Chapter 1 - Send the Ugly One
Adelaide Jones heard her family decide which daughter was worth sacrificing while she stood six feet away holding their mail.
“Send the ugly one.”
Her sister Chloe said it as casually as if she were choosing a bottle of wine.
Laughter followed.
Adelaide did not move.
Through the narrow opening between the drawing-room doors, she could see her father seated beneath a portrait of Adelaide’s dead mother, one hand wrapped around a crystal tumbler.
Rockford Jones had already finished two scotches.
The third sat untouched between his fingers.
Twenty minutes earlier, attorney Malcolm Pierce had delivered the news no wealthy Boston family ever expected to hear.
There was no refinancing package.
No emergency loan.
No respectable bank willing to touch the problem.
Rockford Jones had lost fifteen million dollars belonging to Mateo Moretti.
The official explanation was aggressive technology trading.
The truth, Adelaide suspected, was far more complicated.
But nobody had asked her.
Nobody ever did.
“He wants a marriage?” Chloe demanded.
Rockford nodded miserably.
“An alliance.”
“With you?” Evelyn Jones asked.
“With the family.”
Evelyn was Adelaide’s stepmother.
Beautiful.
Elegant.
Cold enough to make winter seem emotional.
“He specifically requested a daughter?”
“Yes.”
Chloe laughed nervously.
“Well, obviously not me.”
Rockford looked at her.
“Chloe—”
“I have a life.”
“You think Adelaide doesn’t?” he asked.
The room became quiet.
For half a second, Adelaide almost loved him again.
Then Evelyn touched his shoulder.
“He didn’t specify which daughter.”
Chloe’s expression changed.
Adelaide saw the idea arrive.
Slowly.
Cruelly.
Her older sister lowered the nail file she had been using.
Then she smiled.
“Adelaide.”
Evelyn smiled too.
“Of course.”
Rockford stared at them.
“No.”
But it was a weak no.
A coward’s no.
Chloe leaned back.
“Why not? Mateo Moretti expects some glamorous socialite. Imagine his face when Daddy sends Adelaide.”
Evelyn laughed.
“A scar, terrible glasses, and that librarian wardrobe.”
“He’ll think we’re insulting him.”
“Or he’ll send her back.”
“Or kill her.”
They laughed again.
Adelaide’s fingers tightened around the envelopes.
The scar on the left side of her face began near her temple and crossed her cheek toward her jaw.
She had been nine when she got it.
Nine when rain turned the highway silver.
Nine when her mother screamed.
Nine when twisted metal crushed one side of the car while Adelaide remained trapped beside the woman who had given her life trying to protect her.
Her mother died.
Adelaide survived.
Her family had treated the survival as aesthetically unfortunate ever since.
Chloe had inherited their mother’s beauty.
Adelaide had inherited the scar.
And apparently that made her disposable.
“What value does Adelaide bring us?” Evelyn asked.
Rockford said nothing.
That silence hurt more than Chloe’s laughter.
Adelaide pushed the doors open.
Every face turned.
Chloe’s smile vanished.
Evelyn recovered first.
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough.”
Rockford stood.
“Addie—”
“Don’t.”
She set the mail on a side table.
Her hands trembled, so she clasped them together.
“You owe Mateo Moretti fifteen million dollars.”
Rockford looked stunned.
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve been repairing your accounting mistakes for eighteen months.”
Evelyn’s gaze sharpened.
“You’ve been going through private financial records?”
“I’ve been preventing auditors from realizing how badly managed this company is.”
“Adelaide—” Rockford began.
“No.”
She looked at her father.
“I’ll go.”
Chloe blinked.
Even Evelyn seemed surprised.
Rockford’s face drained.
“You don’t have to.”
Adelaide almost laughed.
“Yes, I do.”
“No.”
“You’ve already decided.”
“I didn’t.”
“You sat here while they discussed whether he might kill me.”
Her father looked away.
That was answer enough.
“I’ll go,” Adelaide repeated. “Not for you. There are eighty-three people working at Jones Financial who didn’t steal anything and don’t deserve to lose their jobs because you were careless.”
Evelyn crossed her arms.
“How noble.”
Adelaide turned toward her.
“When I walk out tonight, I am done with this family.”
Rockford flinched.
“Adelaide.”
“You can keep the name.”
Three hours later, they dressed her like an insult.
An old olive-gray dress from a guest closet.
No jewelry.
No luggage.
No proper coat.
Chloe actually inspected her before she left.
“You really do look tragic.”
Adelaide looked at her sister.
“Enjoy laughing while you still can.”
The smile disappeared from Chloe’s face.
Rain slammed against the town car all the way west.
Boston disappeared behind her.
The Berkshire Mountains rose from darkness ahead.
When the Moretti estate finally appeared, Adelaide stopped breathing.
Stone walls.
Iron gates.
Armed guards.
Black vehicles.
The Morettis did not look like people who accepted excuses.
A guard escorted Adelaide through a mansion that felt less like a home than a kingdom deliberately hidden from the world.
At the end of a long corridor, two doors opened.
Mateo Moretti stood behind a mahogany desk.
Thirty-two.
Tall.
Broad-shouldered.
Midnight-blue suit.
Dark hair brushed back.
A face handsome enough to look dangerous before anyone mentioned the armed men outside.
His eyes lifted from the papers before him.
“Jones.”
His voice was calm.
“You’re late.”
“The storm.”
He said nothing.
Adelaide entered.
The doors closed behind her.
Mateo finally studied her.
Not glanced.
Studied.
His eyes moved over the old dress.
The cheap shoes Evelyn had chosen.
The heavy black glasses.
Then the scar.
He stopped.
Silence stretched.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Adelaide’s courage began collapsing.
Of course.
This was exactly what Chloe wanted.
Humiliation.
She swallowed.
“I know I’m not what you expected.”
Mateo moved around the desk.
Adelaide backed instinctively toward the doors.
“My family sent me because they believed my appearance would insult you.”
His expression changed.
Barely.
But something cold entered it.
“If you intend to punish them,” Adelaide continued, “leave the employees of Jones Financial out of it.”
Mateo stopped in front of her.
“And you?”
“What about me?”
“You didn’t mention yourself.”
She forced herself to hold his gaze.
“If you’re going to kill me, please do it quickly.”
Something unexpected flashed through his eyes.
Not amusement.
Anger.
But not at her.
Mateo raised one hand.
Adelaide flinched.
She hated herself for it.
The blow never came.
Instead, his fingertips stopped near her cheek.
He waited.
“May I?”
She did not understand.
Then realized he meant the glasses.
Slowly, Adelaide nodded.
Mateo removed them.
Without the thick lenses, his face blurred slightly.
But she could still see him looking directly at her scar.
Not avoiding it.
Not pretending not to notice.
Looking.
His thumb brushed gently near its edge.
Adelaide’s throat tightened.
“Disgusted?” she whispered.
Mateo’s eyes snapped back to hers.
“Disgusted?”
“My family—”
“I heard what your family says about you.”
Adelaide froze.
Mateo stepped closer.
“Do you know why I’ve been silent?”
“No.”
His voice lowered.
“Because Rockford Jones owed me fifteen million dollars, and somehow he still managed to send me the only valuable person in his house.”
Adelaide stared.
Mateo looked toward her scar again.
Then returned her glasses.
“Why would I be disgusted by the only real thing in a family of plastic cowards?”
Her heart stumbled.
Mateo walked back toward his desk.
Adelaide remained motionless.
Then he opened a file.
Her photograph sat inside.
Not a society photograph.
A professional one.
Beside it were copies of financial reports.
Reports she had written anonymously for Jones Financial.
Adelaide’s blood went cold.
Mateo looked at her.
“Sit down, Miss Jones.”
She did not move.
“What is that?”
“Your work.”
“How did you get it?”
His expression became unreadable.
“Because contrary to what your family believes…”
Mateo placed one finger on a page bearing Adelaide’s calculations.
“You are the reason I asked for a daughter.”
Adelaide’s breath caught.
May you like
He leaned back.
“And you are exactly the daughter I hoped they would send.”
