LOGIN"This is my first time... it hurts... oh, it’s bleeding..." Allie winced as a cut from the kitchen knife throbbed on her finger. Liam glanced at her, his face full of concern, and applied the medicine with a sharp, almost angry tone: "I’ve told you not to go near the kitchen! Just tell me what you want to eat, and I’ll make it for you!" For Allie, her 20th birthday gift was discovering her boyfriend's betrayal with her best friend in bed. Furious, she turned her back on Nick and married Liam Hart, the city’s most influential and untouchable man. From that moment, she faced endless challenges: Nick’s constant manipulations, Liam’s family scheming against her, and the toxic people in their lives. Everyone sees Liam as the perfect, doting husband—no one knows the price she pays for his love. Exhausted, Allie faced Liam one night, her voice trembling with frustration: "Liam Hart, you are a monster in disguise." Liam, looking hurt, replied with a soft grin, “You wound me, darling. How could I possibly be a monster when I’m the one who’s supposed to protect you?”
View More"I took the necklace."The voice comes from the back of the room — unhurried, carrying without effort, landing in the exhibition hall with the specific weight of a voice that is used to being heard without raising itself.Two hundred people stop talking simultaneously.Then the crowd parts.Liam Hart walks through it.He walks the way he always walks — like the space is already arranged around him, like his arrival is simply the next logical sequence of events rather than anythi
There is a specific kind of alone that has nothing to do with the number of people surrounding you.I am standing in the center of a room with two hundred people in it, and I have never been more alone in my life.The noise around me is enormous — voices layering on each other, the crackle of speculation and judgment and the specific gleeful energy of people watching someone they considered above them fall below — and underneath all of it runs the quieter, more devastating current: they've decided. Every person in this room made up their mind in the thirty seconds after the necklace emerged, and the trial happening right now is not one I was summoned to. It's one that already concluded before I said a word.
The room doesn't process this quietly.It couldn't, not with these names, not with this crowd. Mia Stone is the most famous actress in the country. Allie Brooks is the woman who married Liam Hart at twenty and has been a source of industry fascination ever since. Two hundred people who read every industry publication, who know every rumor that has ever circulated about both of them, who have spent months speculating about the history between Mia and Liam — these two hundred people have just been told that the two women at the center of that story are the prime suspects in the theft of a fourteen-million-dollar gem.The math of gossip is immediate and brutal. The room doesn't need to deliberate. It simply begins.
The room is completely different with two hundred people in it.The same walls, the same angled ceiling fixtures, the same crystal elements built into the corners — but what felt strange and slightly off when I was alone becomes theatrical with an audience. The light plays differently against so many bodies, catching fabric and jewelry and the whites of expectant eyes. The space smells like perfume and champagne and the specific, charged energy of people who have been promised something extraordinary and are positioned to receive it.The guide stands at the front, remote in hand, looking exactly like a man about to deliver the final act of a very expensive evening.
Something about Vivian was… off.
“Oh? An actor confessed to you, and you turned him down?”“I don’t like him.”Allie could barely breathe. Liam’s gaze burned through her, dark and unreadable.He tilted his head slightly, studying her. “You’re sure?”Her heart pounded. “Yes.”Liam leaned in, his voice a whisper against her lips. “G
Julian Ford leaned back in his chair, casual as ever, with a smirk dancing on his lips. “She met you first, so I guess I have to accept my fate. But Mr. Hart, if you don’t treat your wife well, I won’t hesitate to steal her away.”Liam, standing beside me, didn’t even flinch. His voice, as cool and
The conference room buzzed with restless energy, cameras flashing as reporters murmured among themselves. Everyone was waiting for the moment to pounce.Allie Brooks arrived fashionably late, stepping through the doors with a calm that masked the storm within. Every pair of eyes turned to her, jud
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