His Deal Her Hearts Demand

For ten years, my world had revolved around Mark. I went to his lavish engagement party to finally cauterize the wound, to watch him promise his life to another woman and force myself to move on.

Then the music stopped. The massive crystal chandelier above us wasn't just glittering anymore; it was groaning, its supports severed, plummeting directly towards the center of the room.

It was aimed at Mark and his fiancée. In that last, heart-stopping second, Mark’s survival instincts kicked in. He shoved her, his future wife, hard. She stumbled sideways, out of the path of destruction.

He didn't even look at me.

He left me standing alone, rooted to the spot, staring up at my own glittering death.

But I wasn't crushed. An arm like iron wrapped around my waist, yanking me back as the world exploded in a crash of metal and glass. My savior was a stranger, a man with eyes like a storm.

He looked down at me in the wreckage and said, “That was an attempt on my life. You were just collateral damage.”

Before I could even process his words, my phone rang. It was my father, his voice choked with despair. Our family's small business, our entire livelihood, had just been financially ruined.

My savior, the man who’d just saved my life, looked at my stricken face.

“That was also me,” he said, his voice devoid of emotion. “I control your family's debt. Marry me, and I will save them.”

Chapter 1

The air in the grand ballroom of The Veridian Hotel was thick with the scent of money and lilies. It was a cloying combination that clung to the back of my throat, a sweet perfume masking something rotten underneath.

Hundreds of tiny lights glittered in the crystal chandelier overhead, casting a fractured, diamond-like glow over the city’s elite. I stood near a marble column, the cheap polyester of my dress feeling scratchy and thin against my skin, a stark contrast to the silks and velvets that swirled around me.

My gaze, as always, was fixed on one person. Mark.

He was standing at the center of the room, a flute of champagne in one hand, his other arm wrapped securely around the waist of his fiancée, Chloe. The light caught the sharp, handsome planes of his face, the face I had doodled in the margins of my notebooks for a decade. He laughed, a deep, rumbling sound that I could feel in my bones even from across the room, and leaned down to whisper something in Chloe’s ear. She tilted her head back and beamed, her diamond necklace flashing like a weapon.

*Ten years,* I thought, the number a dull, familiar ache in my chest. Ten years of hoping, of waiting, of tailoring my life around the orbit of a man who saw me as little more than a piece of background scenery.

A waiter, a young man named Thomas with a nervous tic in his eye, offered me a canapé from a silver tray. I shook my head, my stomach a tight knot of anxiety. I shouldn't have come. Sophie had told me not to. "Clara, it's self-flagellation," she'd said over the phone, her voice laced with concern. "He's getting married. Let it go." But I couldn't. I needed to see it one last time, to burn the image of his happiness into my memory until it finally, blessedly, cauterized the wound.

Just then, Mark’s father, Robert Ashford, a man whose tailored suits always seemed a size too small for his blustering personality, stepped up to a small podium. He tapped the microphone, the feedback a brief, piercing shriek that made several guests wince.

"Friends, colleagues," he began, his voice booming. "Tonight, we celebrate not just the engagement of my son, Mark, to the lovely Chloe, but a new chapter for our family."

My fingers tightened around the thin strap of my clutch. I could feel the worn edges of the fabric, a constant reminder of how out of place I was.

"Mark has always been a leader," his father continued, puffing out his chest. "And with Chloe by his side, a woman of grace and impeccable standing, I know the future of our legacy is secure." He raised his glass. "To Mark and Chloe!"

The room erupted in applause. Mark lifted his own glass, his eyes scanning the crowd. For a heart-stopping second, his gaze met mine. There was no recognition, no flicker of shared history. Just a blank, polite indifference before he moved on, his smile settling once again on Chloe. It was a physical blow, more painful than any insult. I was invisible. A ghost at the feast.

The feeling of worthlessness was so profound it made me dizzy. I turned away, needing to escape the suffocating warmth and forced smiles. I slipped behind a large potted palm, the fronds tickling my cheek, and found myself in a small, shadowed alcove near the service corridor. The din of the party was muffled here, replaced by the low hum of the hotel's ventilation.

It was then that I heard the voices. Hushed, tense.

"...can't hold them off much longer, David. The quarterly reports are a disaster." It was my uncle, his voice strained with a panic I'd never heard before.

"I know, I know," a second voice replied, weary and defeated. My father. My heart stopped. "I sunk everything we had into that last shipment. If the creditor calls the loan..."