Chapter 5

Saturday afternoon. I went to the bridal boutique for my dress fitting.

Oliver had agreed to come.

Because the night before, I'd sent him one message: If you don't show up, I'm forwarding your falsified financial records to the IRS.

He showed up.

At two o'clock, I stood in the VIP fitting room, staring at my reflection in a floor-length mirror.

The mermaid gown fit like it had been made for me.

I looked beautiful. My eyes were ice cold.

"Miss Rosalind, this silhouette is stunning on you. Oliver is going to be speechless." the attendant gushed.

I smoothed the skirt and said nothing.

Two-thirty came and went. No Oliver.

I called him. It rang for a long time before he picked up.

"Ros, I'm sorry. I can't make it." His voice was rushed, breathless. "Lily fell off a slide at kindergarten. They think it might be a fracture. Candy's at the hospital alone, she's falling apart — I need to be here."

I could hear a woman crying faintly in the background.

"Oliver," I said quietly. "Today is my dress fitting."

"Can you please try to have some empathy right now?!" he exploded. "She's only a four-year-old child. The dress isn't going anywhere. Why are you making this into something? God, you're unbelievable!

He hung up.

I looked at myself in the mirror, and suddenly realized it was time to end this farce.

The door to the fitting room opened behind me.

I assumed it was the attendant. Without turning, I said, "Can you undo the zipper? I'm done for today."

Two large, warm hands settled on my back.

The touch was slow, deliberate — fingertips grazing the bare skin along my spine.

That was not an attendant!

I spun around.

The man standing behind me was tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in a perfectly fitted black suit. His presence filled the room like a pressure change in the air — commanding, contained, and completely unhurried.

Alistair Voss.

The youngest and most ruthless venture capitalist in the city's top financial circles — and the major investor Oliver had been desperately trying to lock down for months.

"Mr. Voss—" I instinctively stepped back and caught the heel of my mermaid skirt. I stumbled.

He caught me. One arm, clean and effortless, pulling me against his chest.

He smelled like cold pine and faint smoke. It was a strangely grounding scent.

"Oliver has good taste," he said, looking down at me. "It's a shame he's blind."

His gaze moved over me — unhurried, unashamed.

"Mr. Voss, please behave yourself."

I pushed against his chest. He didn't move.

"Rosalind Hale. Twenty-seven. Married five years. Currently building a case against her husband for infidelity and financial fraud."

His voice was low, almost casual.

"The investigator you hired is decent, but he's out of his depth. He'll never get to the core of what Oliver's actually hiding."

He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and produced a small black USB drive, held between two fingers.

"This has everything. Three years of off-book contracts, money laundering records, and every overseas asset he's moved into Candy's name."

"Turn it over to the right people, and Oliver doesn't just lose everything — he goes to prison."

My breath caught.

I looked at the drive. Then back at him.

"What do you want?"

He stepped forward, backing me gently against the vanity table. Both hands braced on the surface behind me, his arms framing me in.

"I want the AI patent Oliver's company holds."

He leaned in. His eyes were direct and predatory in a way that felt almost honest.

"In exchange, I help you take back everything that's yours." A pause. "And you become mine."

""I need a wife. Someone sharp, someone who knows how to play the game." His gaze dropped to my mouth for just a moment. "You'd be perfect."