Chapter 1

My father had arranged this marriage for me. If he ever found out that Leon had humiliated me like this, that man was done for.

I didn’t want to make things difficult for Leon. If he showed genuine remorse, I might consider dropping the matter.

Two seconds of silence passed on the other end. Then a low, cold chuckle came through the speaker.

“You want an explanation? Why should I give you one?” Leon’s voice dripped with contempt, as if he were talking to a maid. “Rosalina, I decide who my bride is. All you have to do is show up at City Hall and sign the papers. Do you understand?”

“Leon, don’t you think it’s a little absurd to let another woman take my place at our wedding?” I said, my voice steady despite the fury building in my chest. “I may have never met you in person, but I am still your future wife. You should at least show some respect rather than…”

Before I could finish, the line went dead.

The dial tone buzzed in my ear like a needle. I stared at my phone screen, and disbelief curled in my gut.

Leon really had some nerve, hanging up on me like that.

Nicole let out a sharp laugh. She crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe. “Just change the dress, Miss Moretti. With the Scott family’s standing in New York, you should be grateful you’re even marrying into it.”

Her eyes raked over me—my plain knit sweater, my worn-in jeans.

I barely ever left the estate, and my closet was full of comfortable house clothes, nothing fancy.

To her, I must have looked like some ordinary girl who’d lucked into a rich husband.

“I want my wedding dress back,” I said flatly. “And I’m not changing into that cheap dress of yours.”

I raised my hand and pointed at one of the staff members nearby. “If you keep this up, I’ll have the sales assistant strip you right here and throw you out.”

Nicole’s smile only widened at my words. She clicked her heels across the marble floor until she stood right in front of me, and her manicured nail nearly touched the tip of my nose.

“Save it. This is New York. This is Scott family territory. Do you really think anyone here would take your side?”

Her voice grew louder with every word, and she spat the phrases so fast that I could feel the spray on my skin.

My fists clenched at my sides, and my nails dug into my palms. I held her gaze with cold, steady eyes.

I scoffed, “Even your precious Scott family answers to someone bigger than them.”

At those words, Nicole shoved me hard.

I stumbled backward two steps, and my spine slammed into the metal edge of a display rack. A dull ache shot through my shoulder blade.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” she screeched. Her voice came out so shrill that several employees turned their heads. “I'm warning you one last time. Change the damn dress, or I swear you won’t live to see the sun rise.”

Her threats merely provoked a smirk from me.

I had grown up inside the estate walls, and I had rarely appeared in public my whole life. No one had ever threatened me to my face like this before.

The fire in my chest burned hotter. I straightened my spine, looked her dead in the eye, and spoke each word with deliberate slowness.

“Go ahead, try me.”

Behind us, a staff member let out a small gasp. She leaned toward her coworker and whispered, “Oh my God. Is she crazy? Going against Miss Hill like that? We all know Mr. Scott cherishes her. That woman’s got a death wish.”

“It’s just a dress,” the other one muttered back. “Why the drama? If the wedding falls through, she’s the one who loses everything.”

“Exactly. Marrying into the Scott family is winning the lottery. Who cares which girl walks down the aisle?”

Their whispers grew louder with each passing second.

Nicole’s smirk stretched wider across her face. She tilted her head and tucked a loose curl behind her ear.

“See?” she said. “A nobody like you—no money, no connections, just a pretty face—and you think you deserve to be the bride? Dream on.”

I took a deep breath. The rage still burned inside me, but it settled into something colder and sharper.

I had seen faces like theirs before. I knew exactly what kind of people I was dealing with.

“Nicole,” I said. My voice came out calm and steady. “I’ll tell you one last time. Take off my wedding dress.”

“Screw you!” Nicole spat.

She didn’t stop there. She rolled up her sleeves, lunged at me, and reached for my hair with both hands.

I sidestepped just in time. Her fingers grazed past my ear and caught nothing but air.

“What’s the matter?” I asked. “You can’t handle a disagreement without throwing a punch?”

Nicole swung at me again and again, but every single blow missed.

Her face flushed with frustration, and she stomped her heel against the floor.

She hissed, “You bitch! Dodge one more time and you’ll regret it! I’ll call Leon right now!”

She kept provoking me, over and over.

I didn’t hit her back. I just kept dodging. Not because I was afraid of her—but because my father had made me promise before I left the estate.

“Your every word and action represents the Moretti name,” he had said. “Don’t start trouble out there.”

I wasn’t much of a fighter, not in the street-brawling sense.

I either kept my hands to myself, or I ended things with one move. My family had taught me how to kill, not how to scrap.

Nicole saw my constant retreating and mistook it for fear. A vicious glint flashed in her eyes.

She grabbed a vase from the nearby table and raised it high, ready to bring it down on my skull.

Right at that moment, a voice roared from the doorway.

“Stop!”