Mag-log inShe gave him everything: her love, her loyalty, even her life savings to build his empire. On their third wedding anniversary, Victoria Hale believed her cold and distant husband would finally see her worth. Instead, he shattered her heart. With one cruel slap and a set of divorce papers, he told her the truth: he had only married her for money, and he was leaving her for her stepsister, the woman he had loved all along. Broken, mocked, and left with nothing, Victoria almost gave up. But when a powerful investor—her ex-husband’s biggest rival—offered her a chance to rise again, she took it. Two years later, the woman everyone once called weak returned as the CEO of one of the fastest-growing fashion empires worth billions. She was stunning, confident, and untouchable, no longer the naive wife who once begged for love. So when Trent Rhodes came crawling back—jealous, desperate, and ruined—Victoria looked him straight in the eyes and said, “I’m sorry, do I know you?”
view moreVICTORIAFOURTEEN MONTHS LATER…I was standing in front of a floor-length mirror in the most expensive suite at the Ritz Paris, wearing a wedding dress I had designed myself, and Isabella was crying, which she would definitely describe as completely unnecessary if she weren't also fixing my veil with hands that weren't entirely steady."You look obscene," she said, which was her way of saying something was really beautiful."Thank you," I said.My mother knocked and came in without waiting, which was something she had been doing since she moved to New York seven months ago. She walked into places like she belonged in them, which she did. She always had. She had just been kept out of them for too long.She was wearing the dusty rose gown I had made for her. Her hair was done. She looked like a woman who had survived a lot of hard things and came out of the other side still herself, which was the most beautiful way I knew to describe a person.She stood behind me in the mirror."Your fa
VICTORIAThe trial started on a bright Monday in January.I testified on the second day, wearing a white pantsuit which I had picked the night before while Clark sat on the edge of the bed and watched me hold it up against myself in the mirror. He didn't say anything because he actually didn't need to. We both knew what the color meant.I sat in the witness box for four hours. I didn't ask for a break. Of course, I didn't need one.I told them everything. The way the Hawthorne Syndicate had run their scheme for decades. The duplicate they had created of me. The forged documents and fake photographs. The way they had poisoned my mother and kept her hidden. The way they had used the leverage they had against women like me over and over again, for years, with no one stopping them.I listed names. I laid out the evidence piece by piece. I didn't even raise my voice once.When Celestine's attorney stood up and suggested that I had built my whole testimony around personal revenge, I looked
CLARKI had been wanting to ask Victoria something for four months.The ring had been sitting in the inner pocket of my coat that whole time. A diamond ring set in platinum, so beautiful and not too large, which I’d taken a lot of time to carefully choose.I’d thought about how to do it a lot of times. And every single time, I’d talked myself out of it. Either the moment felt too big, too small, too carefully set up, or not thoughtful enough. I had walked into boardrooms full of people who wanted to destroy me and kept my voice steady. But this had me nervous in a way none of that ever had.The thing about Victoria was that she didn't need this. She didn't need me. She had rebuilt herself from the ground up with her own hands, and she had done it with more dignity than most people managed in a lifetime. What she had done was want me. And wanting, when you were someone like Victoria who could survive perfectly well without anyone, meant a whole lot more than needing.I almost asked her
VICTORIANathaniel Voss was found on a Thursday morning.He hadn't made it to wherever he had been trying to go. Federal agents found him at a private estate in Portugal, working alongside Interpol and the two prosecutors I had been in contact with for months. He was taken in without much of a struggle, which surprised a lot of people. He had been talked about for so long in such large terms that I think some people had started to imagine him as more than a man who had finally run out of places to go.Calloway sent me a text at 7:14 in the morning. I was in the middle of a board meeting for Hale Couture's expansion into the European market when my phone buzzed on the table. I picked it up, read it, set it face down, and went back to the presentation without saying a word.Clark was sitting two seats to my right. He didn't ask anything. He didn't say anything either. But I saw him notice the way my shoulders dropped just slightly, like a huge weight had just been eased off my shoulder
ISABELLA Everything felt wrong in the morning.I sat at my desk with cold coffee and three screens open. One showed account trails. One showed legal filings. One showed a smiling photo of Margaret taken two years ago, back when she still pretended she was just a patron of art and not a spider with
TRENTI didn’t sleep.I stared at the ceiling and counted every mistake I’d ever made. By morning, my head hurt and my mouth tasted like regret.A baby.Every time I thought about the word, my chest tightened even more.Not because I didn’t understand what it meant. I understood it all too well. A
VICTORIAI laughed.It came out of me before I could stop it. It wasn’t soft or polite. This definitely wasn’t the kind you used to smooth things over. The sound filled the air and made Trent flinch like he’d been hit.I didn’t cover my mouth. I didn’t turn away. I laughed right in his face.It sur
CLARKI didn’t plan for it to happen that night.If I were being honest with myself, I had stopped planning anything where Victoria was concerned. Planning made you think you were in control. And being around her taught me how fast control could slip through your fingers.It was late when she came
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