Chapter 1

To the outside world, I was Serena Vance. The rebellious Vance Media heiress. A top supermodel ruling the global runways.

Victor was the CEO of the Sterling tech empire. Cold and ruthless.

Nobody knew this Wall Street titan pinned me to the bed every night. He sent me to heaven over and over.

He didn't know I was about to marry someone else.

Our heavy breathing settled.

Victor pulled out. The heat of his release and the afterglow still throbbed deep inside me.

"Angel," he rasped. He pressed me against the messy velvet sheets. He gently kissed the sweat off my eyelashes.

He got up and went to the bathroom. The water started running.

He came out. He picked up his flawless tailored suit.

"You're not staying the night?" I asked. I pulled my robe tighter. I still felt the lingering heat of his body.

Victor paused. He buttoned his shirt.

His eyes swept over the hickeys on my chest. A smirk played on his lips.

"I have a board meeting for an acquisition." He walked over. He tilted my chin up and kissed me deeply again. "I really have to go. Be a good girl."

The door clicked shut.

My face went blank. I wiped the kiss off my lips. I got out of bed and dialed my father, Richard.

"Dad, I accept the arranged marriage. I'll fly to LA in two weeks. I'll marry the paralyzed Hayes heir. But I have one condition."

Richard sounded ecstatic. "Great! Name it!"

"We'll talk in person."

I turned around. Victor's spare tablet lit up on the couch.

An unread message popped up.

[From: Chloe]

[Victor, thank you for canceling your meetings. Thank you for coming to the rehab center with me today. The doctor said I'm recovering so well. It's all thanks to you. I want to catch a movie with you tomorrow. Just like old times.]

I stared at the screen. My fingertips went ice cold.

Victor never went to a doctor's appointment with me. Not once.

I passed out from exhaustion during fashion week once. He never sent a single text.

Half an hour later, my car parked outside the most exclusive private club on the Upper East Side.

Through the tinted windows, I watched Victor. He strode toward a fragile girl in a white dress.

Chloe.

She looked like a delicate lily swaying in the wind.

Victor took off his jacket. He draped it gently over her shoulders. It looked so natural. He tucked a stray hair behind her ear.

He touched her carefully. Like she was a fragile crystal statue. Like she would break at any moment.

I never saw him this gentle. Except when we were at our most passionate in bed.

How pathetic.

Three years ago, Richard needed cash. He traded me to Victor like a business asset. He called it an "internship."

I was nineteen. I just walked the runways in Milan. I was full of pride and attitude.

I thought Victor was just another man trying to tame me.

I decided I would tame him first.

The first time we met, I wore a daring cut-out couture dress. I barged right into his office. He was on a holographic video call with Wall Street investors.

I shamelessly crossed my long legs. The same legs the whole world obsessed over. I sat right on his million-dollar smart desk. I blocked all the data projections.

Sitting behind his massive chair, Victor didn't even blink at the camera. He calmly cut the connection to Wall Street.

"Get off my desk, Serena."

"Why?"

"Your PR value doesn't cover the three percent drop in my stock price. You just caused it by sitting there."

I purposely pulled my dress up a little higher. My toe teasingly brushed against his suit pants. "And now?"

Victor finally looked up. Behind his gold-rimmed glasses, his eyes were ice cold. "Get out."

Over the next few months, I tried everything to piss him off.

I slipped dirty doodles into his billion-dollar contracts. I ruined the magazine covers he set up. I spilled red wine all over his chest at a charity gala. I forced him to change his clothes.

Victor always cleaned up my messes with maddening calmness. Then he talked down to me. "Serena, you're a smart girl. You should use that brain of yours for something useful."

Until that night.

I handed him a spiked drink. I lit an aphrodisiac candle in the room. I wanted to see Victor's iron control shatter.

I just didn't expect to still be in the room when it kicked in.

Victor pinned my wrists down hard. His breathing was heavy and ragged. "What did you do?"

"Haven't you guessed?" I met his burning gaze. "Wanna taste me?"

That night changed everything.

I woke up the next morning. Victor was already fully dressed.

I thought he would be furious. I thought he would pack me up and send me back to my father. "Victor, I—"

"Angel," he whispered. He gently stroked my cheek. "This will be our secret."

Angel.

That one word made me fall for him completely.

For the next two years, we kept up this weird, secret relationship.

During the day, he was the same calm, rational Victor.

But at night, he whispered "Angel" in my ear. He wrecked me until my whole body went soft.

I thought I won. I thought I was the only exception in his cold world.

Until my birthday.

I wore a carefully chosen dress. I booked a table at the restaurant where we first met.

I wanted to tell him I loved him. I wanted to be with him, no matter the cost.

But I waited for him all night.

The food went cold. It got reheated. The candles burned down. He never showed up.

The next morning, his face was all over the headlines. With another woman.

[Sterling Tech Billionaire Shares Passionate Embrace with Retired Ballet Prodigy Chloe on Private Helipad!]

My love died completely in that moment.

I let out a bitter laugh. I drank myself into a blackout.

I wanted to confront him. I wanted to ask him what the hell I meant to him. Was I just a fuck buddy? A business tool?

I didn't have the guts.

I was too lonely. I was too addicted to the tiny bit of warmth he gave me.

That night, Victor came back to the penthouse. He found it trashed.

I took a priceless custom crystal piece from his desk. I smashed every single ballet trophy of Chloe's in his study to pieces.

He didn't even blink.

He just told the butler to clean it up and take care of me. Then he walked right past me.

It finally hit me.

Victor was the CEO of a tech empire. Aloof, cold, and proud.

He didn't indulge me because he loved me. He was just too lazy to argue with me.

After that, he still called me Angel in bed. He acted like nothing changed.

But my heart was already dead.

Outside the club, Victor opened the car door for Chloe. They laughed about something.

I looked away and drove back to the Vance family estate.

Richard and my stepmother, Eleanor, sat on the couch. Their loving act made me sick.

I threw a freshly drafted legal document on the coffee table.

"I'll go to LA. I'll marry the Hayes heir. My condition: we cut all ties. You kick me out of the family."

Richard's face froze. "What did you say?"

Eleanor's eyes practically lit up.

"I said, ever since you staged that yacht accident and killed my mother, I haven't wanted to be a Vance," I said. I spaced out every word. "Richard, haven't you always wanted to move your mistress and her daughter in here officially? Now's your chance."

Richard's face instantly turned red. "I told you the yacht was an accident! It had nothing to do with me! After all these years I spent raising you—"

"Raising me?" I sneered. "You traded me to Victor for cash. Now you're shipping me off to LA. That's what you call raising me?"

"Enough!" Richard roared. "If you're going to be this heartless, fine! Have it your way! Starting tomorrow, you are no longer Richard Vance's daughter!"

"Deal," I said. I turned toward the stairs. "Don't forget to tell the Hayes family. Their bride isn't a Vance heiress anymore. She's just an orphan with no parents. Ask them if they're still willing to pay the same price."

Back in my room, I closed the door. The mask I wore finally shattered.

Tears slid down my cheeks. I curled up on my bed. I licked my wounds like an injured animal.

Did you know, Victor?

Just to finally leave you, I had to give up the only things I had left.

The next morning, I heard things being moved downstairs.

I got up. I walked to the top of the stairs.

A familiar figure stood at the bottom.

My mind went completely blank.