The morning light, which had felt like a spotlight on Hannah's misery only moments ago, now seemed to chill as it struck the marble of the grand staircase. Dermin had left the bedroom with a final, lingering look—one that promised her he wasn't finished with her—and descended the stairs with the heavy, rhythmic tread of a king going to meet his subjects.
Hannah, driven by a desperate, oscillating mix of survival instinct and raw curiosity, didn't stay in the dressing room. She crept out into the hallway, her bare feet silent on the deep indigo runner. She found a shadowed vantage point behind the heavy mahogany balustrade of the upper landing, peering through the carved pillars at the foyer below.
Two women stood in the center of the hall, looking like exquisite porcelain dolls against the stark, modern backdrop of Dermin's empire.
The first was a woman Hannah recognized instantly, despite the decade that had passed. Eleanor Doren. Ten years ago, Eleanor had been the woman who tucked a twenty-dollar bill into Hannah's pocket "for coffee." She was the woman who had hugged Hannah when she graduated from her first year of university, calling her the "daughter she never had." Now, Eleanor was draped in a Chanel suit the color of a winter cloud, her silver hair coiffed into a sharp, unforgiving bob.
Beside her stood a woman who looked like she had been engineered in a laboratory for the sole purpose of being a billionaire's consort. Her name was Bianca Vane. She was tall, with skin the shade of cream and eyes a piercing, feline green. She wore a dress of structured emerald silk that hugged every curve with predatory intent. She didn't just stand in the room; she owned the air within it.
Dermin reached the bottom step, his hands sliding into his trouser pockets. He didn't offer a hug. He didn't offer a smile. He stood five feet away, a wall of charcoal and ice.
"Mother," he said, his voice echoing with a cold, resonant authority. "And Bianca. To what do I owe this unscheduled morning intrusion?"
Eleanor stepped forward, her heels clicking sharply on the marble. "Don't 'Mother' me with that tone, Dermin. You haven't answered my calls in three days, and the board is whispering. You are thirty-five years old. You have built a kingdom, but you have no queen. It's an embarrassment to the Doren name."
She gestured with a gloved hand toward Bianca, who offered Dermin a practiced, simmering smile. "I've brought Bianca. Her father's firm handles your European logistics, and more importantly, she is a woman of standing. She is your soon-to-be wife, Dermin. It's time we set a date."
Upstairs, Hannah felt a sharp, jagged pang in her chest. A wife. Of course. A man like Dermin needed a Bianca. Someone clean. Someone with a "standing" that didn't involve a mugshot.
Dermin's gaze flickered to Bianca for a fraction of a second—a look of such profound indifference it was almost a physical slap. Then he turned back to his mother.
"You're late, Mother," Dermin said, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous hum. "I already have a wife."
The foyer went deathly silent. Even the clock on the mantle seemed to skip a beat. Eleanor's face went slack, her hand flying to the pearls at her throat. Bianca's feline smile vanished, replaced by a sharp, ugly line of confusion.
"A wife?" Eleanor stammered. "What are you talking about? You haven't been seen with anyone. There's been no announcement. Who is she? Some... some model you met in Singapore? Some socialite I've overlooked?"
Dermin straightened his spine, his shadow lengthening across the floor. "Her name is Hannah McKay."
Hannah, hidden above, felt the world tilt. Hearing her name in that foyer, spoken with such cold possessiveness, felt like being branded all over again.
Eleanor recoiled as if he had struck her. "Hannah... McKay?" She repeated the name slowly, her brain sifting through the archives of a decade-old scandal. Her eyes widened, her face draining of color. "No. No, Dermin. You cannot be serious. Not that girl. Not the friend who... who went to prison?"
"The very one," Dermin confirmed, his voice devoid of apology.
"Dermin, you are kidding!" Eleanor's voice rose to a shrill, hysterical pitch. "This is a joke. A cruel, sick joke to punish me for bringing Bianca here! How could you marry an ex-convict? A woman who has spent her entire twenties behind bars? A criminal? Dermin, think of the headlines! Think of your stock prices! How will people say when they find out the head of Doren Tech is sleeping next to a felon?"
Hannah squeezed the balustrade so hard the wood bit into her palms. The words ex-convict and felon felt like stones being hurled at her by the woman she had once loved like a mother. Eleanor, who used to bake her cookies, was now recoiling at the very mention of her existence as if she were a plague.
"I don't care what people say," Dermin replied, his tone as flat and final as a closing coffin lid. "And I certainly don't care about the stock prices. Hannah McKay is my wife. She is the mistress of this house. Whether the city likes it or not is irrelevant."
"It is your business to care!" Eleanor stepped toward him, her voice trembling with rage. "She is not fitting for you! She is a stain on your reputation! She was trash ten years ago, and she is recycled trash now! You cannot bring a woman like that into our circles. She will be a laughingstock, and you will go down with her!"
Bianca finally spoke, her voice like honey laced with arsenic. "Dermin, darling... surely you see the absurdity? A woman from the gutter... it's a phase, isn't it? A bit of charity for an old flame?"
Dermin turned his gaze to Bianca. It was a look of such concentrated lethality that the woman actually took a step back.
"Hannah is the only woman who will ever bear the Doren name," Dermin said, each word a slow, deliberate hammer blow. "She is my business. And as of this moment, this conversation is over. My butler will show you both out."
"Dermin!" Eleanor screamed, but he was already turning away.
Upstairs, Hannah pulled back into the shadows, her heart feeling like a shattered piece of glass in her chest. She looked down at her hands—pale, shaking, and marked by the ten years Eleanor found so disgusting. She wasn't just a prisoner of Dermin's house; she was a nobody in a world that hated her very breath.
But as she watched Dermin start toward the stairs, his eyes searching the upper landing as if he knew exactly where she was hiding, she felt a new, cold fire ignite. If she was a "stain," she would make sure she was a stain he could never wash off.