Twenty-one and ready to take on the world, orphan Lizzie Gold didn't expect her chance encounter with a stranger to lead to a damnable task - to take down a rising business tycoon.
Ryan Pierce - her viciously handsome target and her new boss - might...
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L I Z Z I E 27 | what does a man live for?
The Pierce estate is a panoramic beauty, showcasing everything that I ever dreamed to see for real. More than seeing, it is the feeling of being within this place — this mansion with hundreds of rooms, built in the styles of modern architecture and added countryside touches to its decor.
I manage to lose Reece while he is bragging about the beauty of his home as my legs take me round and round corridors, my eyes absorbing the numerous paintings that adorn the walls. They are masterpieces, each one of them. Artworks by famous painters.
One of them, though, catches my eye in particular.
It is a painting of a woman with a smile similar to the Mona Lisa's. The fair woman with rosy cheeks and black hair falling lovingly over her shoulders looks right at me. There is melancholy in her gaze like she wants to escape the painting and be out in the real world instead. She is trapped in a golden frame, painted with the lightest strokes of the brightest colors. Her posture is a straight, lean figure painted wearing a neon green dress. Her feet are placed in tiny, black boots. She is a woman from the 80s or 90s. The ones with American Dreams in their appearances. Her picture is encased in the largest of all paintings I have seen around the mansion.
She looms high over my head, taking the center of the wall she is hung on, making all the other frames appear miniature on either side of her.
"Magnificent, isn't she?"
The voice that speaks behind me makes me turn my head to spot Winston Clarke. He stands tall, hands in the pockets of his black dress pants and with a ghost of a smile on his lips.
"She is," I agree, glancing back at the woman as I hear Winston step closer to me so that we are both peering up at it. "Who is she?"
"Caitlin Hayes," he answers. "The wife of Silas Hayes."
"I'm afraid I don't know either of them."
A throaty chuckle leaves Winston, marred by a dark scoff. "How could you? The Pierces erased every bit of their existence from here." He sighs, lifting a hand to touch the frame of the painting. "The Hayes were the original owners of this estate. It was their mansion. Their ancestral mansion."
"Oh..." The painting takes a new meaning for me then as I can finally put a reason for the melancholy behind the woman's eyes. "What happened to them?"
"No one knows. All that is known is that they were gone one day and Marcus Pierce was the new owner of everything that Silas ever owned — the mansion, the estate, the business, and everything that once belonged to Silas."
"And Caitlin? What happened to her?"
"They say she lost herself in her grief and killed herself, leaving behind their only daughter. I don't know how much of that is true..."
