For the past eight months, she’d made it her personal mission to remind me of my place.

She called me dull, uninspired—a fragile little bird lucky to be caged by a titan like Adrian.

Earlier that evening, she’d cornered me in the ladies’ powder room. The marble walls echoed with the sharp click of her stilettos as she backed me against the vanity.

“After tomorrow, you’re finally going to learn your proper place in the hierarchy, Clara,” Vanessa had purred, her eyes trailing up and down my frame with undisguised pity. She carelessly adjusted a stunning, brilliant-cut diamond tennis bracelet on her wrist.

I recognized it immediately.

Adrian had bought it three weeks ago, disguising the transaction as a deposit for our month-long honeymoon in the Maldives.