The bath was a masterpiece of marble and gold, but to Valentina, the steam felt like the humid breath of a predator.
As she scrubbed the graveyard grit and dried copper of her own blood from her skin, her hands hovered protectively, almost reflexively over the slight, firm swell of her lower abdomen.
Four months. She was carrying the seed of a murderer, and now she was trapped in the lair of a king.
If Ian Kingston, the man whose power felt like a physical weight in every room, realized his wife was carrying another man's blood, the 365-day contract wouldn't just be void. It would be her death warrant.
She dressed in the dress the maid had left, a liquid-silk garment in a deep, venomous emerald. It clung to her damp skin like a second, more expensive layer of armor.
She looked into the vanity mirror and suppressed a scream. Misha. With her dark hair slicked back and her amber eyes narrowed in survival, the resemblance was no longer a coincidence; it was a curse.
I am a ghost with a heartbeat, she whispered to the glass. And tonight, I start haunting.
She descended the grand mahogany staircase, her bare feet silent. Below, the sunken lounge was bathed in the amber glow of a fire that didn't reach the chill in her bones.
"The offshore accounts are settled, Mr. Kingston. The resort's acquisition is complete. I've liquidated the remaining assets as per your instructions."
Valentina's heart didn't just beat; it detonated. She knew that voice. It was the voice that had whispered poetry in college, the voice that had lied about his love for her, and the voice that had snarled as his thumbs crushed her windpipe.
She rounded the corner, her knuckles white as she gripped the cold stone of the archway.
There, perched on the edge of a velvet chair, was Kennedy.
But he wasn't the titan he'd pretended to be. He looked small, an ant in the presence of a god. He wore a cheap, off-the-rack suit and clutched a briefcase like a shield.
Opposite him sat Ian, draped in a black silk robe, swirling a glass of neat bourbon. Kennedy wasn't a CEO as he claimed. He was Ian's bookkeeper. A scavenger eating the crumbs of a real man's fortune.
Valentina stepped into the light of the massive crystal chandelier.
The rustle of her silk dress was a gunshot in the silence. Both men looked up.
Kennedy's face didn't just turn pale; it turned the color of a fresh corpse. His jaw dropped, his eyes bulging as if the floor had opened up to reveal the hell he'd tried to send her to.
He scrambled to his feet, his briefcase thudding to the rug, spilling papers like white feathers.
"Valentina?" he choked out, his voice a pathetic, terrified wheeze. "You're... you're... supposed to be..."
Ian's eyes, cold and sharp as surgical steel, narrowed. He stood up with the slow, lethal grace of a panther, his gaze flickering between his wife and the shaking man. The temperature in the room plummeted.
"You recognize her, Kennedy?" Ian's voice was a low, dangerous vibration.
Kennedy was paralyzed. He had seen the dirt hit her face. He had watched her sink into that poisoned tub. "She..." he stammered, his finger trembling as he pointed at her. "She looks... she's..."
Ian stepped toward Valentina, his presence a dark, overwhelming shadow. He wrapped a heavy arm around her waist, hauling her flush against his side.
The heat of him was intoxicating, sandalwood, smoke, and pure authority. Valentina didn't pull away. She leaned into him, using his massive frame as a shield against the monster she used to love. The monster who wanted to kill her.
"This is my wife, Misha Kingston," Ian announced, his voice laced with a possessive, territorial pride that cut through Kennedy's sanity. "Misha, this is Kennedy. My lead accountant. He handles the tedious details of my smaller holdings."
Accountant. The word was a slap. Every "business trip" Kennedy took, every "million-dollar deal" he bragged about, it was all Ian Kingston's laundry.
Kennedy was a fraud living on Ian's leftovers, and he had tried to kill her to protect his pathetic, stolen life.
"Wife?" Kennedy gasped, his knees literally knocking together. He looked like he was about to pass out. "But... she's... Misha?"
Valentina felt a surge of lethal, venomous adrenaline. She saw the sweat beading on Kennedy's brow.
He thought he was losing his mind. He thought she was a vengeful spirit who came to claim him.
She looked up at Ian, ignoring the 365-day contract, ignoring the danger. She saw a weapon, and she decided to pull the trigger. She may not be Misha, but she can use this to her advantage.
Before Ian could speak, Valentina reached up, her fingers sliding into the dark, thick hair at the nape of his neck. She pulled his head down and kissed him, a deep, searing, explosive kiss that tasted of bourbon and sudden, shocked hunger.
Ian stiffened for a fraction of a second, his brain catching up to the sudden heat, before he groaned low in his throat. His hands clamped onto her hips, pulling her so tight the emerald silk was the only thing between them.
He kissed her back with a ferocity that spoke of months of starved desire, his tongue claiming hers in front of the man who had tried to bury her.
Valentina broke the kiss, her lips swollen and her eyes burning with a dark, triumphant light. She turned her gaze to Kennedy, who was staring at them with a look of pure, unadulterated horror.
"Yes, wife," she purred, her voice dripping with a wicked, honeyed poison as she stepped toward him, the emerald silk shimmering like the scales of a serpent.
"Do you have a problem with that, Kennedy? Or do you always look like you've seen a ghost when a lady enters the room?"
