"Vesper, who the hell do you think you are? Who told you to go near Luna?"
After Vesper Lynd had Ethan Grant's precious soulmate blacklisted and shipped overseas, the man completely lost it.
"That hurts. Let go of me."
Vesper tried to wrench her wrist free, but Ethan's eyes gleamed with something feral and bloodshot. Instead of releasing her, he crushed down harder on her delicate bones.
"Hurt? You dare talk about hurt? Luna sliced open her wrists, and you had her shipped off like cargo. Did you stop to think about what she was going through? Tell me exactly what poison you whispered to her."
Vesper's face went pale, but stubborn pride surged through her veins. She bit back tears, refusing to show weakness, and met his gaze with fiery defiance.
'What's her life to me? What's it to you? I'm your fiancee. The future Mrs. Grant.'
"Good. Splendid. What a wife you'll make." Ethan's laugh turned ice cold. "Did you really think a marriage contract could lock me down? That I had no choice?"
"Please. I've clearly spoiled you rotten. Here you are, a grown woman acting like a child."
His lips curled into a cruel smirk, his eyes dripping with contempt.
Without warning, he dragged her toward a stunt rig, blindfolded her, and hoisted her thirty feet into the air.
Vesper thrashed wildly. The thin cable groaned above her, fibers snapping one by one. It wouldn't hold much longer.
"Stop."
Despair choked her, thick and suffocating.
This was the man who once blew on her soup to cool it down. Now he stood below, stone-faced, drinking in her terror like fine wine.
Vesper was the Lynd family's sole legitimate heir. It was a damn shame she'd been born female, and Arthur Lynd refused to let a woman run things.
So Ivy Lynd handpicked six childhood suitors, declaring that whoever Vesper married would inherit the Lynd empire.
Those six boys worshipped her. As kids, they ran wild as her personal prank squad. As teens, they became her enforcers, beating any illegitimate heirs into total submission.
Ethan was the most vicious of them all, always throwing the first punch and hitting hardest.
To Vesper, that was real masculinity.
So at her debutante ball, she chose him without hesitation.
She even dropped hundreds of millions on global ads screaming that Ethan Grant was hers.
But when those announcements reached Luna Ashford, Ethan's actual love, the girl sliced open her wrists in despair.
Only then did Vesper learn the truth.
That name he moaned in passion had never belonged to her. When he whispered it, he was seeing someone else's face.
Vesper thought about fighting for him, but Luna confronted her first.
With her nose in the air, Luna sneered that she didn't do love triangles and told Vesper to leash her pathetic man.
Yet the moment she left, she texted Ethan in tears, saying Vesper was right and their love was doomed, making sure he believed Vesper had forced her hand.
Vesper's voice went hoarse from screaming. Her eyes turned hollow, drained of all hope. Rope burns crisscrossed her body, each wound oozing fresh blood. Finally, Ethan condescended to squat in front of her, gripping her chin with cruel fingers.
"Luna came back, but she won't eat. She's hiding from me." His voice dripped with poison. "She says as long as you're breathing, she'll always be the other woman. How the hell am I supposed to fix that?"
As if the solution lay with Vesper.
She shook her head weakly, beyond pleading. She never said a word. Luna chose to leave.
She was too drained to speak. Ethan's laugh cut like a knife.
"After all these years licking your boots, you're rotten to the core. No loyalty at all."
With a flick of his wrist, he signaled his goons.
Then the rope around her waist snapped apart.
Everything went black until she jolted awake with a gasp, back at her coming of age ceremony, her finger still pointing at Ethan as her chosen fiance.
"Vesper." The voice came hesitant. "Are you sure you want him?"
Aksara