تسجيل الدخولDelia’s POVI sat in my office after Noah left and stared at the empty doorway for a long time.Married.The word sat in my head like a key that might open every door that had slammed shut on me over the past weeks. Delia Vesper. The name had weight. It had history. It belonged to a family that was about to step into the light with enough money and mystery to make the entire city pay attention. Once the papers were signed, I would walk into rooms that had started turning me away. I would sit at tables where people had begun to look through me. The headlines that still called me the woman who claimed a false marriage would have to make room for a new title.I had survived Julian Windsor’s indifference for two years. I knew how to live beside a man who did not want me. I knew how to smile for cameras while the private reality stayed cold. Noah Vesper was not even as cold as Julian had been. Julian had perfected silence and distance until it became a wall. Noah was sharper, more direct w
Noah’s POVI sat behind my desk and stared at the two rejected folders Delia Kensington had left for me the day before. One from Julian Windsor. One from Katia Windsor. Both untouched by the people who mattered. Both returned with the same dismissal that told me exactly how little respect Vesper Group had earned in those rooms.Delia Kensington could not get one fucking thing right.She had walked into WEG with a proposal so poorly structured that Julian Windsor had not even opened the folder. She had walked into Katia’s office and somehow turned a simple investment conversation into a personal screaming match that ended with her being thrown out. She cried. She snapped. She made everything about her wounded pride and her missing last name. Every task I gave her arrived late, incomplete, or soaked in whatever emotional storm she was living through that hour.If it were up to me, I would have fired her the day she came back from Julian’s office empty-handed. I would have ended the cont
Delia’s POVI drove back to the Vesper building with both rejected folders on the passenger seat. The one Julian had pushed toward me without opening. The one Katia had dropped back onto her desk like trash. My hands stayed tight on the wheel the entire way. I kept replaying Katia’s voice in my head even though I tried not to.You let this company turn you into their lapdog and their laughing stock.They saw the desperation.The only person in this room who traded her body and her dignity for a last name is you.I parked in the underground garage and sat there for a full minute before I forced myself out of the car. The elevator ride to the top floor felt longer than usual. Every floor that passed made the knot in my stomach pull tighter. I had failed twice in one day. First Julian. Then Katia. There was no version of this conversation with Noah that ended well.His assistant waved me through without a word. I knocked once and entered.Noah stood at the window with his back to me. He
Katia’s POVSam sat across from my desk with her tablet open and that look she got when she already knew the answer but wanted me to say it out loud.“Why did Delia make an appointment?” she asked.I kept scrolling through the quarterly numbers on my screen.“I don’t give much of a shit,” I said. “I’ve been civil. I’ve answered her calls. I’ve stayed out of the press when she tried to drag me into it. She still treats me like I personally ordered her to play house with a man who never wanted her. That’s her problem, not mine.”Sam raised an eyebrow.“She’s listed under Vesper Group. Same company that sent the gala invitations.”“I noticed.”“You going to take the meeting?”“She’s already on the calendar. Cancelling now just gives her another story to sell. Let her come. I’ll listen. Then I’ll send her back to whoever is pulling her strings.”Sam opened her mouth to say something else when my phone lit up with Julian’s name. I answered on speaker.“You’re on speaker with Sam,” I said.
~Delia~Noah called me into his office two days before the gala, a single folder sitting closed on the black stone desk between us."I need you to arrange a meeting," he said, without any of his usual preamble. "With Julian Windsor. Vesper Group would like to invest in WEG before the gala takes place. It would strengthen everything we are trying to build here, having our name tied to WEG's before the launch rather than after."I nodded, writing the note down on my tablet without fully processing what he had actually asked me to do."I can reach out to his office today," I said. "Set something up before the end of the week.""Good," Noah said. "Make it happen."I left his office feeling, for the first time since signing the contract, something close to useful in a way that had nothing to do with seating charts or guest lists. This felt like real work, the kind of assignment that might actually prove to Noah I belonged in rooms larger than the ones I had spent the last several days arra
Delia’s POVNoah Vesper’s office sat on the top floor of the same glass building. The desk was black stone. The chairs were low enough that anyone sitting across from him had to look up. I noticed that the second I walked in.He did not stand when I entered. He pointed at the chair opposite him with two fingers.“Sit.”I sat and placed the printed guest list and seating chart on the desk between us and kept my back straight.Noah picked up the first page and scanned it in silence. His eyes moved slowly. When he reached the top of the list, he stopped.“Windsor, Julian, and Katia,” he read aloud. “Main table. Center seats.”He looked up at me.“Explain.”“They are the most powerful couple in the city right now,” I said. “Every donor on this list watches what the Windsors do. If they attend and sit anywhere else, people will assume Vesper Group is either afraid of them or not important enough to keep them close. Either way, it hurts the launch.”Noah set the page down.“You spent two ye
~Katia~"Do you know how hard I've been holding myself?" I didn't answer because all I wanted was to get laid. I could still feel the ache between my legs. He carried my bridal style and led me to his hotel room. "Now, I can fuck you however I want because you are now my wife, princess." The room
~Katia~Vegas heat hit me like a wave the second I stepped off the private jet. The runway shimmered under the late afternoon sun, and I squinted past my sunglasses, already half-listening to the ping of updates on my encrypted racing burner phone. Six hours before the race, and my heart was alread
KatiaI woke up to the sound of people singing badly.“Happy birthday to you...” I blinked hard against the sunlight filtering through the curtains, my brain slow to reboot. The voices were getting louder, and for a second, I thought I was dreaming. A really weird, off-key dream.“Happy birthday, d
~Katia~“Get out!” my mom screamed, her voice tearing through the hallway like a bomb going off in a small room.The sound hit the walls and bounced back so violently, like the house itself was flinching. Even the air felt startled, buzzing with the kind of tension that makes your skin crawl. My he







