My fiancé ditched me at the altar. His secretary forced me to exchange wedding vows with a rooster just to humiliate me.

"Elise Summers, you didn't actually think Mr. Delgado would marry a nobody like you, did you? A woman with no background and nothing to offer?"

After calling off the wedding, he turned around and proposed to his secretary right in front of me.

"Hester hurt her hand slapping you. Apologize to her. Now."

"Unless you'd rather not walk out of Riverton in one piece."

The moment the words left his mouth, a group of men appeared behind him, leering, their eyes crawling over me without shame.

My fiancé thought I'd cower. Thought I'd beg.

Instead, I made one phone call.

The mayor personally escorted me under armed protection. Scott's own father hand-delivered shares of the company as a formal apology.

And my fiancé, once he learned who I really was, nearly choked on his regret.

……

The day of the wedding, I stood center stage in my white gown, the most pitiful spectacle in the room.

The auspicious hour had come and gone. My fiancé, Scott Delgado, was nowhere to be seen.

His chief secretary, Hester Pruitt, deliberately bumped into me as she passed, her voice dripping acid.

"Elise, you didn't actually think Mr. Delgado would marry a woman like you, did you? No background. No connections. Nothing useful to offer."

I narrowed my eyes.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Hester just smiled and said nothing. I pulled out my phone and called Scott.

"Scott, you missed the ceremony time. Everyone's waiting for you."

His voice came back clipped and irritated.

"What's the rush? I found a stray dog on the road. Can't make it back yet. Let Hester handle everything at the venue."

Before I could get another word in, the line went dead.

Hester's smirk widened the moment she heard. She didn't even bother hiding the mockery in her eyes.

"Well, since Mr. Delgado has entrusted me with running this wedding, let's carry on, shall we?"

Carry on? Without the groom?

My identity was sensitive. I couldn't afford to reveal too much. If it weren't for my parents telling me I'd been betrothed to Scott since childhood and asking me to honor the arrangement, I probably never would have agreed to marry anyone at all.

If Scott thought so little of this wedding, then there was no wedding to have.

I turned to leave. Hester grabbed my arm.

Following the line of her cold smile, I saw a staff member walking toward me.

Cradling a rooster.

My brow furrowed. I wrenched my arm free of Hester's grip.

"What exactly are you trying to pull?"

Hester beamed, all sweetness and venom.

"Mr. Delgado can't make it back in time, so why don't you just go through the ceremony with this instead?"

I stared at her in disbelief.

"You want me to exchange vows with a rooster? Have you lost your mind?"

A collective gasp rippled through the guests.

"Oh my God, Mr. Delgado adores Secretary Pruitt. She actually dared insult her? Does she have a death wish?"

"The last person who crossed Secretary Pruitt lost everything. Fiancée or not, she's done for."

"What a clueless hick. A rooster means good luck. Doesn't she know that? Secretary Pruitt was being generous."

Hester lifted her chin, triumph radiating from every pore, and shot the staff member a look.

The woman shoved the rooster into my arms. Before I could react, she knotted the red cord tied to the rooster's leg around my wrist, pulling it tight into a dead knot.

I let go on instinct. The rooster dangled from my wrist, shrieking and thrashing midair, feathers flying.

The ballroom erupted in laughter.

Fury blazed through me. I fixed Hester with a glare that could cut glass.

"Take this off. Now."

Hester acted as though she hadn't heard a word. She leaned into the microphone and announced, bright and clear, that the ceremony would begin.

"Come on, Miss Summers. Be a good sport. Don't hold up dinner for everyone."

"We'll skip the officiant's speech. The ring probably won't fit anyway. Let's jump straight to the wedding toast and the kiss."

The crowd below the stage roared with jeering laughter.

Someone grabbed the rooster and shoved it in my face.

"Don't you dare!"

"Hester Pruitt, if you humiliate me today, forget you—even Scott Delgado won't be able to handle the consequences!"

Hester swept her arm across the long display table, sending my dowry crashing to the floor. Porcelain shattered. Jade splintered. The sound cut through the hall like a scream.

I lunged forward and seized her wrist. "Stop!"

Those were antiques, every last piece irreplaceable. My parents had sent them specifically to give me standing at this wedding.

The moment Hester saw the panic on my face, she wrenched free and raked the remaining pieces off the table. They hit the marble in a cascade of breaking glass and splintering wood.

"No money, no power, and all you can scrape together for a dowry is this junk?" She curled her lip. "You think you can intimidate me?"

"Finish the ceremony, or I'll have someone finish it for you!"

On her signal, two men grabbed the wine glass—the one the rooster had already drunk from—and forced it toward my mouth.

I shoved them back with everything I had, trembling with a rage I could barely contain.

I had grown up inside a classified government research facility. Never in my life had anyone subjected me to this kind of degradation.

Enough was enough. I raised my hand, ready to slap Hester across the face.

A voice roared from behind me.

"Touch her and see what happens!"

My fingers curled into a fist. I stopped myself. Barely.

Scott glared at me, then strode past without a second glance. He went straight to Hester, who was clutching her wrist with a wounded expression. He cradled her hand in both of his, brow furrowed, voice impossibly gentle.

"Hester, are you okay?"

Her eyes turned red on cue. She pointed at me, voice quivering with rehearsed distress.

"Mr. Delgado, she bullied me! She tried to hit me—look, she hurt my wrist!"

I stood rooted to the spot. Something inside my chest sank, slow and heavy.

He hadn't come for me.

Scott turned his head. The look he gave me held no trace of guilt. Only undisguised contempt.

"Elise, who the hell gave you permission to lay a hand on Hester?"

Scott Delgado was handsome—strikingly so—and undeniably capable. But he was blind. Completely, willfully blind.

Watching him lash out without bothering to ask a single question, the fury inside me became impossible to swallow.

I tore the red cord from my wrist and threw it down.

"She's the one who destroyed my dowry. She's the one who humiliated me. And you two have the nerve to turn this around on me?"

"Scott, in case you've forgotten—you are my fiancé. She is your secretary."

Scott looked at me as if I'd told a joke. A cold, mirthless smile twisted his mouth.

"Fiancé?"

"Elise, you must have done your homework by now. You know exactly who I am. And you know exactly who you are." His voice turned to ice. "Do you honestly think you deserve to marry me?"

"Clinging to some dusty old favor between our parents and thinking that's enough to climb your way into the Delgado family? Keep dreaming."

The guests, emboldened now that Scott had said it outright, let their whispers swell into open mockery.

"Scott Delgado runs this city. Even if he didn't marry into old money, he'd marry for love. Who does she think she is? If she doesn't own a mirror, she can always check her reflection in a puddle."

"Trash belongs in the gutter. Try to perch on a higher branch and you won't even know what killed you when you fall."

Before I could get a word out, Scott shot me one last scornful look, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a diamond ring. The stone was enormous—the size of a pigeon's egg, catching the light like a small sun.

He dropped to one knee in front of Hester.

The entire hall erupted.

Hester pressed both hands over her mouth, tears brimming, the picture of overwhelmed gratitude.

Scott slid the ring onto her finger. His voice was tender and deliberate, carrying to every corner of the room.

"Hester, I'm sorry I put you through this."

"This wedding was nothing but a farce my father forced on me. You're the one I love. You've always been the one."

"Marry me. I'll give you everything you've ever wanted. No one will ever make you suffer again."

Hester's face glowed with triumph. She cast a slow, deliberate glance in my direction, then admired the ring on her finger, her voice dripping with sweetness.

"Thank you, Scott. You're so good to me."

I stood there, frozen to the bone. My nails bit into my palms until I felt the skin break.

From the time I was old enough to understand anything, I was taught two things: protect your country, and never accept humiliation.

This was a premeditated attack. A calculated degradation.

If the people above me ever found out what happened here, every last one of them—the entire Delgado family included—would face consequences they couldn't begin to imagine.

The moment that ring slid onto Hester's finger, she looked like a woman who'd finally gotten everything she ever wanted. Vindication radiated off her in waves.

Before I could react, her hand whipped across my face. The slap cracked through the room like a gunshot.

"Know your place, Elise. Get lost. This wedding is mine now."

My cheek burned white-hot.

That slap. Every humiliation I'd swallowed today. I filed them all away.

It wasn't that I didn't dare hit back. My parents had made it clear before I left: my identity was classified, and every word I spoke, every move I made, represented the facility's interests. I couldn't afford a scene.

"Fine. The wedding's off."

Scott's expression darkened. He clearly hadn't expected me to agree so easily.

I tore off the veil and turned to leave.

His voice cut through the air behind me, cold as a blade.

"Stop. Did I say you could go?"

My steps faltered. I turned to face him.

"What now? Got something else to say, Mr. Delgado? The wedding's canceled. There's nothing left between us."

Scott closed the distance until he towered over me, his tone dripping with arrogance.

"Apologize to Hester."

"Apologize? For what?"

A cruel smirk twisted his lips.

"For humiliating her in public. For embarrassing her so badly she cried for days. For the slap she just gave you—which hurt her own hand, by the way."

His voice dropped lower, possessive and final.

"And because Hester is my woman now."

I almost laughed. Actually, I did laugh—a short, disbelieving sound.

"Scott, if your brain's this broken, see a doctor. When exactly did I humiliate her in public?"

Hester stood off to the side, smug satisfaction plastered across her face.

"Oh, Ms. Summers has such a short memory. Three months ago, at your engagement party with Scott, I accidentally spilled a little wine on you. And you had me thrown out. You even forced me to pay damages..."

Her voice climbed higher, trembling with practiced hurt. She pouted, burrowed into Scott's chest, and let out a string of pitiful little sobs.

Now that she mentioned it, I did remember.

That engagement party had been nothing more than a cover—a convenient excuse to facilitate the covert handoff of a classified document. The whole event was theater.

Hester had barged up to me out of nowhere and splashed an entire glass of red wine down my front. The wine hadn't damaged the device concealing the classified files, but her behavior was suspicious enough to raise flags.

My superiors had assigned me a personal bodyguard who posed as a distant cousin. She'd interrogated Hester as a potential security threat and removed her from the venue.

But the claim about forced compensation? Pure fabrication.

Scott's gaze bored into me, venomous and sharp.

"You dared humiliate Hester like that. Today, you'll pay it back a hundred times over."

So that was what this was about. Scott skipping the wedding to propose to Hester. The rooster. The tainted wine forced to my lips.

All of it—revenge for three months ago.

I drew a slow breath and crushed the fury rising in my chest. When I spoke, my voice was ice.

"You want me to apologize? Neither of you deserves one."

Scott's face went ashen.

"You'll apologize whether you want to or not. And on top of that, you'll pay Hester ten million dollars in emotional damages."

His eyes narrowed to slits.

"Otherwise, you won't make it out of Riverton in one piece."

On cue, several men materialized behind him. Their expressions were lewd, their gazes crawling over my body without an ounce of shame.

He thought I'd crumble. Thought I couldn't produce that kind of money. Thought I'd have no choice but to beg.

What he didn't know was that ten million dollars meant nothing to me. And threats? From him?

Not even close.

A faint smile curved the corner of my mouth.

"Fine. Ten million. I'll pay."

I let the words settle. Then my gaze hardened.

"But she just slapped me across the face. And she destroyed my dowry." I looked between them, steady and unhurried. "So don't you think you owe me an apology? And compensation of your own?"