Chapter 1

I dragged Solomon Delgado down from his pedestal with my own hands. With half the Fox family fortune, at the lowest, most humiliating point of his life, I forced him to marry me.

After the wedding, whenever the first love who'd fled the country came back, all it took was one blurry, suggestive photo from her, one honey-coated barb loaded with hidden meaning, and that same night I would push open the door to Solomon's study.

Under the excuse of punishing him, I would pour out every ounce of my humiliation and jealousy.

He never fought back. He only watched me with those fathomless black eyes, cold and distant, as if he were looking at a clown throwing a tantrum.

Until later, when I'd saved up enough disappointment and handed him the divorce papers I'd already signed.

He tore the pages to shreds right in front of me, his eyes bloodshot as he pinned me hard into the corner, his voice raw, like it had been ground out from the bone of his throat: "Dorothy Fox, who said you could leave?"

"Solomon, open the door."

I pressed my palm flat against the cold walnut door of the study. My voice wasn't loud, but it was clear enough.

No answer came from inside. Only the faint, cold scratch of a fountain pen moving across paper.

I drew a breath, rapped my knuckles against the wood, and repeated, "I'll count to three. If you don't open this door, I'll cut the power to the whole house."

The scratching stopped.

A few seconds later the lock gave a soft click, and the door opened a crack from the inside.

Solomon stood there in a charcoal-gray silk robe, the collar loose and open, showing the clean line of his collarbone and a pale sliver of chest.

A pair of gold-rimmed glasses sat on the bridge of his nose, and behind the lenses his eyes watched me through the gap in the door, remote and cold.

"What is it?" His voice was like the man himself, without warmth, like snow on a mountaintop that never melts all year.

I didn't answer. I just shoved my phone screen up to his face.

On the screen was a mutual friend's feed. The newest post was from Meg Swanson, half an hour ago, a photo of a hand with well-defined knuckles gripping a pencil, sketching something on a sheet of drawing paper.

I knew that hand too well. Solomon had a tiny mole on his right wrist, usually hidden under his watch, showing only now and then when he lifted his arm.

Meg's caption was as suggestive as it got: "Keeping someone company while he works late. Snuck a photo. Turns out a man who's serious about his work really does glow. [starry eyes]"

Below it, a row of mutual friends had liked it and were egging her on, all asking who "someone" was.

Meg didn't reply. That kind of coy silence grated worse than a straight confession.

Solomon's gaze rested on the screen for less than a second before it slid away, back to my face, his tone flat. "Done looking? And?"

"And?" His unbothered coldness, so certain of itself, made me laugh out of sheer anger, and the temper I'd been swallowing the whole way over shot straight up. "Solomon, she's your first love, not mine.

You let her prance around like this in front of me. Who exactly are you two trying to disgust?

Or is this a little show the two of you are putting on for me, so I'll take the hint and clear out early, and make room for your precious Meg?"

At that, his brow drew together, barely perceptibly, as if he found me too loud.

"Dorothy, I'm tired today. I'm not in the mood to fight with you." He pushed his glasses up and moved to shut the door.

I jammed my foot into the gap before it closed. The pain shot straight through me and I sucked in a sharp breath, my eyes going red on the spot.

I wasn't faking it. It really hurt.

But I didn't pull my foot back. Instead I threw all my weight against the door, tipped my head up and glared at him, my voice shaking. "Solomon, don't forget the deal we made. I keep the Delgado cash flow steady, and you marry me. You're my husband for two years.

The agreement spells it out. During the marriage, you can't have any improper relationship with another woman. What, six months in and Mr. Delgado already wants to break the contract?"

At the word deal, the last trace of warmth in his eyes vanished.

It was a look laced with disgust and contempt, the way you'd look at something filthy.

Every single time I brought up what our marriage really was, he looked at me like that. As if I were the lowlife who'd seized on someone's misfortune and stopped at nothing.

But he forgot. If he hadn't been backed into a corner back then, how would I ever have found my opening?

If that shameful little feeling I had for him hadn't already rotted me down to the marrow, why would I have gambled everything my mother left me to fill that bottomless pit of his?

"What do you want?" He finally gave up on shutting the door, let go, and leaned against the frame, looking down at me with a note of tired resignation in his voice.

I knew he thought I was going to do what I'd done those other times: make a scene, use Meg to provoke him, force him into doing something with me.

Use the most intimate acts to take revenge for his emotional betrayal.

It was pathetic. It was laughable.

But it was the only way I had left to hold on to him.

Fighting through the pain in my foot, I limped into the study, my eyes sweeping over his wide desk.

There was no drawing paper, no pencil. Just a thick stack of documents and the Montblanc pen he'd just been writing with.

Clearly, that photo of Meg's hadn't been taken here at all.

Maybe it was an old one, maybe she'd dug it up from somewhere else, maybe it was even photoshopped.

But so what?

As long as it gave me an excuse to come at him right now, it was enough.

I circled around behind him, stretched out both arms, and hugged him around his lean waist from behind.

His body went rigid at once, his muscles pulled tight as stone.

I could smell him clearly. Not some expensive cologne, but something clean and cool, like moss and earth in a pine forest after rain, threaded with a faint trace of ink.

Clean. And good.

I buried my face against his broad back, greedily breathing him in, my voice coming out muffled. "Solomon, you smell so good."

He didn't move, didn't speak. Only his throat bobbed once.

"Stay tonight. With me." I tightened my arms and said it almost against his ear, one word at a time. "Otherwise, tomorrow, when that overseas loan of Delgado's comes due, I'm not sure the Fox finance department will remember to renew it on time."

A naked threat.

I felt his breath catch for a moment.

A few seconds later he lifted his hand and laid it over the back of mine where it circled his waist.

His hand was cold, the pads of his fingers rough with the thin calluses left from years of holding a pen.

He didn't push me away. Instead, with something almost like comfort, he stroked the back of my hand once, gently.