Leather and Vengeance

The Maybach smells like money and something darker. Sandalwood, maybe. Or just predator.

I’m shivering in my fourteen-thousand-dollar dress, barefoot, mascara crusty, clutching the broken heel like a weapon. Alexander Kane doesn’t speak until we’re three blocks from the Rosewood and I still haven’t looked at him.

“You’re bleeding,” he says.

I glance down. My palm is sliced open from the ultrasound photo edges. Blood smears across the cream leather seat. I don’t move to wipe it.

“Good,” I mutter.

He exhales through his nose (half laugh, half something else) and reaches forward to tap the privacy glass. It lowers an inch.

“Hotel Vitale. Penthouse,” he tells the driver. “And kill the location tracking.”

The glass rises again.

I finally turn my head.

Alexander Kane in person is worse than memory. Black suit, no tie, top button undone like he never finished getting dressed. Or like he’s always ready to ruin someone’s night. The streetlights stripe across his face, sharp cheekbones, the kind of mouth that looks cruel even when it’s still.

He’s watching me like he’s been waiting years for this exact moment.

I hate that he’s beautiful.

“How long have you been stalking me?” I ask. My voice sounds like broken glass.

“Since you were twenty-one and told my entire board their strategy was ‘cute kindergarten bullshit.’” His mouth curves, not quite a smile. “I offered you a job that day. You chose the pretty Whitford instead.”

I flinch.

“Don’t,” I snap. “Don’t you dare act like you’re the hero here.”

“I’m not.” He leans forward, elbows on knees. “I’m the man who’s going to hand you Theo’s head on a spike if you let me.”

The words hit like ice water.

I laugh. It’s ugly. “You think I’m that easy? One bad night and I’ll sell my life to the first billionaire who…”

“You already sold your life,” he cuts in, soft and brutal. “You just sold it to the wrong one.”

Silence.

The car turns onto the Embarcadero. Bay Bridge lights glitter on the water like broken promises.

He keeps going, voice low.

“I watched you save his company. Every quarter. Every all-nighter. Every time he took credit for your decks, your models, your everything. I watched you shrink yourself to fit into his shadow and I waited.” He pauses. “Tonight he finally gave me the opening I needed.”

I stare at him. “What do you want, Alexander?”

“You,” he says simply. “For one year. Marry me. Publicly. Irrevocably. Let the world watch Livia Whitford become Livia Kane.”

I choke on nothing.

“In exchange,” he continues, “I destroy him. Slowly. Publicly. Completely. Whitford Tech becomes a cautionary tale by Christmas. Theo ends up exactly where he belongs: broke, irrelevant, and alone. And you walk away with twenty-five million dollars and whatever’s left of your dignity.”

The number lands between us like a live grenade.

I open my mouth. Close it.

He keeps talking, calm, relentless.

“You keep the baby. Obviously. I’m not a monster. Just a man who’s very good at winning.”

My hand goes to my stomach without permission.

“How long have you known?” I whisper.

“That you stopped drinking three weeks ago? That you started buying ginger ale by the case? That you’ve been taking the stairs because the elevator makes you gag?” His eyes flick to my belly, then back up. “I pay attention, Livia.”

I swallow bile.

“And if I say no?”

He shrugs. “Then you disappear tonight like every other humiliated wife in this city. Theo freezes your accounts by morning. Amara Quinn picks out new monogrammed towels by lunch. You raise your kid in a one-bedroom in Oakland and pretend you never ruled the world.”

He lets that settle.

“Or,” he says, softer, “you get in the ring with me and we burn Rome together.”

The car stops.

Hotel Vitale looms outside, all sleek glass and no questions asked.

Alexander reaches across me (close enough I smell the scotch on his breath) and opens the door himself.

“Your suite’s ready. No cameras. No paperwork tonight. Sleep. Shower. Cry if you have to. I’ll be in the bar until 6 a.m.” He pauses. “After that the offer rots.”

I step out onto the curb. The valet pretends not to notice I’m barefoot and bleeding.

At the revolving door I stop. Look back.

He’s still watching, one arm draped over the back seat, city lights cutting across his face.

“Why me?” I ask, voice barely above the wind.

He smiles, real, sharp, a little unhinged.

“Because you’re the only person in the world who scares me almost as much as I scare them.”

The door spins. I walk through.

The elevator ride is quiet. The suite is obscene (floor-to-ceiling windows, Bay Bridge glittering like it’s personally mocking me).

I strip out of the ruined dress, leave it in a pile like shed skin.

I stand under the shower until the water runs cold and my fingers prune.

Then I sit on the bathroom floor again (different marble, same position) and stare at the ultrasound photo I somehow still have.

The baby’s heartbeat flicker is smudged with my blood.

I don’t cry.

I’m done crying.

I wrap myself in the hotel robe, open the minibar, pour three tiny bottles of vodka into a glass, and stare at them for a long time.

Then I dump them down the sink.

I have eight hours to decide if I’m going to become the villain of my own story.

At 5:47 a.m. I text the only number Alexander left.

Me: Bar. Now.

His reply is instant.

Alexander: Thought you’d never ask.