LOGINCELESTINE'S POVThe Valancourts and Ashcrofts throw a joint engagement party at the Dorchester Hotel in London.I thought it would be a small gathering, maybe a few dozen family members and close friends, the type of intimate party where everyone knows everyone and the champagne flows freely and there is a toast or two and then everyone goes home by midnight. That is what I told Lysander when he asked me what I wanted. Something simple. Something that would not attract too much attention.Lysander had laughed at me playfully . "Darling," he said, "the Valancourts and the Ashcrofts have not had a wedding in thirty years. The last one was my parents. The one before that was your parents. People have been waiting for this for decades. This is not going to be small. This is going to be the social event of the season, and you are going to be the center of it, and you are going to be magnificent."He was right, of course. He is always right about these things.The hotel ballroom is transfo
KIER'S POV:The news leaks to the press two days later.I am in the living room of Sable's apartment, drinking my morning coffee, scrolling through my phone, trying to pretend that everything is normal even though nothing has felt normal since I drove away from those gates, since I saw Celestine in that cream dress, since she told me she felt nothing for me.Then I see the headline.It is on every news site, every social media platform, every television channel I flip through in a desperate attempt to escape it."Hidden Heiress Celestine Valancourt Engaged to World's Richest Man Lysander Ashcroft."There is a photo. Celestine and Lysander, standing in a garden full of roses, her hand in his, a ring on her finger, both of them smiling and that smile make my chest ache with something that might be jealousy or might be grief or might be the simple, painful realization that she never looked at me that way, not once, not ever.I throw my phone against the wall.It shatters into pieces, pla
CELESTINE'S POV: It's messy and hot, his mouth devouring mine between thrusts, swallowing my gasps, one hand braced on the bench arm for leverage, the other kneading my breast through the half-open bodice, pinching the nipple. The roses brush our sides, petals catching in my hair, their perfume mixing with the musky scent of sex, our sweat, the earthy tang of him. He's relentless, pace picking up, hips snapping harder now, the bench rocking dangerously. "Look at you," he pants, eyes locked on where we're joined, watching his cock disappear into me over and over. "Taking me so good. My perfect girl, clenching like you never want me out." I don't. God, I don't. Pleasure coils tight in my belly, building fast with every plunge, my clit grinding against his pubic bone on each grind. My hands roam, clawing his back, fisting his hair, urging him on. But the bench betrays us, too goddamn narrow, our rhythm off from the awkward angle. He's leaning in heavy, chasing deeper, and suddenly the
CELESTINE'S POV:"I have waited since I was old enough to know what love is to ask you this," he says, and his voice is thick with emotion, rough around the edges, the way it gets when he is trying very hard not to cry. "I would wait more years if I had to. I would wait more decades. I would wait until the end of time if that was what you needed. But I do not want to wait anymore, Celestine."He pulls out a ring. It is not a huge diamond. It is a simple ring, elegant and timeless, a sapphire the color of the sky at midnight surrounded by tiny diamonds that catch the light and scatter it like stars."I cannot imagine my life without you," he says. "I do not want to imagine my life without you. You have brought color back into a world that was gray. You have brought music back into a world that was silent. You have made me laugh when I forgot I knew how. You have made me hope when I had given up on hoping."He takes a breath. His hands are shaking. His eyes are wet."Celestine Valancour
CELESTINE'S POV:Two months pass and I do not know where the time goes because every day bleeds into the next and every night is spent in Lysander's arms and I have never been happier, not once in my whole entire life, not even as a child before I knew what heartbreak felt like.We are inseparable, Lysander and I. He goes to London for meetings and I go with him, sitting in the outer office with a book while he does whatever it is that billionaires do to make more billions, and when he comes out he always finds me first, his eyes searching the room until they land on me, and then he smiles that small goofy smile that he only ever gives to me.I have met his business partners, men and women in expensive suits who look at me with curiosity and speculation, trying to figure out what the cold, distant, untouchable Lysander Ashcroft sees in me. They do not say anything, of course. They are too polite and too afraid of him to say anything. But I can see the questions in their eyes, and I do
CELESTINE'S POV: Lysander pulls back just enough to growl, “Eyes on me, love. Stay right here with me.” Then he sucks my clit hard, fingers pumping faster, and I shatter with a scream. My thighs clamp around his head as I come violently, flooding his mouth. He keeps licking and sucking through every pulse, drinking me down like he owns every drop. I’m still trembling when he rises, shedding his clothes. His cock is thick, heavy, veined, and leaking. Beautifully obscene. He strokes it once, eyes locked on my spread, soaked pussy. “Look at this pretty cunt,” he murmurs possessively, running the fat head up and down my slit. “Soaking for me. Only for me.” He pushes in slowly, stretching me open inch by thick inch. The burn is delicious. When he bottoms out, he stays there, buried to the hilt, letting me feel him throbbing inside me. “Fuck, Celestine. This pussy was made for me.” His voice is wrecked. “Gonna ruin you for anyone else.” Then he starts moving—long, deep, powerful strok







