The Runaway Heiress Returns For Revenge

The automatic glass doors slid open with a soft hiss, and the air that hit Adelina Alexander was pure November in New York. It was a damp, biting cold that slipped past the collar of her gray trench coat and made the fine hairs on her neck stand up.

She pushed the silver Rimowa luggage cart forward, its wheels gliding silently over the polished floor of JFK's Terminal 4 arrivals hall. Her phone felt like a block of ice in her hand. A text from Clara glowed on the screen: a license plate number for an Uber. Black Lincoln Navigator.

She was scanning the chaotic pickup area when a roar erupted from the crowd near the VIP exit.

It wasn't a sound of panic. It was a sound of hunger.

A dozen paparazzi were held back by a cordon of four broad-shouldered security guards in dark suits, who formed a moving human wall. The photographers, their cameras held high like weapons, strained against the barrier, a wave of black jackets and frantic energy. The sheer force of the commotion, a vortex of shouting and flashing lights, made Adelina instinctively pull her cart back, tucking herself into the relative safety behind a massive concrete support pillar.

Flashes erupted, a storm of artificial lightning that bleached the cavernous hall white for a split second, again and again. It made her squint.

Through the gaps in the swarming bodies, a figure emerged. Tall. Impossibly so. The kind of height that commanded a space just by existing in it. He wore a black custom-tailored overcoat, the lines so sharp they could have been cut from obsidian. One hand was shoved casually into his pocket.

Gage Evans.

The air left Adelina's lungs in a silent rush. It was as if a vacuum had been turned on in her chest. Three years, and the sight of his face-the severe line of his jaw, the cold indifference in his dark eyes-still had the power to stop her heart.

Clinging to his arm was Ferne Brady, the supermodel of the moment, her smile as bright and manufactured as the camera flashes capturing it. She laughed at something he must have murmured, her fingers, adorned with a Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet, tightening on his bicep.

One aggressive reporter broke through the security line, shoving a microphone toward Gage's face. "Mr. Evans! Is a wedding announcement imminent?"

Gage didn't even glance at the man. He didn't get angry. He simply turned his head slightly, his expression softening into something that looked unnervingly like affection, and gently tucked a stray strand of blonde hair behind Ferne's ear.

The simple, tender gesture was a punch to Adelina's gut.

Her fingers tightened on the handle of her luggage cart, the cold metal biting into her skin. Her knuckles turned white.

Ferne, playing her part perfectly, blushed and buried her face in the chest of his coat.

A crosswind, created by the constant opening and closing of the terminal doors, swirled around the