The marble floor was cold beneath my bare feet as I stood frozen outside Dante's bedroom door, my hand hovering over the handle I'd turned a thousand times before. I shouldn't have come here. Not at midnight. Not without knocking. But I'd had another nightmare about the kidnapping attempt when I was twelve—the one where masked men had dragged me toward a van until Dante appeared like some avenging angel, breaking bones and pulling me into his arms while I sobbed into his bulletproof vest. Fifteen years later, I still ran to him when I was scared. The door was cracked open just enough for me to see inside, and what I saw made my heart stop beating entirely. Dante sat on the edge of his bed, head thrown back, hand moving rhythmically beneath his unbuckled pants. His phone glowed in his other hand, and even from the doorway, I could see the photos he was scrolling through with his thumb. Iris. My stepsister. Nineteen years old, blonde and ethereal, everything I wasn't. Beach photos from her Instagram. The red bikini from Santorini. The white sundress from the Hamptons. My bodyguard—my Dante—was getting off to pictures of my baby sister. I must have made a sound because his eyes snapped open, meeting mine across the dim room. For one eternal second, we stared at each other. His hand stilled. His jaw clenched. Then I turned and walked away, my designer nightgown whispering against my legs like a secret I could never tell. "Maya, wait—" I didn't wait. I ran back to my wing of the estate, my father's sprawling monument to new money and old insecurities, and I locked myself in my bathroom until the shaking stopped. It took three hours and an entire bottle of wine I'd hidden behind my bathtub. When the sun finally rose over the manicured gardens, I was calm. Cold. Calculated. I'd spent twenty-seven years being the good daughter. The smart one. The one who sat through boring board meetings and smiled at my father's business associates and never, ever caused problems. I'd spent fifteen years loving a man who would never love me back. That ended today. I dressed carefully—Chanel suit, Louboutin heels, hair pulled back in a severe bun. War paint. Then I walked downstairs to my father's study where he was already shouting into his phone about quarterly projections and hostile takeovers. He looked up when I entered, annoyance flashing across his face. "Not now, Maya. I'm dealing with—" "I'll marry Alexander Thorne," I said. The phone slipped from his hand. Alexander Thorne. Tech billionaire. Thirty-two years old. Victim of a mysterious accident six months ago that left him in a vegetative state, according to the tabloids. His grandmother had been calling my father weekly, begging for an alliance marriage to prevent Alexander's vulture cousins from seizing control of his company. My father had mentioned it once over dinner. I'd laughed. I wasn't laughing now. "You'll... what?" My father stood slowly, his businessman's brain already calculating the angles. "Maya, the man is brain-dead. He's been in a coma for—" "I don't care." I met his eyes without flinching. "I'll marry him. I'll play the devoted wife. I'll help secure his company and salvage whatever business arrangement you're planning." "Why would you possibly—" "Two billion dollars," I said. "Cash. In an account only I can access. And I want Dante reassigned." My father's eyebrows shot up. "Reassigned? Dante's been your bodyguard since you were twelve. He's—" "I want him guarding Iris instead." Each word tasted like broken glass. "She's younger. More vulnerable. More likely to be targeted. It makes sense." It made perfect sense. So much sense that my father couldn't argue, even though his eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Two billion is—" "Nothing compared to what you'll gain from the Thorne alliance," I finished. "We both know it. So do we have a deal?" My father studied me for a long moment. Then he smiled—that shark smile that had built empires and destroyed competitors. "Deal." I turned toward the door, my heels clicking against marble with finality. "Maya?" I paused but didn't look back. "I always knew you were the smart one," my father said. If only he knew how stupid I'd been for fifteen years.