Chapter 1 - The Words Behind the Door|
"Then tell him about the letters, Alina," her mother’s voice rasped out, cold and unyielding from inside the dimly lit sitting room. "Tell him that his own executive team paid your father’s business to take that loan three years ago just to force him into a marriage contract."
My hands turned to ice around the leather folder.
I stood frozen in the hallway of our Evanston mansion, the twenty-seven pages of divorce agreements heavy against my knuckles.
"No, Mom," Alina sobbed softly, her voice muffled as if she were burying her face in her hands. "If Dante finds out that his COO, Marcus, arranged the debt crisis to force him into marrying me, it will tear Moretti Global apart. He built that company with his bare hands. I won't let my family's mess destroy his life's work."
Her mother let out a bitter, dry laugh. "He’s divorcing you tomorrow anyway, Alina! He doesn't love you! He’s throwing you twenty million dollars like you’re a former employee taking a severance package!"
"I don't care about the money!" Alina cried out, her voice breaking completely. "I never cared about his billions! I loved him before the contract was even signed, Mom! I loved him when he was thirty-five and working eighteen-hour days in that cramped office in River North! But he looks at me like I'm a chore... like I'm a debt he’s obligated to pay off every single day."
I leaned my forehead against the cool mahogany doorframe, my chest heaving as if I’d just been struck by a sledgehammer.
Three years.
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For three years, I had convinced myself that her gentle smiles were born of duty. I had believed her quiet presence in my study was a manifestation of gratitude. I had built a wall of ice around my heart, terrified that if I told her I loved her, she would feel trapped by my power.
And all the while, my closest corporate officer had engineered her family's ruin to orchestrate our marriage—while Alina carried the secret alone to protect my empire.
