Chapter 1: The Ghost at the Gates

Mary Rose POV

The iron gates of Graystone Manor look exactly like I remember them imposing, elegant, and utterly unforgiving. I've been sitting in my car for twenty minutes, engine off, watching dawn light creep across the Gray family crest embedded in the wrought iron. Three years ago, I stood before these same gates believing they'd open to my future. Now I'm here because I'm too broke to let pride win over survival.

My hands shake as I gather my camera equipment from the passenger seat. Professional armor, I call it. The Nikon that cost me three months of ramen dinners. The lenses I bought instead of paying my electric bill on time. The portfolio that represents every wedding I've photographed since Henry Gray taught me that love is just another commodity rich men trade when they get bored.

I should leave. Turn the car around and drive back to my studio in SoHo, where the rent is two months overdue and my assistant Carmen keeps looking at me with worried eyes that say she knows I'm drowning. But the Wellington-Morrison wedding fee is fifty thousand dollars. Fifty thousand dollars that will clear the debts Henry left me with when he canceled our wedding and disappeared to London. Fifty thousand dollars that will finally let me breathe without feeling like I'm suffocating under the weight of his betrayal.

The intercom crackles before I can talk myself into cowardice. "Miss Bennett? We're opening the gates now."

The sound they make swinging open is worse than I imagined a low groan that feels like a warning I'm too desperate to heed. I force myself out of the car, slinging camera bags over my shoulders like a soldier going into battle. Because that's what this is, isn't it? A battle against memories that still have the power to make me feel small and stupid and unworthy.

The cobblestone driveway stretches before me like an accusation. I walked this path twice during my engagement to Henry, both times feeling like an imposter playing dress-up in a world I didn't understand. Henry never wanted me to feel comfortable here. Looking back, I can see how he kept me separate from his family and how he positioned our relationship as something vaguely embarrassing that needed to be managed rather than celebrated.

Graystone Manor rises ahead of me, more beautiful than any building has a right to be. Georgian architecture with modern touches, the kind of wealth that whispers instead of shouts. Henry brought me here exactly twice: once for a garden party where he introduced me as "a friend," and once for a family dinner where his father never showed and his sister Emma looked at me like I was already a ghost.

I'm halfway up the drive when the mahogany double doors open and a man steps out.

My breath catches.

This isn't Henry.

The man descending the stone steps moves with the kind of unconscious authority that comes from never doubting your place in the world. Tall, easily over six feet, with broad shoulders that fill his charcoal suit like it was designed specifically for his body. Which it probably was. His dark hair shows silver at the temples, distinguished rather than aging, and his face carries the kind of austere handsomeness that improves with years rather than fading.

But it's his eyes that make my pulse stutter and my carefully constructed professional composure crack. Steel-blue and intense, they lock onto me with focus that makes me feel simultaneously stripped bare and completely seen. There's intelligence there, and grief, and something that looks dangerously like hunger.

I know who he is. I've seen him in older photos, before grief carved lines beside his mouth and shadows under his eyes. Thomas Gray. Henry's father. The billionaire who built an empire from grief and determination. The widower who turned his late wife's family estate into Manhattan's most exclusive wedding venue.

The man Henry resented so much he couldn't spend five minutes talking about him without bitterness creeping into his voice.

"You must be Mary Rose," he says, and his voice is nothing like Henry's. Where his son's voice was boyish charm and careless confidence, Thomas Gray's voice is whiskey and smoke, dark and smooth and utterly compelling. He extends his hand as he reaches me, and I'm suddenly very aware that I'm standing frozen like an idiot with my mouth slightly open.

"Mr. Gray," I manage, forcing my hand into his.

The contact is electric. His palm is warm and calloused, surprising for a billionaire, and his grip is firm without being aggressive. But it's the way his thumb brushes against my wrist, barely perceptible, that sends heat racing up my arm and makes me forget every professional boundary I've spent three years constructing.

His eyes widen slightly, a flicker of surprise that mirrors my own shock at the intensity of such simple contact. For a moment, we just stand there, hands clasped, while something dangerous and inevitable passes between us.

"Thomas, please," he says, his voice rougher than before. "Mr. Gray was my father, and he was an asshole." The casual profanity surprises a laugh out of me, breaking the tension enough that I can breathe again. His mouth curves into a small smile that transforms his austere features into something devastatingly attractive. "I've been following your work. The Hartley wedding last month you captured something remarkable."

I blink, thrown off balance by the specific reference. "You've seen my portfolio?"

"I make it a point to know the artists I work with." He releases my hand finally and gestures toward the manor. "Shall we? I'll give you the full tour before we discuss the Wellington-Morrison details."

I should say something professional. Something that establishes appropriate boundaries between photographer and client. Instead, I hear myself say, "You don't usually meet with photographers personally, do you? That's what event coordinators are for."

His smile deepens, and there's something almost predatory in it. Something that makes my stomach flip and my thighs clench. "I don't usually," he admits. "But when I saw your work, I wanted to meet you myself. Call it curiosity."

We walk toward the manor together, and I'm hyperaware of his presence beside me. He's close enough that I can smell his cologne cedar and something darker, something that makes me think of rumpled sheets and whispered confessions. Close enough that when his hand settles on my lower back to guide me through the doorway, the touch burns through my sweater like a brand.

The entrance hall is exactly as I remember it: soaring ceilings, marble floors, and morning light filtering through stained glass windows in jeweled patterns. But everything feels different with Thomas Gray beside me, his attention focused on me with an intensity that makes the vast space feel intimate.

"Catherine loved this light," he says quietly, and I realize he's watching me photograph the window. "My late wife. She'd stand here every morning with her coffee, watching the colors change." There's grief in his voice, but it's tempered with something softer. Acceptance, maybe. Or the beginning of peace.

"I'm sorry for your loss," I say, meaning it. The words feel inadequate, but his slight nod suggests he hears the sincerity beneath the platitude.

"Five years ago," he says. "Cancer. It was..." He pauses, seeming to struggle for words. "Devastating" doesn't cover it. But Emma, our daughter, and the business kept me functional when grief wanted to make me useless." His eyes meet mine again, and the vulnerability in them makes my chest ache. "You understand loss, don't you? I can see it in your photographs. The way you capture joy but never forget the shadows."

The observation is too accurate, too intimate for someone I've known for five minutes. "My parents died when I was sixteen," I admit, not sure why I'm sharing this. "Car accident. I learned early that beauty and tragedy aren't opposites; they're partners."

Something shifts in Thomas's expression recognition, maybe, or the acknowledgment of shared understanding that transcends words. "Then you'll understand why Graystone matters so much to me," he says. "Every wedding here is my way of proving that love survives loss. That beauty can emerge from ashes."

We're standing too close. His body heat radiates against my side, and when I tilt my head to meet his eyes, I realize he's looking at my mouth. My lips part involuntarily, and his jaw tightens with what looks like monumental self-control.

"We should continue the tour," he says, but he doesn't move. Neither do I. We're suspended in a moment that feels stolen from time, dangerous and electric and absolutely forbidden.

Because this man this compelling, grief-stricken, devastatingly attractive man is Henry Gray's father.

And I'm already in so much trouble.