Chapter 1

The corset of the Vera Wang gown was a vice, crushing Darcie's ribs until shallow breaths were the only option.

She stood outside the mahogany double doors of the Presidential Suite at The Plaza, her hand hovering over the gilded handle. Her palms were slick. Not with excitement, but with a cold, greasy sweat that made the metal feel foreign.

"Give me two minutes," she told the makeup artist hovering behind her. Her voice sounded thin, like stretched wire. "I need to see him alone before the cameras start."

The artist nodded and retreated down the plush hallway.

Silence settled. Darcie closed her eyes and counted backward from ten. It was a habit from home, from the days when the debt collectors banged on the trailer door. Ten. Nine. Eight.

The door wasn't locked.

It was cracked open just enough to let a slice of golden light spill onto the carpet. And with the light came a sound.

A low, guttural moan. Followed by a giggle that scraped against Darcie's eardrums like sandpaper.

Floy.

Her hand froze. Her brain, usually so good at calculating odds and solving complex equations, stalled. The variable didn't fit. Her stepsister shouldn't be in her fiancé's suite twenty minutes before the ceremony.

Darcie pushed the door. Just an inch.

The foyer was lined with mirrors. The reflection hit her with the force of a physical blow.

Hugh was bent over the edge of the king-sized bed, his back to her. His hands were gripping hips that weren't Darcie's. Floy was underneath him, her head thrown back, the diamond necklace-Darcie's bridal necklace, the one meant to signify her acceptance into the Maxwell dynasty-glittering obscenely against her neck.

Darcie didn't scream.

She expected to. She expected the hysteria, the tears, the collapse. But instead, a terrifying, arctic calm flooded her veins. It started in her toes and worked its way up, freezing the nausea in her stomach.

She stepped inside. The thick Persian rug swallowed the sound of her heels.

"God, Hugh," Floy gasped. "Faster. Before the hillbilly gets here."

"Don't worry about her," Hugh grunted. The sound was animalistic. "Once the wedding is over and the trust fund unlocks, I'm dumping that trash on a bus back to West Virginia. Or wherever the hell she came from."

"But the land," Floy teased. "You need the Mayo land deed."

"I'll have it by noon," Hugh promised.

Darcie looked to the coffee table.

There it was. The Prenuptial Agreement. A stack of crisp, white paper that she had signed an hour ago. It was the only thing binding the merger. The only thing that made her valuable to them.

Bside it lay a silver Zippo lighter.

She picked it up. The metal was cool against her skin.

Click.

The sound of the lid flipping open was as loud as a gunshot in the quiet room.

On the bed, the motion stopped. Hugh froze. He turned his head slowly, his eyes widening until the whites showed all around.

"Darcie?" His voice cracked.

She didn't look at his face. She looked at him like she looked at a rounding error in a ledger. Something to be corrected.

"Darcie, wait! Let me explain!"

He scrambled off the bed, naked and pathetic. He tried to pull the sheet with him, but Floy was clutching it to her chest, screaming.

Darcie struck the flint.

The flame was orange and blue, dancing in the draft from the air conditioner. It was beautiful.

"No!" Hugh shrieked, realizing what Darcie was looking at. "Don't! That's a ten-billion-dollar merger!"

She touched the flame to the corner of the document.

The paper was high quality. It caught instantly. The fire curled the edges, turning the legal jargon into black ash.

"Darcie!" Hugh lunged.

She took a step back, holding the burning pages high. The heat licked at her fingers, stinging, but she didn't drop it.

She looked up.

Directly above her was the smoke detector.

Darcie stood on her tiptoes, the burning contract acting as a torch. She held it right under the sensor.

Three. Two. One.

The alarm didn't just ring; it screamed. A piercing, electronic wail that vibrated in her teeth. The red strobe lights began to flash, turning the room into a chaotic disco of panic.

Then came the pop.

The sprinkler system exploded overhead.

It wasn't clean water. It was the stagnant, black sludge that had been sitting in the pipes for years. It erupted in a high-pressure torrent, coating everything in a foul-smelling, oily rain.

Hugh slipped on the marble floor as he tried to reach her, landing hard on his hip. Floy was shrieking, her hair plastered to her skull with black goo, looking like a drowned rat.

Darcie dropped the charred remains of the contract into a puddle of sludge.

The water soaked her veil. It ruined the fifty-thousand-dollar dress. But she didn't care. She felt clean.

She turned to the door.

Outside, the hallway was filling with people. Guests in tuxedos, hotel staff, and-crucially-the paparazzi who had been camping out for the 'Wedding of the Century.'

Darcie pulled the door wide open.

"Help!" she cried out, her voice trembling with a performance worthy of an Oscar. "Please!"

The cameras flashed. Pop. Pop. Pop.

They didn't just see a distressed bride. They saw past her. They saw the naked heir to the Maxwell fortune, covered in black slime, scrambling on the floor with his fiancée's sister.

The shutter clicks were a machine gun of humiliation.

While the mob surged forward, hungry for the scandal, Darcie stepped back.

She kicked off her satin heels.

She didn't run toward the elevators. She turned toward the heavy fire exit door.

As the chaos consumed the suite behind her, Darcie slipped into the concrete stairwell, the cold air hitting her wet skin. She was shivering, but her heart was beating a steady, rhythmic drum.

Survival.

She started to run down the stairs, leaving the ashes of a million dollars behind her.