The Jilted Heiress And Her Fake Marriage

"Did you honestly think I wouldn't find out, Destin?"

Daphne Bradford stepped into the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria, letting the heavy brass door click shut behind her.

Under the glare of a dozen crystal chandeliers, the room hummed with Manhattan's old money, diamond chokers, and the clinking of vintage flutes. She lifted her hand and adjusted the oversized marble-patterned sunglasses perched on the bridge of her nose. The dark lenses hid the raw fury burning in her eyes, but they did nothing to cool the fire in her chest.

A passing waiter extended a silver tray. Daphne plucked a chilled flute of Dom Pérignon without breaking stride. Her knuckles turned stark white against the thin crystal stem.

She sliced through the crowd of tailored tuxedos and silk gowns. Her gaze locked straight onto the VIP booth in the far corner.

There he was.

Destin Campos, Daphne's boyfriend, leaning on a velvet bench, wearing the custom midnight-navy suit Daphne had spent three weeks picking out for him. On his face was that exact smirk she had trusted for two years-soft, indulgent, and completely rotten.

Beside him sat Grisel Knight.

Grisel was draped in an ivory silk gown that made her look like an endangered orchid. Her head rested gently on Destin's shoulder, her manicured fingers resting casually on his thigh.

Daphne's seven-centimeter Christian Louboutin heels struck the polished marble floor. Each step rang like a hammer hitting an anvil.

Nearby, a cluster of Upper East Side socialites went dead quiet.

"Look who crawled back," a woman in a lace shawl whispered behind her gloved fingers. "Isn't that Daphne? The daughter Barack Bradford kicked out five years ago? She actually showed her face here?"

Daphne didn't even blink. Let them whisper. Her grandfather was a decorated four-star general, and her uncle cut open corpses for the state of New York. The spineless parasites of the Bradford family had discarded her when her mother died, but they had never managed to break her spine.

She stopped two feet from the velvet booth, towering over the pair like an executioner.

Destin was murmuring something into Grisel's ear, laughing softly. When Daphne's shadow fell across his lap, he frowned and looked up.

The laugh died in his throat.

His hand jerked, sloshing bourbon over his cuff. "Daphne?"

Grisel looked up next. A flicker of panic flashed across her wide, innocent eyes before she smoothed it over with a look of pure, fragile helplessness. As an illegitimate daughter of the Knight family's third branch, Grisel had spent her whole life weaponizing tears to survive high society.

"Daphne..." Grisel stammered, pulling back from Destin just an inch.

Daphne didn't speak. Her eyes drifted down to Grisel's throat.

Resting against Grisel's pale collarbone was an antique ruby pendant set in platinum. It was the only heirloom Daphne's late mother had left her, something Destin had sworn was locked in his family's safe for "appraisal."

A cold, suffocating weight settled in Daphne's stomach, followed immediately by volcanic heat.

Destin scrambled to his feet, putting his broad frame between Daphne and Grisel. "What the hell are you doing back in New York? You weren't supposed to fly in until next week."

"Evidently," Daphne said. Her voice was smooth, deadly, and entirely devoid of warmth. "I see I'm interrupting your family trust consultation."

"Daphne, please, it's not what it looks like," Grisel whimpered, peering out from behind Destin's arm. "Destin and I were just discussing the downtown redevelopment bond. We're cousins by association, you know that-"

"Shut your mouth, Grisel," Daphne said quietly. "Before I rip that necklace off your neck and feed it to you."

Destin's face darkened with humiliation. He reached out to seize Daphne's wrist. "That's enough! You're making a scene. Come outside right now before you embarrass my family."

Daphne sidestepped him with sharp, athletic precision.

Her wrist flicked.

The golden liquid splashed across Grisel's delicate nose, soaked her eyelashes, and ruined her contoured cheekbones before cascading down the front of her pristine white couture dress.

Grisel let out a bloodcurdling shriek. She slipped backward onto the velvet cushions, clawing at her stinging eyes.

The entire ballroom plunged into a suffocating, breathless silence. The jazz quartet stopped playing.

"You crazy bitch!" Destin roared, lunging forward with a raised finger. "Do you have any idea whose dress that is? You've lost your goddamn mind!"

Daphne pulled off her sunglasses with a slow, deliberate movement. Her amber-brown eyes pinned him to the floor.

"You took my mother's jewelry to buy a side piece from the Knight family," Daphne said, her voice cutting through the silent room like a razor. "And you used Bradford Capital's lines of credit to cover your family's unpaid margin calls on Wall Street. You're a bankrupt parasite, Destin. You were one when I met you, and you're one right now."

Destin choked on his words, his face shifting from purple to a sickly, pale gray. He looked around at the staring crowd, but not a single person stepped forward to back him up.

Grisel sobbed hysterically on the sofa, clutching Destin's trouser leg. "Destin... my eyes burn... do something..."

Daphne took the empty crystal flute and brought it down hard against the marble cocktail table.

Crack.

The stem shattered, the sound echoing off the vaulted ceilings.

"Keep her," Daphne said, brushing a speck of dust from her lapel. "A fraud deserves a thief. You two are a match made in hell."

She spun on her heels.

The crowd parted before her like the Red Sea. Nobody dared to meet her eyes. She walked past the stunned waiters, through the gilded archways, and out through the heavy brass doors into the cool, biting air of Fifth Avenue.

The wind off Central Park hit her face, clearing the stench of stale champagne and cheap perfume from her lungs.

Daphne pulled her iPhone from her clutch. Her fingers were trembling-not from fear, but from the adrenaline coursing through her veins.

She opened the group chat with her good friends Averie Jimenez and Hazel Olson.

I just dumped the trash, she typed. Meet me in SOHO. I need three shots of tequila and an alibi.

The heavy soundproof door of The Cellar swung shut, drowning the wet streets of SOHO beneath a wave of smoky bourbon, dim amber lighting, and the low rumble of a double bass.

Daphne tossed her leather trench coat onto the circular leather banquette at the back of the room. She dropped into the booth, her body sinking into the worn leather as if all her strings had been cut at once.

"Drink," Hazel said, slamming a heavy shot glass of Don Julio 1942 onto the table in front of her.

Hazel was wearing an oversized vintage leather jacket and combat boots, her chin-length hair messy in that effortless, downtown artist way. Across from her, Averie sat holding a delicate martini glass, her soft gray eyes full of quiet worry.

"Are you okay?" Averie asked, leaning across the table to touch Daphne's freezing fingers. "Your hands are shaking."

"I'm fine," Daphne said. Her voice rasped. She picked up the shot glass and threw it back in one clean swallow.

The liquor torched its way down her throat, settling like a fist of fire in her empty stomach. Her heartbeat, erratic and wild for the last hour, finally found a steady, thumping rhythm.

"I didn't just dump him," Daphne said, setting the glass down with a dull thud. "I baptized Grisel in six hundred dollars worth of champagne."

Hazel let out a loud, barking laugh, slapping the table with both palms. "Holy shit! You actually did it! Tell me someone recorded it. Please tell me her fake eyelashes fell off!"

"Both of them did," Daphne muttered, a grim smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. "And she was wearing my mother's ruby pendant."

Hazel's smile vanished instantly. Her brown eyes flared with rage. "That piece of human garbage. Destin stole Auntie's jewelry for that little branch-family leech?"

"The Knight family isn't going to let this go quietly, Daphne," Averie warned softly. She bit her lower lip, pulling her cashmere cardigan tighter around herself. "Grisel is third branch, but she's still a Knight. Their family controls half the private equity on the East Coast. If her mother goes to the elders..."

"Let them," Daphne sneered. She poured herself a second shot from the bottle on the table. "Barack sold me out five years ago to keep his pathetic company afloat, and Destin thought I was a helpless heiress he could step on. They think because I've been living on campus in Boston, I forgot how to fight."

"So what's the plan?" Hazel asked, leaning in, her eyes dancing with dangerous excitement. "Are we slashing Destin's tires, or am I calling some guys from Brooklyn to break his golf clubs?"

"No," Daphne said, staring into the amber liquid. "That's small-time."

"Then what?" Averie asked.

Daphne's finger traced the rim of the glass. The alcohol was mixing with the bitter humiliation of the night, warping her sharp, analytical mind into something reckless.

"Grisel thinks she's untouchable because of her last name," Daphne said slowly. "She parades around Manhattan acting like she's royalty, all because she has an uncle who runs Knight Enterprises."

"Cousin," Hazel corrected. "Her uncle passed away. Her cousin is running the show now."

"Right," Daphne murmured. A wild, toxic idea took root in her head. "Bennet Knight."

Averie stopped breathing. The glass in her hand wobbled. "Daphne... do not say that name out loud."

"Why not?" Daphne challenged, her chin lifting.

"Because Bennet isn't Destin!" Averie hissed, leaning forward, her voice dropping to an urgent whisper. "He isn't some spoiled trust-fund frat boy. He took over Knight Enterprises at twenty-six after his father stepped down. He gutted three rival hedge funds before breakfast last year. The man is a predator. People on Wall Street don't even look him in the eye during board meetings."

"He's thirty-two, unmarried, and completely clean of scandals," Daphne said, her eyes flashing with a manic, drunken brilliance. "And Grisel treats him like a god."

"Daphne, no," Averie begged, grabbing her wrist. "You don't play with a man like that. He'll eat you alive."

"I'm not playing with him," Daphne said, her voice rising over the music. She stood up, kicking off her heels and stepping right onto the leather banquette.

"Daphne, get down!" Hazel laughed, though she looked half-terrified.

Daphne stood tall on the booth, looking over the dimly lit bar like a general surveying a battlefield. Her dark hair fell over her shoulders, her cheeks flushed with liquor.

"Three months!" she declared loudly, pointing a finger toward the ceiling. "I'm going to take Bennet. I'm going to make him fall so hard he begs to sign the marriage license. And then, at the next family dinner, Grisel is going to have to pour my goddamn tea and call me 'Ma'am'!"

A few patrons at the neighboring tables turned around, staring at her as if she had escaped from an asylum.

"Sit your drunk ass down!" Averie pleaded, yanking on the hem of Daphne's black skirt.

Daphne dropped back onto the cushions, laughing breathlessly as the room spun in lazy, pleasant circles. "I mean it. If I'm going to ruin Destin, I'm going to do it from the top of the food chain."

"You're completely out of your mind," Hazel said, though she raised her glass in a salute. "To my insane best friend, the future Mrs. Bennet."

"Shut up," Daphne groaned, pressing her palms to her burning cheeks. "I need to pee. If I stay in this booth another second, I'm going to pass out."

"I'll come with you," Averie said, starting to get up.

"No, stay." Daphne waved her off, stumbling as she pushed past the low wooden table. "I'm fine. Just need cold water on my face."

She navigated the narrow, dark corridor leading toward the back of the speakeasy. The lighting back here was almost non-existent, just a single vintage sconce casting long, amber shadows across the brick walls.

The floor tilted beneath her stockinged feet. Daphne reached out to brace herself against the wall, but her foot caught on an uneven floorboard.

"Damn it-"

She pitched forward, completely losing her balance.

Instead of hitting the cold, concrete floor, her forehead slammed directly into a wall of solid, unyielding muscle.

The breath was knocked out of her lungs. Her fingers scrambled wildly for purchase, clutching the lapels of an exceptionally fine, heavy wool coat.

A faint, suffocating scent wrapped around her instantly.

Cold winter air, rich cedarwood, and the dark, smoky bite of high-end Kentucky bourbon.

Daphne's forehead throbbed. She blinked against the dark spots dancing across her vision, her hands still bunched in the expensive fabric of the stranger's coat.

"Don't you have eyes?" she snapped, her words slurring slightly around the edges.

Above her, the chest rumbled. A low, gravelly sound slipped out-not of anger, but of amusement.

"I could ask you the same thing, Miss Bradford."

The voice was deep, cultured, and carried the kind of quiet, absolute authority that made the hairs on Daphne's arms stand straight up.

She froze.

Slowly, Daphne forced her chin up.

The man standing over her was tall-easily six-foot-two-with broad, imposing shoulders that blocked out what little light the sconce provided. He wore a charcoal bespoke three-piece suit cut with surgical precision. Above a razor-sharp jawline and high cheekbones sat a pair of eyes as dark and impenetrable as midnight on the Atlantic. Over his right brow bone, a faint, pale scar broke the smooth skin, giving his aristocratic face a subtle, dangerous edge.

Bennet.

Daphne's lungs seized. The alcohol in her bloodstream instantly turned to ice water.

She stared at the man whose name she had just screamed to an entire bar five minutes ago. He was holding a lowball glass of neat bourbon in his right hand. His left hand was tucked casually into his trouser pocket.

He didn't move away. Instead, he leaned down slightly, stepping into her space until she was completely trapped between the broad expanse of his chest and the brick wall behind her.

"Three months?" he murmured.

The words were spoken so softly they were practically an exhale, but they landed on Daphne's ears like a gunshot.

Her pupils dilated in sheer, unadulterated horror.

He heard.

He was standing in the corridor the entire time.

"I..." Daphne choked, the sharpness that usually defined her tongue entirely deserting her. She pressed her back flat against the cold bricks, desperate to put even an inch of distance between them.

Bennet took a half-step forward. The polished leather toe of his Oxford shoe gently brushed against the tip of her toes.

On his left wrist, a custom Patek Philippe tourbillon glinted in the dim light. The watch alone cost more than her father's entire garage of luxury cars.

"To take me down?" Bennet continued, his gaze drifting lazily over her flushed cheeks, down to the trembling hollow of her throat, and back up to her wide, amber eyes. A tiny, mocking smile played at the corner of his thin lips. "And make me beg to sign the license?"

Daphne swallowed hard. Her pulse was hammering so loud she was certain he could hear it. Every survival instinct she had inherited from her mother screamed at her to run, but the Bradford pride-stubborn, arrogant, and foolish-refused to let her cower.

She forced her chin up, glaring at him through her haze of terror and intoxication. "It was a joke. I was drunk. Don't flatter yourself, Mr. Knight."

Bennet tilted his head. He brought the glass of bourbon to his lips, took a slow, measured sip, and let his eyes linger on her mouth.

"A joke," he repeated smoothly. He lowered the glass, his breath washing over her cheek-warm, smelling of oak and liquor. "Pity. I was rather looking forward to your performance."

The sheer audacity of the line, delivered with such absolute, predatory calm, sent a shiver straight down Daphne's spine.

"You're out of your mind," she whispered.

She shoved his shoulder with all the strength she had left.

Bennet didn't budge an inch, but the ice cubes in his glass clinked sharply. Taking advantage of the brief opening, Daphne ducked under his arm, squeezed through the narrow gap between him and the wall, and bolted.

She didn't look back. She abandoned the idea of the restroom entirely, practically sprinting down the dark hallway on bare feet.

Behind her, Bennet remained where he was. He didn't turn around. He simply lifted his glass again, his thumb slowly stroking the cold, condensation-slick rim of the tumbler, his dark eyes watching the shadow of her retreat fade into the noise of the bar.

Daphne burst back into the main lounge, her chest heaving as if she had just outrun a pack of wolves.

"Daphne?" Hazel called out, waving from the booth. "What happened to you? You look like you saw a ghost."

Daphne grabbed a glass of ice water from the table and downed it in three massive gulps, spilling half of it down the front of her silk blouse. Her teeth were chattering.

"We have to leave," Daphne gasped, grabbing her trench coat from the booth. "Now. Right now."

Averie looked alarmed, instantly setting her drink down. "What is it? Did Destin follow us here?"

"No," Daphne said, her voice cracking. "Bennet is here. In the hallway. He... he heard everything."

Hazel's jaw dropped. "Wait-what? The whole three months thing?"

"Every single word," Daphne groaned, burying her face in her hands. "I'm going to throw myself into the East River. Pack your bags, we're leaving the country."

"Daph, calm down," Hazel said, though a wicked grin was spreading across her face. "That's actually iconic. What did he say? Did he-"

"Where do you think you're going?"

A voice like cracking ice sliced through the jazz music from directly behind their booth.

Daphne's spine turned to solid granite.

The color drained from her face faster than it had in the hallway. Slowly, dreading every millimeter of the movement, she turned her head.

Standing two paces away was a man in a dark, charcoal trench coat that smelled distinctly of antiseptic and rain. He stood six-foot-three, with silver-threaded dark hair cut into a strict military fade, and eyes so cold and gray they looked like two slabs of wet slate.

His right hand was casually resting inside his coat pocket, his index finger rhythmically tapping against his thigh.

Chaim Payne.

Chief Medical Examiner for the City of New York.

And her mother's terrifying, merciless older brother.