VESPER POV
The champagne glass shattered against the marble floor three inches from my feet.
I didn't flinch. Five years of this had taught me how to keep my face blank, my smile perfect, even when my stepsister wanted me to bleed.
"Oops," Morgana said, loud enough for the entire ballroom to hear. Her ice-blue eyes sparkled with malice. "I'm so clumsy tonight. But I suppose that's what happens when you're celebrating real accomplishments instead of... well, whatever it is you do, Vesper."
Three hundred guests at the Devereux Foundation charity gala turned to watch. Cameras flashed. I felt every eye on me like needles in my skin. The gold-digger. The whore. The girl who married a dying billionaire for his money.
They weren't wrong about the money part. I did marry Callahan Devereux to save my drowning father from bankruptcy. The contract was simple: play the devoted wife to a man with six months to live, inherit everything when he died, walk away rich.
That was five years ago. Callahan still wasn't dead.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Morgana announced, stepping onto the small stage where the auction items were displayed. She wore a white dress that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe. "I want to share some exciting news about Thrace Industries."
My stomach dropped. Thrace Industries was my father's company—or it used to be before Isolde, my stepmother, took control. Before Morgana became VP of Strategy using my work, my ideas, my late nights crunching numbers while she partied.
"Thanks to my innovative economic restructuring plan," Morgana continued, pulling up slides on the massive screen behind her, "we've increased profits by forty percent this quarter."
Those were my projections. My analysis. My spreadsheets that I'd slaved over during my MIT days before the contract marriage destroyed my dreams.
I'd emailed them to my father two years ago, begging him to look at them. To remember I existed. He never responded. Now I knew why. Morgana had stolen them.
"Of course, some people marry for money instead of earning it," Morgana said, her eyes locking on mine. "But I believe in working for success. Don't you agree, Vesper? Oh wait—you wouldn't know anything about actual work, would you? You're too busy playing nurse to your dying husband."
Laughter rippled through the crowd. Cruel. Delighted. They loved watching someone get destroyed at these events. Made them feel better about their own miserable lives.
My nails dug into my palms. Smile, Vesper. Don't give them the satisfaction.
"Tell me, Vesper," Morgana's voice dripped poison, "how does it feel to be a whore who married a cripple for his billions? Does the money make it worth touching a dying man?"
The room went silent. That was too far, even for these vultures.
But Morgana wasn't done. "I mean, everyone knows you signed a contract. Everyone knows you're just waiting for him to die so you can cash in. At least real whores are honest about what they do."
My vision blurred red. Five years. Five years of public humiliation. Five years of being called gold-digger, vulture, fraud. Five years of sacrificing everything—my education, my career, my dignity—to save a father who couldn't even look at me anymore.
I opened my mouth to finally, finally tell Morgana exactly what I thought of her—
"Vesper."
The voice cut through the noise like a knife. Deep. Controlled. Commanding.
Callahan.
I turned. My husband sat in his wheelchair thirty feet away, near the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. Even sitting down, even "dying," he had a presence that made people step back. Six-foot-three of lean muscle hidden under an expensive suit, dark hair touched with silver at the temples, and those eyes—mercury gray, sharp enough to cut.
He gestured me over with one finger.
The crowd parted like I carried a disease. I walked toward him, head high, while whispers followed me. Gold-digger. Whore. Shameless.
Let them talk. They'd been talking for five years.
I reached Callahan and his hand shot out, catching mine. His grip was strong—too strong for a dying man—and his wedding band was cold against my skin.
"You're trembling," he said softly. Only I could hear him.
"I'm fine," I lied.
His thumb stroked across my knuckles. Once. Twice. "Liar. But you wear it beautifully."
Something in his voice made my breath catch. I'd lived with this man for five years. Separate bedrooms. Separate lives. He was a stranger in a wheelchair, a contract on paper, a meal ticket I'd sold my soul for.
But sometimes, late at night, I heard him moving in his study. Not the shuffling steps of an invalid. Real footsteps. Strong. Sure.
And sometimes I caught him watching me with those mercury eyes, and there was something in them that made my skin burn. Something hungry. Something dangerous.
"Take me home," Callahan said. It wasn't a request.
I moved behind his wheelchair, my hands gripping the handles. As I turned him toward the exit, I saw Morgana on stage, still smirking. Still triumphant.
Her laughter echoed across the ballroom, sharp and cruel.
But then I caught something else. Something that made ice flood my veins.
Callahan's hand rested on the wheelchair arm, and his fingers were tapping. Not random movements. Deliberate. Controlled. Like he was typing a message on an invisible keyboard.
Tap. Tap. Tap-tap. Tap.
I'd seen that pattern before. In my computer science classes at MIT, back when I had a future. It was Morse code.
D-E-A-D.
Dead.
I looked down at my husband. His face was calm, almost bored. The perfect mask of a dying billionaire tired from a long evening.
But his fingers kept tapping against that armrest.
D-E-A-D. S-O-O-N.
My heart hammered. Was he talking about himself? Was he finally dying after five years?
Or was he talking about someone else?
I glanced back at Morgana, still basking in her stolen glory. Still laughing.
Callahan's hand moved to cover mine on the wheelchair handle. His skin was warm. Alive. His grip was iron-strong.
"Don't look back," he whispered. "She's already gone. She just doesn't know it yet."
The world tilted. What did that mean? What was he—
His fingers squeezed mine once, hard enough to bruise.
And I remembered something I'd tried to forget. Three months ago, I'd woken at 2 AM and gone to Callahan's study to ask about a credit card bill. The door was cracked open.
Inside, I'd seen my husband standing at the window. Not sitting. Not trembling. Standing tall and strong, staring out at the city like he owned it.
When I'd gasped, he'd collapsed back into his wheelchair so fast I thought I'd imagined it.
But I hadn't imagined it.
And I hadn't imagined the way he'd looked at me in that split second before he fell. Like a predator caught mid-hunt.
Like a monster wearing a dying man's face.
"Callahan," I whispered as we reached the exit. "What did you mean? About Morgana being gone?"
He tilted his head back to look at me. His mercury eyes glowed in the dim light.
And he smiled.
It was the most terrifying thing I'd ever seen.
"You'll find out tomorrow, little wife. I promise."
The elevator doors closed on Morgana's laughter.
I had no idea it would be the last time I'd ever hear it.