Chapter 3

I stared at Jess, speechless for a moment.

The sheer audacity.

"You want me to marry you, knowing you' ll be openly with another man?" I finally managed, my voice dangerously low.

She stiffened, her progressive mask slipping.

"It' s a pragmatic solution, Alex. We both get what we want. Ryan is a visionary. He understands these things. He says we are twin flames, meant to disrupt the world."

Her eyes had that familiar, feverish glow they got when she talked about Ryan' s supposed genius.

The same rhetoric that led to my ruin.

"So, I' m supposed to be okay with being a cuckolded husband, just for a business deal?" I asked, a humorless laugh escaping me.

Jess' s face hardened. "Don' t be crude. It' s about evolving beyond possessiveness. Ryan says..."

"I don' t give a damn what Ryan says," I cut her off. "The answer is no, Jess. A thousand times no."

I wanted to offer her freedom, to tell her to just go be with Ryan and leave me the hell alone.

But then Ryan Miller himself chose that moment to enter the study, a picture of feigned humility.

He actually knelt before me.

"Alex, please," he began, his voice smooth and earnest. "Don' t let my... my unfortunate situation with Jess come between your two great families. I would never want to be the cause of such a rift."

He looked up, eyes glistening. "If my love for Jess is an obstacle, I will step aside."

A master manipulator at work.

Jess rushed to his side, helping him up.

"Don' t be ridiculous, Ryan! Alex is the one being unreasonable!"

She turned back to me, her eyes blazing.

"This is all because you' re jealous of Ryan' s talent! You stole his app idea, Alex! You ruined his funding prospects!"

The old, baseless accusation. The one she clung to in our past life, the one that justified her betrayal in her own mind.

The "groundbreaking" software concept he claimed I plagiarized.

It was a lie then, it was a lie now.

In the past, I had shown her documents, patent filings, timelines, irrefutable proof that my company' s project predated Ryan' s flimsy concept by years.

She had dismissed it all as elaborate forgeries, further proof of my treachery.

Her delusion was absolute, impenetrable.

"You know that' s not true, Jess," I said, my voice weary.

She scoffed, turning to Ryan with a look of pure adoration, then back to me with contempt.

"He' s a genius, Alex. You' re just a corporate suit, riding on your father' s coattails."

The disgust in my gut was overwhelming. All pretense of civility was gone.

"Get out," I said, my voice flat. "Both of you."

Jess' s face contorted with rage.

"You can' t make me love you, Alex Peterson!" she shrieked. "No amount of money or power can force my heart!"

It was a public declaration of her emotional unavailability, right here in my father' s study. My father watched, aghast.