A family alliance had sealed my fate: I was to marry Dante, heir to the Moretti family of the Chicago Outfit.

To escape this arrangement, I fled at twenty.

Then I met the gallant and charming Julian Thorne. He rescued me, sculpted me into a high-society debutante, and championed my career as an illustrator.

Finally, on my twenty-third birthday, we made love, and then he proposed.

I thought I had finally found happiness, but just as I reached for the doorknob, I overheard a conversation between him and his friends:

"Julian, you've been playing this long game for three years. Suddenly sleeping with her and popping the question? Aren't you afraid Scarlett will actually lose it this time?"

The man's voice was casual. "If I didn't force the issue, how else was I going to convince her to go back tomorrow?"

The room erupted in jeers, and a cold fist closed around my heart.

"So, you kept this Moretti girl on a string for years, and now you're just gonna toss her aside?"

The man chuckled. "She's pliable."

"You want her? She's yours."

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1

Roars of laughter echoed from the private club.

The blood froze in my veins. I stood there, paralyzed.

The tender voice that had whispered seductively in my ear only days before now felt like a shard of ice plunging straight into my heart.

"Possessing her is the ultimate humiliation for the Moretti family... Besides, I've been saving myself for Scarlett for years. It's time someone helped me scratch an itch."

A fresh wave of malicious laughter erupted. "She must be a tasty little thing, then."

"Cut the crap. Julian's been pining for Scarlett for years. He can finally win her back!"

"Julian's a fucking genius! Honed his skills, got his rocks off, and now the one that got away is finally back!"

The voices in the room swelled, mocking and cruel.

Tears streamed down my face. I clenched my fists, stifling a sob.

Scarlett—I knew that name. The walls of Julian's apartment were a shrine to her—countless photos of them together, the girl radiant as the sun, clinging to his arm. Julian had told me in a flat, dismissive tone that she was just a childhood neighbor. I had believed him without question.

The proposal replayed in my mind, vivid and painful. His eyes, hazy with desire, had gazed at me with such deep, convincing love.

"Elara, you're driving me insane... Will you marry me?"

His hoarse voice had grazed my ear, his hot breath a swirl against my skin. After I’d whispered yes, his embrace was so passionate, so real.

He played his part so perfectly. How could I ever have suspected—

Suspected that the man who had treated me like a princess for three years had only ever seen me as a pawn.

I ducked into the restroom, clamping a hand over my mouth, but a choked whimper still escaped.

Three years ago, to evade the men searching for me, I lived in the shadows, scurrying from the light like a rat. I was nearly dragged into a van in an alley behind a bar.

Julian had seen to it that those men were hauled to the police station before wrapping me in his cashmere overcoat and carrying me back to his penthouse.

When I first arrived, I was like a feral, wary animal. He didn't seem to mind, just patiently soothed me, found clean clothes that fit, and settled me into the guest room.

He escorted me to glittering banquets where champagne flowed freely.

He showed me a million-dollar fireworks display from the deck of a cruise ship.

Knowing I loved to draw, he set up the perfect art studio for me and supported my dream of becoming an illustrator.

...

He had burst into my gray world, flooding it with color.

But it was all just a meticulously crafted trap.

The phone in my pocket vibrated, yanking me from my thoughts. The message from an unknown number was blunt:

"You have one week. If Julian Thorne is serious about marrying you, I'll call off the arrangement."

The people and things I once feared most now seemed to offer a strange, twisted sort of comfort.

Rather than wait for Julian to give me away like a party favor, I would forge my own path.

I wiped the tears from my face and typed back with grim resolve:

"I don't need a week. Come get me from Julian's apartment tomorrow."

I splashed cold water on my face and stared at my reflection. My skin was ashen, my eyes rimmed with red—the undeniable proof of my tears.

I had hoped to slip away unnoticed, but I never expected to run into Julian and his friends right outside the restroom.

They all stopped, their smirks telling me they knew I’d overheard. And didn't care.

"Elara, what are you doing here? Didn't I tell you to rest at home?" Julian's voice was gentle as always as he draped his overcoat over my shoulders.

His familiar scent of cedar filled my lungs, and a fresh wave of grief hit me.

But I forced a smile. "I just needed some air."

Someone, clearly relishing the drama, suggested I join Scarlett's welcome party that evening.

Julian studied me, his expression unreadable, before he nodded slowly.

"Scarlett will probably be... very surprised to see you."

A bitter smile touched my lips. As a pawn, I had no right to refuse.

As night fell, Scarlett strode into the private room on a pair of stilettos, met by a chorus of cheers.

She looked more mature than in her photos, a blush-pink bodycon dress clinging to her exquisite figure.

Almost instantly, I heard the sharp intake of breath from the man beside me.

"You're the one Julian is planning to marry?"

The woman sized me up, her eyes glinting with open disdain.

Sensing her hostility, I chose silence.

She slid in beside Julian, her thigh deliberately brushing against his suit trousers.

When you love someone, you're attuned to their every shift—and I realized with a pang of sorrow that the ever-proud Julian was nervous.

Julian's voice was hoarse, his fists clenched at his sides.

"You're getting bolder. It's fall, and you're in a skirt that short? Aren't you cold?"

As he spoke, he draped his own suit jacket over her bare legs.

It made me, also in a short skirt, feel like a complete joke.

Like a triumphant princess, Scarlett smirked at me. "Julian and I have known each other for over ten years. He never laid a hand on me because he respected me too much, but we've slept in the same bed more times than I can count. What about you? How many times have you slept with him? Is he any good?"

A ripple of low snickers went through the group.

Humiliation burned in my cheeks, but when I saw the tips of Julian's ears turn red, a defiant spark ignited within me.

Swallowing the acid that rose in my throat, I forced a calm I didn't feel.

"Why don't you try him and find out?"

Scarlett froze for a second before a slow, knowing smile curved her lips. "Me? But he's your fiancé."

"It's fine. I don't mind. He probably doesn't either."

A taut silence descended on the room, thick with unspoken tension.

The gentle warmth in Julian's eyes had vanished, replaced by shame and then a flicker of warning—of impatience.

"Elara," he hissed, "I didn't bring you here to make a fool out of me."

A lump of ice formed in my throat, my heart constricting as if caught in a vise.

In the past, whenever I'd blundered at these gatherings, he would gently defuse the situation. Later, when I’d ask if I’d embarrassed him, he'd just smile, a fond look in his eyes, and tell me I never had to feel insecure with him around.

But that promise, it seemed, didn't apply when his one true love was in the room.

I said nothing.

Probably finding my silence boring, Scarlett started clamoring for a drinking game. When Julian lost a round, my hand moved instinctively to take his glass.

Scarlett's voice was a purr. "Julian, it's my first day back. Indulge me, won't you? Drink the rest of my glass."

She swirled the whiskey in her hand, a bold red lipstick print staining the rim.

Julian never touched cheap whiskey—said it gave him headaches. I always drank for him, feeling a pang of protectiveness.

I never expected him to press my hand down, his gaze cold. "I'll do it."

"But you..."

The next second, he tilted his head back and drained his own glass. Then he reached for Scarlett's, his throat working as he knocked it back, his lips deliberately pressing against her lipstick stain.

"If it's from Scarlett, I'd drink poison."

The emotion churning in his eyes was raw and overwhelming.

My fingernails dug into my palms. "So this is what he's like when he truly loves someone," I thought, a bitter laugh rising in my chest. He'd give up his life for her.

As the atmosphere grew rowdier, someone suddenly held up their phone with a gasp.

"Whoa, isn't that the elusive Don Moretti? Scarlett, when did you get so chummy with him?"

A candid photo glowed on the screen. On the steps of a private jet, she was blushing, sharing an intimate moment with a devastatingly handsome man who was smiling down at her.

I froze. The man in the picture was breathtaking, radiating power. Three years ago, he had leveled that same scrutinizing gaze at me. Back then, I had felt nothing but terror and had escaped right under his nose.

And tomorrow, I was going to walk right back to him.