She was twenty-eight years old, shivering slightly from the damp chill of the storm outside. She wore a faded, ill-fitting gray wool coat she had bought at a thrift store three years ago. Her face was gaunt, the dark, sunken circles under her eyes speaking of profound, agonizing exhaustion. Clutched tightly against her chest was a six-week-old infant. The baby was wrapped not in the plush cashmere expected of a billionaire’s great-grandson, but in a thin, heavily pilled, violently frayed fleece blanket.
Sitting in a high-backed leather chair near the fireplace was Victor Holloway. He was the ruthless, seventy-eight-year-old billionaire patriarch of the family. He was a man whose mere signature commanded global markets, a man who possessed eyes like chips of flint and a mind that missed absolutely nothing.
