
She’d seen his face in magazines. Square jaw, storm-gray eyes, that aura of dangerous good looks that required no airbrushing. A man who could run a boardroom meeting at noon and snap some fool’s neck by midnight. Permanent stubble, clothes that bespoke privilege but couldn’t hide the predator underneath—everything sleek, dark and untouchable.
Rowan had never imagined there was someone like Asher Vance in the same universe as her fourth-floor walkup.
And then she saw it.
Yellow on gray.
A small figure darted between suited professionals, between tourists snapping for Instagram like some bright butterfly. Brown hair in a messy braid, yellow sundress flowing around skinny legs, a stuffed rabbit cradled in one tiny fist—the one’s ear matted bald from love.
A child. Alone.
Rowan’s breath caught in her chest. The girl couldn’t be more than five years old, racing across the plaza with untied sneakers slapping marble. She laughed, bright and incongruous in the plaza’s sterile hum.
No one else seemed to notice her.
“Hey!” Rowan called, but the traffic drowned her voice.
The girl didn’t stop. If anything, she sped up.
Then Rowan saw the yellow delivery van rounding the corner on the other side of the plaza, horn blaring like a warning from hell.
Time crystallized. The child skidded to a halt at the crosswalk in the van’s direct line of fire. The van’s brakes squealed.
Rowan dropped her tote bag and ran.
Her lungs seized and expanded as adrenaline shot through her. The world narrowed to a single point of focus—getting to the small girl before the van did. Rowan lunged, wrapping her arms around the child’s waist and tugging backward with everything she had. They tumbled to the ground, rolling as the van swerved past, bumper missing them by inches. Rowan heard curses from the driver’s side but then the vehicle was gone, tires screaming red as it disappeared around the corner. Behind her, the acrid smell of burned rubber.
The world was silent.
Rowan’s chest heaved with adrenaline. The girl was crying now, tucked against her chest. Her hair smelled like bubblegum shampoo and innocence, a scent that belied the tired lines around hazel eyes too old for her years. Small arms wrapped around Rowan’s neck like they belonged there. Not the clinging embrace of a child with a stranger, but like she’d been searching for Rowan her whole short life.
“Hey, sweetheart.” Rowan’s voice was hoarse. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”
Wide hazel eyes peered up at her. Eyes that had seen and knew too much, holding the wisdom of the world in a face that shouldn’t have had time to age. “You saved me.”
Rowan swallowed around the knot in her throat. “Someone had to look out for you, little trouble.”
The girl’s laugh was wet and broken as she pressed closer against Rowan’s chest. The sweet smell of bubblegum shampoo wafted up, mixed with sweat and tears. Not like she was crying now.
And then there were those words. The ones that would keep Rowan up at night.
Don’t let her come back.
Before Rowan could ask what the hell the girl meant, shouting erupted behind them.
Emma!
Three men in black suits sprinted across the plaza, their earpieces blinking. Pale faces pinched with panic, movements honed by military precision. Security.
Emma flinched against Rowan, small fingers digging into her arms.
Emma.
It felt like someone punched Rowan in the gut. Emma Vance. The daughter of New York’s most notorious billionaire. The child hidden behind bulletproof glass and a small army of security, whose face she’d only ever seen in paparazzi shots and blurred profiles.
Emma Vance.
Right now, she was clinging to Rowan like she’d known her whole life.
“Ma’am.” One of the guards panted, out of breath and reaching for the girl. “Thank you, but we really need to get her now—”
“No!” Emma’s voice cracked with desperate intensity. “Stay with me!”
The security detail flinched like Emma’s grip had been the signal to move in. For a moment they hesitated, checking one another with loaded looks and gestures. Then one spoke urgently into his earpiece: “Get Mr. Vance. Now.”
Rowan’s heart hammered against her ribs. She knew she should hand Emma over and walk away. Should go back to her one-bedroom apartment and small life, pretend this moment had never happened.
But Emma’s grip was iron around her neck.
“Sweetheart,” she murmured, knowing she was about to make a decision that would change both of their lives. “They’re going to take you back to your daddy.”
Emma’s lower lip trembled. “Don’t let her come back.”
Her teeth gritted against the cold truth. Before she could demand to know what the hell she was talking about, the very air around her seemed to shift. A hush fell over the plaza like the city itself had taken a collective intake of breath.
He was coming.
Broad shoulders cutting through the crowd with predatory grace, expensive charcoal suit cut to perfection. Dark hair, sharp cheekbones, and those storm-gray eyes that saw Rowan through to her very soul. Up close Asher Vance wasn’t just handsome. He was magnetic, a force of nature, the kind of man that demanded attention without asking.
The crowd parted like royalty.
His gaze settled on them—on Emma pressed to Rowan’s chest like she’d found her salvation—and something raw flashed across his features before he slammed the mask back into place.
When he spoke, his voice was rough velvet wrapped around steel. “Who the hell are you?”
Emma’s grip on Rowan tightened, desperate to anchor her to this moment in time through sheer force of will.
And for the first time in years, Rowan Hayes was entirely at a loss for words.