Ethan Holt had never imagined that Evie Sterling would one day walk away from him. He had funded her for ten years, caged her for ten years, and convinced himself she would wait forever. For Sophia Grant, he slapped Evie, locked her up, and stripped away the last voting shares her family had left her. He trampled all over her love and still believed she would come back. Only after Lucas Grant took her into his protection, married her, and placed an empire in her hands did Ethan finally lose his mind. He wrecked his own legacy, survived a fall into the sea, and crawled back from hell like a possessive ghost, all for one purpose. To take her back. Evie only gave him one answer. “Ethan, the debt is repaid. We will never see each other again.” The world called him a madman for chasing after his lost love. Lucas Grant only held his wife closer and said with lazy contempt, “Ethan’s taste has always been terrible. Lucky for me, he let me steal the prize.” Everyone in Harbor City knew Evie Sterling was Ethan Holt’s pretty little ornament. What no one knew was that the obedient face he kept beside him had spent three years tangled in a secret affair with the man who had sponsored her since childhood. That night, Ethan returned from Wall Street after three years abroad. The first event on his schedule was a private charity cruise. In the VIP suite on the top deck, the air itself felt overheated. Evie was pinned against the glass with her wrists tied by his necktie, the city lights glittering behind her and Ethan’s cold, handsome face burning with possessive madness in front of her. “Ethan… that hurts…” He bit down at the back of her neck in answer. “Three years apart and you’ve already forgotten how to please me?” She cried quietly and let the tears fall. For three years she had lived on one sentence alone. Wait for me to come back. She had turned away every admirer and spent those years like a doll suspended on strings. When he was done, Ethan buttoned his shirt and put his mask back on. Then he lit a cigar and said, as casually as if he were discussing the weather, “Tomorrow the Holt and Grant families will formally announce the marriage alliance.” Her hands froze over the hem of her dress. “You’re getting married?” “Yes.” He looked down at her without emotion. “I’m marrying Sophia Grant. You’re marrying her brother, Lucas Grant.” The room spun. Lucas Grant. The ruthless head of the Grant family. “Why?” she whispered. “You told me to wait for you.” “I told you what I needed to tell you.” His voice turned colder. “Sophia is different. She’s clean. She can stand beside me in public. You can’t. The Holt family supported you for ten years. It’s time you repaid that debt.” Clean. That word sliced her open. So that was all she had ever been to him. A dirty little secret. She barely knew how she got out of the suite. Her dress hung crooked. The mark on her neck burned. Tears blurred her vision. At the corner of the hall, she ran straight into a broad chest that smelled faintly of cedar. She looked up and found herself face-to-face with a man in a black overcoat, tall, controlled, and dangerous in a way that did not need to be announced. His gaze dropped to the bite mark on her neck. Then his mouth curved. “Ethan’s taste,” he said softly, “is still as bad as ever.”
She knew who he was immediately. Lucas Grant. Sophia’s brother. Her future fiancé by arrangement. He studied her for a moment, then removed his coat and draped it over her shoulders. “Cover yourself,” he said. “I’d rather tomorrow’s headlines not say my fiancée showed up wearing another man’s marks.” She fled in humiliation. Back in the ballroom, the crowd had gathered around the staircase. Ethan stood there in a dark suit with Sophia on his arm. Sophia was all white silk and sweetness, the kind of beauty that looked fragile until you looked too closely. Evie stood in the shadows and tried not to look. Sophia noticed her anyway. “Ethan, that must be Evie,” she said with a smile. “You always said she was your best-behaved girl.” Ethan’s eyes dropped to Lucas’s coat over Evie’s shoulders, and his face darkened at once. “Where did you get that?” Before Evie could answer, Sophia covered her mouth and said with mock innocence, “That looks like my brother’s coat. Evie, were you with him just now?” Ethan leaned close enough that only she could hear him. “I told you to marry Lucas. I did not tell you to throw yourself at him.” Her heart dropped to the floor. He did not ask. He did not listen. He judged. So she smiled. “If you’re giving me away,” she said coolly, “wouldn’t it make sense to start pleasing my future husband early?” For the first time that night, Ethan looked shaken. Sophia saw it and smiled even more sweetly. “Come with me, Evie. Let’s talk about your wedding.” She led her out to the deck. The instant they reached a deserted corner, Sophia dropped the act. She raised her hand and showed off a huge pink diamond ring. “Ethan bought it at Sotheby’s for me,” she said. “Did you think sleeping with him for three years would make you special? You’re nothing but a bankrupt orphan he kept around.”
Evie recognized the diamond instantly. Years earlier, Ethan had sent her a picture of it from Europe and said, This stone would suit you. She had waited for months. Now it was on someone else’s hand. “Finished showing off?” Evie asked quietly. She tried to leave. Sophia grabbed her wrist. “As long as I’m here, you’ll never have a good life.” Then, with perfect timing, Sophia screamed. “Evie! What are you doing?” She let herself fall backward over the deck rail and into the heated pool below. The splash was enormous. “Sophia!” Ethan’s roar came from behind Evie. He jumped into the water, dragged Sophia out, and cradled her against him while she trembled and cried and pointed at Evie. “I only wanted to talk to her. Why would she push me?” The crowd gathered at once. Whispers spread. Ethan crossed the deck in three strides and slapped Evie so hard she hit the ground. Blood filled her mouth. “I didn’t push her,” she said, hand pressed to her swollen cheek. “She jumped.” “Shut up. Sophia can’t even swim. You think she’d risk her life just to frame you?” Ten years of attachment lost to one tear from another woman. He ordered his guards to drag her away. “Put her in the cold storage room. Let her cool off.” It was the ship’s frozen supply compartment. The metal door slammed shut behind her. The freezing air cut through her thin dress at once. Curled in the corner, shaking, she remembered something Ethan had once told her when she was ten and half-frozen in the snow. As long as I’m here, you’ll never be cold again. So vows expired too. By the time her breathing turned shallow and her consciousness started slipping, the heavy steel door exploded open. A tall silhouette stood in the flood of light beyond.
Lucas Grant walked into the freezer and found her half-conscious in the frost. His entire expression changed. He wrapped her in his coat, lifted her into his arms, and carried her out. When Holt security tried to stop him, he gave them one word. “Move.” His men raised guns. The guards backed off. “Anyone who touches my fiancée,” Lucas said, “goes overboard.” Meanwhile, upstairs, Ethan had just calmed Sophia when his assistant rushed in white-faced. “Mr. Grant broke into the freezer and took Ms. Sterling.” Ethan overturned the table so hard the glass exploded. His heart had been uneasy from the moment she was locked in there. Now he finally knew why. When Evie woke up, she was in a warm bedroom under expensive sheets with an IV in her hand. Lucas sat nearby, turning a silver lighter between his fingers. “You saved me.” “More accurately,” he said, “I saved my future wife.” He stepped closer and touched the swelling on her face with startling gentleness. “Do you see Ethan Holt clearly now? Ten years of obedience almost bought you a freezing death.” “I see him clearly now.” He bent close and lowered his voice. “Then make a deal with me. Marry me, and I’ll give you the power to crush Ethan Holt and Sophia Grant under your heel.” She looked him straight in the eyes. “All right.” That was the moment everything changed.
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