No more.

The doors parted, spilling the sounds of a string quartet and clinking crystal into the foyer. The ballroom was breathtaking — bathed in amber light, packed with Manhattan’s elite, board members, investors.

At the center of the room, on a slightly elevated dais, stood my husband.

Dominic looked handsome in a bespoke tuxedo. Clinging to his arm was a younger woman in a striking emerald gown. Beside them stood a boy in a miniature tuxedo, and a man I recognized instantly from Victor’s corporate dossiers: Harrison Kensington, CEO of a mid-tier logistics firm that had spent years trying and failing to compete with the Sterling empire.

Dominic tapped a silver spoon against his champagne glass. The ballroom quieted.

“To the woman who has shown me what true partnership looks like,” he projected smoothly into a microphone, gazing at the woman in green. “To the next chapter of Vanguard, and to our new, united family.”