VIVIAN'S POV
The champagne tastes like poison.
Vivian stands at the back of the Frost Foundation Gala, crystal flute in hand, watching the two people she trusted most in the world accept an award for stealing her life. Her hands shake. She forces them still.
Three months. That's all it took for Garrett and Sloane to destroy everything she built.
On stage, Garrett's smile gleams under the spotlight. Perfect teeth. Perfect suit. Perfect liar. He takes the Innovation Award like he invented it himself, not like he stole it from a girl who coded through countless nights in a garage, surviving on instant ramen and determination.
Vivian's stomach twists.
The audience erupts in applause. Hundreds of Manhattan's richest people, clapping for thieves in designer suits.
"For revolutionary advances in AI logistics," the presenter announces, his voice booming through the ballroom.
Her algorithm. Her code. Her sleepless nights. Her genius. Wrapped up in a trophy and handed to a man who never believed in her until her company made money.
The rage hits her again, hot and sharp. It's been three months of rage. Three months of losing everything. Three months of trying to breathe when the world caves in.
She shouldn't be here.
Vivian had crashed this party through a service door when a waiter stepped outside for a cigarette. No invitation. No right to be here. Just desperation and the need to see them face to face, to make sure her nightmare was real and not something her broken mind invented.
Now she wishes she'd stayed gone.
Sloane appears beside Garrett, adjusting her gown. That gown. Vivian remembers when Sloane showed her the design on her phone, laughing about finding a designer in SoHo. That was before the betrayal. Before Sloane spent five years being Vivian's best friend while secretly hating her.
How long were they planning it? The question eats at her constantly.
Weeks? Months? Years?
Sloane's platinum blonde hair catches the light. The diamond bracelet on her wrist catches it too. Vivian recognizes that bracelet. She designed the algorithm that paid for it.
The award ceremony ends. People move toward the cocktail tables, toward each other, toward whatever shallow conversations rich people have at galas. Vivian presses herself against the wall, trying to disappear into the wallpaper.
She doesn't belong here. Not anymore.
Three months ago, she belonged everywhere. She was Vivian Lawson, software genius, startup founder, woman who clawed her way from nothing to something. Her company LogiSync was going to change the world. Supply chain management, revolutionized. Artificial intelligence doing the impossible.
Then came the emergency board meeting.
Fabricated evidence. Embezzlement charges. Shell companies in her name. Documents she never signed, accounts she never opened. Everything designed to look real because it technically was real, just twisted and weaponized against her.
Garrett's voice that day echoes in her head: "I'm sorry, Vivian. The evidence is clear. We have to let her go."
He wasn't sorry. She saw it in his eyes. Relief. Victory.
The board voted her out in forty minutes flat.
Within a week, Garrett became CEO and Sloane became COO. Within two weeks, they'd rebranded the company and started licensing the algorithm to competitors. Three weeks after she was fired, she got the eviction notice. Four weeks, and criminal charges were filed.
Eight million dollars in debt from company loans she'd personally guaranteed. Prison staring her in the face. Her mother needing heart surgery she couldn't afford.
Everything. Gone.
Vivian takes a long drink of champagne. It doesn't taste like poison anymore. It tastes like nothing. She's going numb, which is better than feeling.
Garrett starts walking through the crowd, shaking hands, accepting congratulations. He's good at this. Making people believe in him. Making people want to help him.
He made her believe in him too. Four years of believing. Four years of planning a future with someone who was planning her destruction.
She watches him move through the room, getting closer to her corner of the wall. Her heart speeds up. If he sees her, if he realizes she's here...
Actually, what does she care? What can he do to her that he hasn't already done?
Everything's already gone.
Garrett's eyes sweep across the crowd. For a second, just a fraction of a second, they lock on hers.
Vivian sees the shock cross his face. The recognition. The moment he realizes she's here, watching them, knowing.
She doesn't look away. She wants him to see her seeing him. She wants him to feel something, even if it's just discomfort.
He turns to Sloane, says something quiet. Sloane's head snaps around. Their eyes meet across the ballroom.
Sloane's face transforms. The careful socialite mask drops for just a moment, and Vivian sees the vicious satisfaction underneath. Her former best friend is enjoying this. Enjoying watching Vivian watch them win.
Vivian's chest squeezes.
This is bad. She knows it instantly. Staying here was a mistake. A stupid, reckless mistake.
She turns toward the exit. There's a hallway near the back of the ballroom. She can slip out, disappear into the Manhattan night, go back to her empty apartment that won't be empty for much longer because the landlord is evicting her.
She makes it three steps.
"Ma'am, your invitation?"
A security guard appears in front of her, professional and immovable. Of course. She was stupid to think she could sneak around this long.
"I was just leaving," Vivian says quietly.
"Ma'am, we need to see your invitation or..."
"I don't have one," she says. There's no point lying. "But I built the technology that company was just awarded for. I just wanted to see it."
The guard's expression doesn't change. He's heard a hundred excuses tonight, probably worse than this. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
He reaches for her arm, not rough but firm.
That's when everything goes wrong in a completely different way.
Garrett appears, sliding into the scene with that practiced concern he perfected over four years of lying to her face. "Vivian. Oh my God, Vivian, are you alright?"
She tries to move toward the exit but the guard's hand on her arm is steady.
"Don't do this here," Garrett says, his voice low and full of fake worry. Like he actually cares. Like she's a person he didn't betray. "You need help. We all know about your breakdown."
"I didn't have a breakdown. You fabricated evidence."
The words come out too loud. Heads turn. People look.
This is bad. This is very bad.
"Security," Garrett calls out, raising his hand. Two more guards move through the crowd toward them. "Ms. Lawson is unwell. Please escort her from the building."
Sloane appears next to him, her face a mask of concern and pity. The actress finally worthy of an award.
"Vivian, sweetie," Sloane says, and the sweetie is a knife. "We tried so hard to help you. We all know about the embezzlement. It's okay. You can get treatment. There's no shame in that."
Embezzlement. The lie sits between them like something alive.
"That's not what happened," Vivian says, but her voice is shaking now.
The guards grip her arms. One on each side. They start moving her toward the exit, and she realizes what's happening. She's about to be dragged out of this building in front of everyone. Hundreds of people watching her get thrown out while Garrett and Sloane stand there, the heroes in their stolen moment.
The humiliation wraps around her throat.
She pulls against the guards but they don't let go. People are staring now. The whispers have started. She can feel them like insects crawling on her skin.
That's the girl from the news. The embezzler.
She looks like she's unstable.
Garrett's company did the right thing.
Each whisper is a wound.
The guards drag her toward the exit. Her feet barely touch the ground. She tries to make eye contact with people, to silently scream that this isn't true, but nobody meets her eyes. Nobody wants to get involved.
She's being erased in real time.
They're almost at the exit when a voice cuts through the ballroom like a blade.
"Let her go."
Everything stops.
The voice belongs to a man standing at the bar, a man Vivian somehow didn't notice before, a man who looks like danger in a perfectly tailored tuxedo. His eyes are storm gray and they're locked on the guards like he's undressing them with his gaze.
The security guards hesitate.
"I said let her go," the man repeats, and his tone suggests that nobody says no to him twice.
They release her immediately.
Vivian stumbles forward, confusion replacing humiliation for just a moment. She looks up at the stranger. Tall. Impossibly handsome in a way that feels dangerous. Sharp jaw, expensive cut, eyes that seem to see right through her.
He approaches slowly, never breaking eye contact.
"You are Vivian Lawson," he says. Not a question. A statement of fact.
"Yes," she whispers.
"I'm Kade Thorne." He says it like she should know, and she does. Everyone knows Kade Thorne. Billionaire. Tech empire. Widower. Dangerous.
"Come with me," he says, offering his arm.
Behind him, she sees Garrett's face go pale.
"I don't know you," Vivian says, even as her hand reaches for his arm.
"You're about to," he replies.
They walk out of the ballroom together while the entire gala watches in stunned silence.
Outside, on the Manhattan street, Kade's Rolls Royce waits with its engine running.
"Get in," he says.
Vivian gets in.
As the car pulls away from the curb, Kade turns to her with an expression that terrifies and magnetizes her at the same time.
"I know everything about you, Ms. Lawson," he says quietly. "Your company. Your betrayal. Your debt. Your mother's surgery."
Her breath catches.
"How do you..."
"I pay people to know things." He leans closer, and his voice drops. "I also know you have nothing left to lose. Which means you might be willing to accept a very unusual offer."
"What kind of offer?" Vivian's heart pounds against her ribs.
Kade's smile is cold and beautiful and dangerous.
"I'm going to buy you, Vivian. For one year, you belong to me. And in return, I'm going to destroy everyone who destroyed you."
The car speeds through Manhattan as Vivian tries to breathe.
She has no idea what she just agreed to.
She has no idea she's about to sell her soul.
She has absolutely no idea what happens next.