Chapter 2 Ghost
The mirror didn’t lie, but it didn't tell the whole truth, either.
The woman staring back at me was a stranger. She had sharp edges where I used to be soft. Her hair, once long and constantly tucked behind ears that turned pink when she was nervous, was now severed into a severe, asymmetrical bob that brushed against a jawline made of tension.
And the dress.
Five years ago, Minerva Johnston wore pastels. She wore high necks and long sleeves to hide the bruises on her soul, trying to shrink until she took up no space at all in her husband’s grand, echoing life.
Minerva Hayes, the woman in the mirror, wore blood.
The gown was a custom piece from a boutique in Milan that didn't have a sign on the door. It was crimson silk, cut dangerously low in the back, held up by straps as thin as the patience I had left. It clung to my body like a second skin, exposing the curve of my spine, the slope of my shoulders. It was a dress designed to make men swallow hard and women whisper behind their manicured hands.
"Stop picking at your cuticles," a voice said from the armchair behind me. "You’ll bleed, and red on red is tacky."
I dropped my hands instantly. I hadn’t even realized I was doing it, a nervous tic from a dead life.
I turned to look at Lonnie. He was sprawled on the velvet chaise of our hotel suite, looking effortlessly expensive in a tuxedo that cost more than the house I grew up in. He held a flute of champagne, swirling the bubbles with a bored expression that masked a hawk-like vigilance.
"I’m not nervous," I lied.
"You’re vibrating, Mina," Lonnie deadpanned. He set the glass down and stood up, walking over to me. He placed his hands on my bare shoulders, his grip grounding. "Look at me."
I met his eyes. They were kind. Safe. The only safe thing I had found in half a decade.
"They think you’re dead," he said softly. "Not literally. But socially. Spiritually. To them, you’re the trash Tristan Johnston took out five years ago. You’re the stain they scrubbed out of the carpet."
"Thank you, that’s very encouraging," I said dryly, though my stomach rolled.
"I’m reminding you of the narrative," Lonnie corrected. "Because in twenty minutes, you’re going to walk in there and rewrite it. You are Dr. Minerva Hayes. You are the lead architect of Veridian. You possess the kind of money that makes people forget their morals. Do not shrink. Do not apologize. And for the love of God, do not let him see you bleed."
Him.
The name hung in the air, heavy and suffocating. Tristan.
I hadn't spoken his name aloud in three years. I hadn't looked at a photograph of him in four. But my body remembered him. My skin remembered the heat of his hands; my ears remembered the cadence of his laugh before it turned into the silence that destroyed me.
"I’m ready," I said. My voice sounded hollow, tinny in my own ears.
Lonnie studied my face for a second longer, searching for cracks in the porcelain. Finding none, he offered me his arm. A shark’s grin spread across his face.
The rain in this city was different than anywhere else. It was heavier, greasier. It slicked the streets into black mirrors that reflected the neon anguish of the skyline.
As the limousine idled in the line of cars waiting to deposit the city’s elite at the Johnston Annual Charity Gala, I watched the raindrops race down the tinted window.
Sign it, he had said. Get out.
My hand spasmed on my clutch. I forced my fingers to uncurl. Not tonight. Do not go back there tonight.
"We’re next," the driver announced.
My heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs, a trapped bird desperate to escape. I took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of leather and Lonnie’s expensive cologne. I built the wall brick by brick. I plastered over the fear with indifference.
The door opened.
The noise hit me first. The chaotic, insect-like clicking of a hundred camera shutters. The murmur of the crowd. The aggressive shouts of paparazzi hungry for a shot of a senator or a CEO.
I stepped out.
The humid air wrapped around me, damp and cloying. I stood tall, letting the slit in my dress reveal a calculated amount of leg. Lonnie stepped out beside me, immediately taking my hand and tucking it into the crook of his arm. His touch was warm, a reminder that I wasn't alone this time.
"Who is that?" I heard a photographer shout.
"Is that the model from the Vogue cover?"
"No, idiot, that’s the architect. The one from Italy."
Flashbulbs erupted like lightning storms, blinding and white-hot. I didn't flinch. I didn't smile. I gave them nothing but the sharp line of my jaw and the cold boredom in my eyes.
We walked the red carpet. It felt like walking on a tongue and waiting to swallow me.
The entrance to the Grand Ballroom was looming. The Johnston Estate was not just a house; it was a fortress of stone and ego. I knew this hallway. I knew the specific creak of the third floorboard on the left. I knew that the chandelier above us had been imported from Austria because Tristan’s grandmother thought American crystal was cloudy.
I was walking into a museum of my own trauma.
"Shoulders back," Lonnie whispered, barely moving his lips. "Breathe."
We reached the threshold. The ushers, wearing identical blank expressions, opened the double doors.
The ballroom was exactly as I remembered, yet entirely foreign. It smelled of lilies and old money. A five-piece orchestra was murdering a Mozart concerto in the corner. The room was a sea of black tuxedos and designer gowns, a shifting tide of people who measured worth in stock options.
And there, in the center of the room, holding court like a king who had executed all his dissenters, was Tristan.
The air left my lungs in a rush.
He looked… tired. That was my first, disjointed thought. He was older. The gray at his temples, which had been just a few strands when I left, had spread like frost. He was leaner, his tuxedo jacket pulling tight across broad shoulders that seemed to carry an invisible weight. He wasn't smiling. He was nodding at something a Senator was saying, looking at his scotch glass as if he wished he could drown in it.
Beside him, clinging to his bicep like a barnacle, was Ida.
My vision tunneled. The woman who had ruined my life was wearing baby blue. She looked angelic. She was laughing at something, her head thrown back, that delicate, exposed throat vibrating with joy.
The rage that hit me was so sudden, so violent, it nearly brought me to my knees. It wasn't the hot, weeping anger of five years ago. It was cold. It was absolute zero.
"Mina," Lonnie warned, feeling my arm tense.
"I’m fine," I whispered. My voice was unrecognizable. "I need a drink."
"We should do a lap first, establish pres—"
"I need a drink, Lonnie."
I pulled away from him. I needed to move. If I stood still, I would shatter. I walked toward the bar, cutting a path through the crowd. People parted for me, not because they knew who I was, but because I walked like I would step on them if they didn't.
I reached the mahogany bar. It was polished to a shine, reflecting the chandeliers.
"Vodka martini," I told the bartender. "Dirty. Three olives."
"Make it two," a deep voice rumbled beside me. "Scotch. Neat."
My blood froze. The fine hairs on my arms stood up.
I knew that voice. It was the voice that had whispered vows to me in the dark. It was the voice that had screamed at me to get out.
I didn't turn. I couldn't. I stared at the bartender’s hands as he mixed my drink, praying that the floor would open up and swallow the entire building.
"I haven't seen you at these events before," Tristan said. He wasn't looking at me; he was looking at the bottles on the shelf, looking bored. He thought I was just another socialite trying to get close to the Johnston fortune. "You waiting for someone?"
I turned slowly.
The movement felt hydraulic, heavy. I turned until I was facing his profile. He was looking down, checking his watch.
"Hello, Tristan," I said.
He stopped checking his watch. His head snapped toward me.
For a second, there was nothing. Just the blank confusion of a brain trying to process impossible data. He looked at my hair. My mouth. My eyes.
Then, his hand opened.
The heavy crystal tumbler of scotch slipped from his fingers.
It hit the marble floor with a sound that seemed to cut through the orchestra’s strings. Crack-shatter. Amber liquid exploded outward, splashing the pristine cuffs of his trousers and the hem of my red dress. Shards of glass skittered across the floor like diamonds.
He didn't move. He didn't look down. He didn't blink.
"Minerva?"
The name was a strangled croak. It sounded painful, like he had swallowed gravel.
The silence around us was instantaneous. Heads turned. The great Tristan Johnston, who never flinched, who had stared down hostile takeovers without blinking, was staring at a woman as if he were seeing a ghost.
"It’s Mina now," I corrected him. My voice was smooth, cultured, devoid of the tremor that was currently shaking my skeleton apart. I picked up my martini from the bar, the cool glass grounding me.
His eyes were wide, the pupils blown. He looked like he was in shock. He took a half-step toward me, his expensive Italian leather shoes crunching on the broken glass. He didn't seem to notice.
"You..." He exhaled, and the smell of expensive whiskey and shock rolled off him. "You’re here. You’re actually here."
"I was invited," I said, taking a sip of my drink. The vodka burned, a welcome distraction. "Unlike last time, when I was escorted out by security."
He flinched. Actually flinched. The color drained from his face, leaving him gray. "Minerva, I—I looked for you. For a year, I had investigators turning over every stone on the East Coast. You vanished."
"I went where you couldn't reach me," I said. "It was the only way to survive."
"Survive?" He frowned, his brows knitting together. The confusion in his eyes was almost convincing. "I sent you money. I made sure you were taken care of."
I laughed. I couldn't help it. It was a sharp, jagged sound that felt like a weapon. "Is that what you tell yourself to sleep at night, Tristan? That you were generous?"
He reached out. His hand, large and familiar, moved toward my arm.
"Don't," I said.
The word was a whip crack. He froze, his hand hovering inches from my bare skin.
"Don't touch me," I lowered my voice, leaning in slightly so only he could hear. "You lost that privilege the moment you threw my suitcase into the rain."
His jaw worked. A muscle feathered in his cheek. He looked devastatingly handsome and utterly ruined. "We need to talk. Not here. My office—"
"I’m not here for you, Tristan," I cut him off. "I’m here for work. I have a fiancée waiting for me, and a contract to win."
"Fiancée?"
The word hit him harder than the glass breaking. His eyes darkened, that old possessive fire sparking to life in the dead ash of his gaze. He looked at my left hand. There was no ring—I had left it off on purpose—but the threat was enough.
"Who?" he growled. The vulnerability was gone, replaced by the alpha aggression I remembered too well. "Who is he?"
"Someone who trusts me," I said simply. "Someone who didn't need a DNA test to know who I was."
That landed. I saw the impact in the way his posture stiffened.
"Minerva!"
The screech came from behind him. Ida.
She appeared at his elbow, breathless, her eyes darting between us. When she saw me, her face did a complicated gymnastic routine—shock, then fear, then a rapidly assembled mask of delight.
"Oh my god!" Ida pressed a hand to her chest, her eyes wide and wet. "Minerva! Is it really you? We thought… we were so worried!"
She moved to hug me.
I sidestepped. Ida embraced the empty air where I had been standing a second ago. She stumbled, catching herself on Tristan’s arm, looking foolish.
"Hello, Ida," I said, looking down at her. "Still wearing pastels? A bit young for your age, isn't it?"
Ida blinked, her mouth opening and closing like a fish pulled onto a dock. She wasn't used to me biting back. The old Minerva would have complimented her dress and asked about her charity work.
"I… I just…" Ida stammered, gripping Tristan’s arm tighter. Her nails dug into his suit jacket. She looked at Tristan, her eyes pleading. "Tristan, look, she’s back. Isn't that… wonderful?"
She sounded like she was choking on the word.
"It’s certainly a surprise," Tristan murmured. He hadn't looked at his sister. His eyes were still locked on me, dissecting me, trying to find the girl he married inside the woman who wanted to destroy him.
I felt a hand on the small of my back.
"There you are, darling," Lonnie said, stepping up beside me. He looked at the broken glass, then at Tristan, then at me. He smiled, and it was all teeth. "Making a mess already? You know how clumsy you get when you’re bored."
Tristan’s gaze snapped to Lonnie. The air temperature dropped ten degrees.
"And you are?" Tristan demanded.
"Lonnie Garner," Lonnie extended a hand. Tristan stared at it. Lonnie didn't retract it; he just held it there, forcing the awkwardness to stretch until it was painful. Finally, he dropped his hand with a shrug. "Mina’s partner."
"Partner," Tristan repeated. He tasted the word like it was poison.
"In business and life," Lonnie added, pulling me closer. I leaned into him, resting my head briefly against his shoulder. I was shaking. I hoped Tristan couldn't see it.
"We should go, love," I said to Lonnie, turning my back on Tristan. "The air in here is suddenly very stale."
"Wait," Tristan said.
I paused, but I didn't turn back.
"This isn't over, Minerva."
I looked over my shoulder. I caught his eye, and I let him see it. All the pain. All the years of silence. All the hate.
"Oh, Tristan," I whispered, loud enough for the ghosts to hear. "We haven't even started."
I walked away. The glass crunched under my heels, a satisfying, destructive sound. I didn't look back to see if he was watching.
I knew he was. I could feel his gaze burning a hole between my shoulder blades, branding me all over again.
As we moved deeper into the crowd, away from them, my knees finally threatened to buckle. Lonnie held me up, his grip iron-tight.
"You did it," he whispered in my ear. "You survived."
I took a shaky breath, inhaling the scent of expensive perfume and treachery.