I hid behind the hedges at my own wedding, watching my fiancé walk down the aisle with his ex-girlfriend wearing my dress and grandmother's veil.

The music swelled through the grand ballroom, but the heat of the room was suffocating. After twenty minutes of dancing—twenty minutes where Julian’s hand at my waist felt like an anchor in a raging sea—I slipped away toward the powder rooms on the lower gallery to catch my breath.

The lower corridor of the Marble House was quiet, lined with antique mirrors and dim, sconce-lit oil paintings.

I pushed open the heavy brass door of the executive ladies' lounge, stepped toward the marble vanity, and turned on the gilded tap to run cold water over my wrists.

The door clicked shut behind me.

I looked up in the three-paneled gilded mirror.

Celia was standing directly behind me.

Her crimson dress was wrinkled around the waist, her elaborate updo slightly unraveling at the crown. The sweet, fragile persona she wore like cheap perfume had completely dissolved, replaced by a raw, feral desperation that hollowed out her cheeks.

“You’re enjoying this, aren't you?” Celia hissed, her voice echoing off the pink marble walls.

I didn't turn around. I reached for a linen hand towel, carefully drying my fingers.

“Enjoying what, Celia? The music? The champagne? It’s a lovely evening.”

“You’re ruining him!” she spat, taking two aggressive steps forward until she was inches from my shoulder. “Adrian hasn't slept in three days. The banks are calling his personal guarantees. The Rhodes trust executor suspended my disbursement because of your goddamn restraining order!”

I turned slowly, leaning my hip against the marble vanity, crossing my arms.

“Your trust disbursement?” I asked, tilting my head. “I thought the wedding was an act of noble charity for your dying grandfather. That’s what Adrian told the press. That’s what you whispered to the society editors.”

Celia let out a harsh, jagged laugh that sounded entirely unhinged.

“My grandfather died four years ago, Emily! You stupid, naive little academic. Did you really think Adrian would marry a girl from a public high school who spent her weekends writing computer code?”

She sneered, stepping closer, her eyes flashing with venomous triumph.

“Adrian and I planned this for eight months,” Celia whispered, leaning in so close I could smell the stale gin on her breath. “We needed your software architecture to close the Rhodes Maritime merger. But the Rhodes board would never have allowed Adrian to control the maritime routes without an absolute family alliance. Adrian promised me that the day your intellectual property transferred, he would dump you with a three-million-dollar severance check, declare you emotionally unstable, and we would take the holding company public in London.”

She smirked, looking me up and down with grotesque pity.

“You were nothing but an incubator for the algorithm, Emily. He laughed at you every time he came to my apartment in Tribeca. He called you his ‘little worker bee.’ He said you were so desperate for a ring and an estate that you’d sign anything he put in front of you without reading the fine print.”

My heart did not break. The place where Adrian used to reside inside my chest had already been hollowed out, cauterized by his betrayal at the altar.

All that remained was the ice-cold satisfaction of a trap snapping shut.

I reached into the pocket of my velvet gown.

I pulled out my phone.

The red recording indicator on the screen had been running for three minutes and forty-two seconds.

I tapped the screen. The recording stopped with a crisp, digital chime.

Celia’s face drained of every drop of color. Her lips parted, her chest heaving as she stared at the glowing glass in my hand.

“What... what did you do?” she stammered, reaching out a trembling, manicured hand.

“I backed up my data, Celia,” I said smoothly. “As any good ‘worker bee’ does.”

“Give me that phone!” she screamed, lunging forward with her acrylic nails aimed straight at my face.

I didn't flinch. I caught her wrist midair with a grip forged from years of athletic rowing at university. I twisted it downward, stepping into her space with an authority that pinned her against the edge of the sink.

“Don't ever reach for me again,” I whispered, my voice dangerously soft. “You wanted an alliance, Celia. You wanted corporate intrigue. Let’s see how your offshore board reacts when they hear you admitting to eight months of premeditated securities fraud and conspiracy to commit intellectual property theft.”

“Emily, please!” Celia broke, the venom instantly vanishing, replaced by the pathetic, sniveling terror of a cornered coward. “If that audio gets to the trust executors, I’ll be disinherited completely! I have three hundred thousand dollars in personal credit card debt! Adrian promised he would pay it off!”

“Then I suggest you ask him for a loan,” I said, releasing her wrist with disgust.

She stumbled backward, catching herself against the mirror, tears of pure panic carving black mascara tracks down her powdered cheeks.

“He doesn't have any money left!” she sobbed. “He used his personal margin accounts to buy Whitmore stock this morning to keep the price up! If the price drops below forty dollars tomorrow, the brokerage liquidates him!”

I looked at the woman who had stolen my grandmother’s veil, who had drunk my champagne, who had smiled in my face while planning to strip my life down to the bone.

“Forty dollars?” I asked softly, tapping the phone against my palm. “Thank you for the market tip, Celia. That was exceptionally helpful.”

I turned on my heel, pushed open the brass doors of the lounge, and stepped back into the gilded light of the gallery.

Julian was waiting at the end of the corridor, leaning against an archway, his arms crossed over his chest. He took one look at my face, pushed off the wall, and met me halfway.

“Did she give you what we needed?” Julian asked, his voice low and intense.

I handed him my phone.

“She gave us the entire conspiracy on a silver platter,” I said. “And she just confirmed Adrian’s personal margin threshold is forty dollars.”

A slow, wolfish grin spread across Julian’s face. He slipped the phone into his tuxedo pocket and took my hand, raising my knuckles to his lips in a gesture that sent a jolt of raw heat straight down my spine.