Chapter 1 1

She tossed the phone onto the bed and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window. Central Park lay below, a sprawling patch of grey and brown in the winter light. It looked bleak.

She needed a husband. Fast. She needed someone who wouldn't ask questions, someone who needed a transaction just as much as she did.

She walked back to the bed and opened her laptop. Her fingers flew across the keyboard.

Babe Vincent.

The name had been circulating in the underground whisper networks of the Upper East Side for months. A scandalous playboy. Disowned by half his family. Rumored to be deep in debt to the wrong people, or perhaps trying to hide a sexuality that would get him cut off from the rest of his inheritance. The rumors said he was desperate for a beard. A cover.

She found the contact for a discreet law firm that handled "sensitive reputation management."

She typed quickly, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.

Request: Urgent Contract Negotiation. Client: Jocelyn Wolfe.

She hit send.

She looked at her reflection in the dark glass of the window. Her hair was messy, her eyes rimmed with red, but her jaw was set.

"No more placeholders," she whispered to the empty room.

The vibration of the phone against the mahogany nightstand wasn't a gentle hum. It was a drill, boring into the silence of the guest bedroom at 6:00 AM.

Jocelyn Wolfe squeezed her eyes shut, wishing the noise away, but the buzzing persisted, rattling the glass of water she had left there the night before. She rolled over, the expensive Egyptian cotton sheets tangling around her legs. They felt cold. Everything in Kieran Douglas's penthouse felt cold, designed for aesthetics rather than comfort.

She reached out, her fingers fumbling until they hit the sleek metal of her smartphone. She squinted against the harsh blue light of the screen.

It wasn't an alarm. It was a barrage.

Notification after notification stacked up like bricks on the lock screen. Twitter. Instagram. Apple News. And right at the top, the red banner of a Page Six alert.

Tech Mogul Kieran Douglas Debuts Romance with Aspen Schneider.

Jocelyn's breath hitched in her throat, a sharp, physical pain that radiated from her chest to her stomach. Her thumb hovered over the notification. She didn't want to open it. She knew what she would see. But her body betrayed her, her thumb tapping the glass before her brain could scream stop.

The photo loaded slowly on the penthouse Wi-Fi.

It was high resolution. Too high. She could see the sweat on Kieran's brow, the flash of the paparazzi bulbs reflected in his eyes. He was in Paris. He had told her he was in San Francisco for a board meeting.

But it wasn't Kieran's face that made Jocelyn's stomach turn over. It was his hand.

His large, manicured hand was splayed possessively across the waist of a woman in a shimmering silver dress. Aspen Schneider.

Jocelyn zoomed in.

Kieran was smiling. It was a genuine smile, the kind that crinkled the corners of his eyes. He hadn't looked at Jocelyn like that in six months. Maybe a year.

She read the caption below the image. "Douglas refers to the heiress as his 'long-time muse' and 'soulmate' at the Givenchy afterparty."

Muse. Soulmate.

Jocelyn sat up, the room spinning. She wasn't the girlfriend. She realized it with a clarity that felt like a slap. She had never been the girlfriend. She was the placeholder. The warm body in the bed when he was lonely. The efficient assistant who managed his calendar and his libido until someone with a better last name came along.

She threw the covers off. The marble floor was freezing against her bare feet.

She paced the room, her hands shaking uncontrollably. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to hold her shattering composure together.

Ding.

A text message banner slid down from the top of the screen.

Kieran: Flight lands at 6. Connecting flight to LA for the server farm crisis. Back in NY Thursday. Have the quarterly reports ready.

No explanation. No apology. No "we need to talk." Just an order.

He didn't even know she had seen it. Or worse, he didn't care. To him, she was an appliance. A coffee maker that also provided sex.

Jocelyn stopped pacing. She stared at the phone, her fingers trembling as she typed a response. You liar. You absolute-

She stopped. She deleted it.

Her thumb hovered over the backspace key until the text box was empty. Anger was a luxury she couldn't afford. Not yet.

The phone rang in her hand, startling her so badly she almost dropped it. The Caller ID flashed a single word: Mother.

Jocelyn closed her eyes, taking a deep, ragged breath. She answered.

"Hello."

"I told you," Elouise Stein's voice came through the line, sharp and devoid of warmth. She didn't say hello. She didn't ask how Jocelyn was. "I told you he wouldn't marry a Wolfe without a dowry."

Jocelyn gripped the phone so tight her knuckles turned white. "I don't want to hear this right now."

"You need to hear it," Elouise snapped. "You've wasted two years playing house with that tech boy, and now look at you. Humiliated on the front page of every tabloid in New York."

"I'm hanging up," Jocelyn said, her voice hollow.

"The Henderson merger requires a bride," Elouise pivoted instantly, her tone shifting from mockery to business. "You're coming home. I've arranged a dinner."

Jocelyn felt bile rise in her throat. Mr. Henderson was sixty-two. He had a laugh that sounded like a wet cough and hands that lingered too long.

"I am not marrying for your business deals," Jocelyn said. "I am not an asset you can trade to cover your bad investments."

"Then you get nothing," Elouise threatened. The venom in her voice was palpable. "The trust fund stays locked. Your father's will was specific, Jocelyn. You receive control of the assets only upon marriage. Until then, I am the executor. And I say you get nothing."

Jocelyn went still.

The trust fund. Her father's legacy. It was the only thing that could get her out of this life. It was enough money to start her own firm, to buy a home, to never have to answer to a Douglas or a Schneider again.

"The clause," Jocelyn whispered. "It just says marriage. It doesn't specify to whom."

"Don't be stupid," Elouise scoffed. "You need my approval."

"No," Jocelyn said, her mind racing. She recalled the legal document she had memorized years ago. "It says 'lawful marriage.' That's it."

"You wouldn't dare," Elouise hissed.

"I will marry," Jocelyn declared, her voice turning cold, hardening like ice. "But not to Henderson."

"Jocelyn-"

She hung up.