5

Jason

“Smile, Jason,” Victoria hissed under her breath, her fingers digging into the sleeve of my tuxedo. “The cameras on the left are watching us.”

I loosened my jaw, plastering a stiff, practiced smile across my face as we walked down the red carpet of the Grand Imperial Gala. Flashbulbs went off, but the atmosphere felt entirely different tonight. There was no adoring crowd. Instead, the whispers followed us like a plague.

“Is that her?”

“The stepsister from the livestream?”

“I thought their publicist said it was an AI...”

Ever since that catastrophic midnight broadcast, my PR team had been working twenty-four hours a day to scrub the internet. They had released a coordinated statement alleging that the woman in the video wasn’t Victoria at all—that it was an AI-generated smear campaign designed to sink Sterling Media’s stock. But looking at the icy side-eyes and the subtle, deliberate shifting of bodies away from us as we entered the main ballroom, it was clear the investors weren’t buying it.

We needed tonight. The Grand Imperial Gala was the highest-profile charity event of the year. If I could secure a few minutes with the city’s top investors and project absolute, unshakable strength, I could stabilize the injury to our image before the opening bell on Monday.

“Look at them,” Victoria muttered, her hand trembling slightly as she lifted her champagne flute. Her publicist had instructed her to look elegant and unbothered. She ticked the elegant box, but not the unbothered part. Her eyes were wide with panic as she peered around. “They are treating us like outcasts.”

“Let them look,” I growled softly, taking a flute of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray. My hand was gripping the crystal stem so tightly my knuckles turned white. “Once we secure new investors, we won’t need a single person in this room. Keep your head up.”

I scanned the room, my eyes sweeping over the elites, smiling at a few who were bold enough to return it, but my mind was still stuck on that financial news photograph from two nights ago.

Jasmine.

It had to be a hoax. A meticulously staged corporate stunt by Vance Global to use my ex-wife’s face as a weapon to destroy me. The real sole heir to a trillion-dollar empire wouldn’t spend three years scrubbing my kitchen floors and quietly taking a stipend. It was impossible. She was a penniless orphan. She had to be.

Suddenly, the massive crystal chandeliers dimmed.

The head of the gala committee stepped up to the microphone on the grand center stage, his voice booming through the speakers. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Tonight, we are deeply honored to welcome the individual whose unparalleled generosity made this entire evening possible—the main benefactor of the night, and the newly appointed, secretive chief executive officer of Vance Global.”

The room fell into a dead, suffocating silence. Victoria froze beside me, her breath hitching in her throat.

“Please welcome,” the announcer smiled, gesturing toward the velvet curtains at the back of the stage, “Miss Jasmine Vance.”

The curtains parted.

My heart violently stopped beating.

Out stepped Jasmine. She was wearing a breathtaking emerald-green silk gown with a daring cut that hugged her curves and flowed behind her like liquid. Her dark hair cascaded down her shoulders and back in flawless waves. Expensive diamonds caught the light around her neck. She walked with regal, effortless grace, a small, knowing smile playing on her lips as she looked out over the crowd.

Beside me, Victoria let out a sharp, horrified gasp, her face draining of every single drop of color. She completely failed to mask her expression; her mouth hung open in terror.

I couldn’t breathe. The room spun until I was dizzy. The applause wasn’t deafening, but all I could see was the woman who used to pack my lunchboxes standing on a stage that I wasn’t even important enough to approach.

A sharp, cracking sound echoed right next to my ear.

I looked down absentmindedly. The crystal champagne flute had shattered completely in my hand, the shards digging into my palm, a mixture of expensive alcohol and dark red blood dripping onto the polished ballroom floor. I didn’t even feel the pain.

It was her. It wasn’t a stunt. It wasn’t a carefully concocted lie.

The quiet, submissive orphan I had discarded like trash was the sole heir of a wealthy empire.

**

I spent the next forty-five minutes tracking her through the crowd like a starving predator. My palm was crudely bandaged with a cocktail napkin, and my emotions were a volatile mix of humiliation, fury, and desperation.

Finally, I saw my window. As the main crowd migrated toward the dining hall, Jasmine excused herself from a group of foreign diplomats and walked toward the quiet, dimly lit VIP lounge near the back terrace. She was alone.

I bolted past the heavy velvet curtains, stepping into the lounge just as she adjusted the strap of her gown in the mirror.

“Jasmine,” I said raspingly, my voice thick with a rage I couldn’t control.

She didn’t jump. She didn’t even turn around immediately. She just looked at my reflection in the mirror, her eyes entirely ice-cold and unbothered. “You shouldn’t be in here, Jason. This area is restricted.”

“Why did you lie to me?!” I shouted, slamming the lounge door shut behind me. I took three aggressive steps forward; my chest was heaving. “Three years! For three entire years, you lived in my house, you folded my clothes, you let my mother talk down to you—and you were sitting on a trillion-dollar empire? Did I even know you? Who the hell are you?!”

Jasmine finally turned around, crossing her arms across her chest. Despite myself, I found my eyes wandering to the full swell of her cleavage, accentuated by her arms under her chest.

Her expression was completely blank, as if she were looking at a stranger. “Get out of my way.”

She made a move to brush past me, her expensive perfume hitting my senses, but the panic of my life collapsing completely broke my restraint.

“No! You don’t get to just walk away!” I roared, reaching out and grabbing her upper arm, shaking her violently. “Look at me! Do you have any idea what you’ve done? My stock is down! The board is trying to vote me out! Sterling Media is bleeding to death because of your little stunt! You are going to call it off, and you are going to reinstate our supply chain contract right now! Undo it, Jasmine!” I barked.

“Let go of her,” someone said in a deep baritone voice.

I froze, my grip loosening slightly as a towering figure stepped out from the shadows of the terrace doorway.

Sebastian Night.

My eyes widened in recognition. I knew who he was! Heck, he had been the cause of most of my sleepless nights. He was a business rival, and according to tabloids, we were at war.

He was wearing a midnight-black tuxedo. If his eyes could, they would shoot daggers at my hand still wrapped around her arm.

Before I could even process his presence, Sebastian walked forward, his movements fluid and terrifyingly calm. He reached down, his fingers locking around my wrist with an iron grip, and effortlessly twisted my hand off Jasmine’s arm. The pain shot up my elbow, forcing me to stumble back a step.

He stepped into my space, putting his body between Jasmine and me.

Sebastian looked me dead in the eyes, his expression completely unreadable, yet I didn’t miss the glint of mischief in those midnight-dark eyes.

“Thank you for discarding your diamond, Mr. Sterling,” Sebastian said in a chilling whisper. “I’ve been waiting three years to claim her.”