Chapter 1
The camera flashes hit me like lightning strikes as I walked down the aisle. My wedding dress rustled with each step toward a man who wasn't Ryan.
Daniel stood at the altar in his black tux, dark eyes locked on mine with that intense stare that made my skin crawl. He looked at me like he owned me, which I guess he did now.
The whispers followed me down the aisle.
"Why would the Morgan heir choose some nobody from a burned-out casino family?"
"Sullivan's playing the long game. Smart move, getting his girl inside the Morgan empire."
His girl. God, I wished that were true. If only Ryan could be the one waiting for me instead of orchestrating this whole charade from the shadows.
Daniel reached for my hand, and I forced myself not to flinch. His grip was firm, possessive. Nothing like Ryan's gentle touch.
"Nervous?" he murmured.
Heartbroken would be more accurate.
I was marrying the wrong man for the right reasons. Everything I was doing was for Ryan, for us, for the future he'd promised we could have together.
"Wouldn't you be?" I managed.
Something flickered in Daniel's expression. "I've been waiting for this day longer than you know."
What does he mean?
The officiant started the ceremony, but all I could think about was Ryan's voice last night: "This is temporary, Liv. Just long enough to get what we need. Then we can be together the way we should have been all along."
When Daniel began his vows, his voice carried across the silent ballroom: "No matter how fate shuffles the deck, I choose to walk this path with you."
My chest ached. These words should be coming from Ryan. This whole beautiful, expensive wedding should be ours, not some business transaction disguised as romance.
Then came my turn. The words felt like swallowing razor blades.
I stared into Daniel's expectant face and thought about Ryan's smile, his laugh, the way he'd held me when I cried about my father.
But I said the scripted promises anyway, each word a small death, binding myself to a man I could never truly want while my heart belonged completely to another.
The weight of the moment pressed down on me as Daniel slipped the ring onto my finger. How had I ended up here? How had everything gone so wrong?
It all started with that night. The night Ryan saved my life and became my everything.
Seven years earlier, the smell of smoke still clung to my clothes as I raced toward the orange glow. My phone had been buzzing non-stop—the security guard's panicked voice: "Miss Hayes, you need to get here now. The Lucky Clover is..."
I couldn't make out the rest over the sirens wailing in the distance.
When I arrived, our small casino was already a blazing inferno. The neon four-leaf clover sign that Dad had been so proud of was melting, dripping green and gold onto the asphalt like tears.
"Dad!" I screamed, pushing past the firefighters. "Where's my father?"
A security guard grabbed my arm. "Miss, you can't go in there. Mr. Hayes went back inside for some documents and family photos. We're trying to—"
I broke free and ran toward the entrance, the heat hitting me like a physical wall.
The last thing I remembered was a pair of strong arms wrapping around me as the world went black.
I woke up three days later to the steady beep of hospital monitors and Ryan's worried face hovering over me. His usually perfect hair was disheveled, his designer shirt wrinkled, and his blue eyes were red-rimmed.
Ryan Sullivan. The golden boy from my business classes who I'd been secretly crushing on for months. The one who barely noticed me existed until that night.
"Thank God," he whispered, squeezing my hand. "For a moment there, I thought you were gone too."
"Dad?" My voice came out as a croak.
Ryan's face crumpled. "Liv, I'm so sorry. The fire... we couldn't save him. I pulled you out just in time, but your father..." He couldn't finish the sentence.
The grief hit me like a truck. Everything Dad had built was gone. The only family I had left was Mom, and now Ryan—the boy I'd been too shy to even talk to properly—had risked his life to save mine.
"What are we going to do?" I whispered. "My home..."
"Hey." Ryan's grip tightened on my hand. "You're not alone in this. I'll take care of you and your mom. That's what your father would have wanted."
His words were exactly what I needed to hear. In that sterile hospital room, with the scent of disinfectant burning my nostrils, Ryan became my lifeline. My hero. My only hope.
And now, seven years later, I was standing at an altar marrying someone else because that same hero had asked me to.
The officiant's voice cut through my memories like a blade.
"You may kiss the bride."
Daniel's lips brushed mine with surprising gentleness. Brief, almost careful. When he pulled back, something in his dark eyes made my chest tight.
Why does he look at me like that? Like I actually matter to him?
The reception was a blur of fake smiles and champagne. I played the perfect bride while my mind stayed stuck on that kiss.
Too real. Too gentle for what this was supposed to be.
Hours later, Daniel walked me to the master bedroom. The space felt warm, lived-in—nothing like the Sullivan Mansion's cold marble perfection.
"This is where you'll sleep," he said, then pressed another soft kiss to my forehead. "Goodnight, Olivia. Tomorrow's a new beginning. My only request... is that you're here when I get home."
The door clicked shut behind him.
My phone buzzed immediately. Ryan.
"How did it go? Any safes? Private offices?"
"Ryan, he didn't even..." I lowered my voice. "This feels wrong. He's not what we expected."
"Don't let him play you, Liv. Rich guys are good at that. Stay focused on why we're doing this—the casino plans, his connections. Everything we need to rebuild is right there."
My reflection stared back from the window—still in the wedding dress, still lying to everyone including myself.
"I know," I whispered. "I won't forget."
But when I hung up, something on Daniel's desk froze my blood. A yellowed newspaper clipping about the Lucky Clover fire, preserved in plastic like some kind of trophy.
"I came back for my phone," he said quietly, grabbing the device from his nightstand. His eyes found the newspaper clipping in my hands. "I see you found that."
My mouth went dry. "Why do you have this?"
"If you knew the truth," he said, "would you still hate me?"
Before I could ask what the hell he meant, he gave a final, unreadable look and retreated down the hall, his footsteps silent on the carpet.