Prologue

Vivienne POV

My entire existence shattered into a million irreparable pieces the moment I peered through the narrow crack in the heavy velvet curtains. The hotel room was bathed in the dim, unforgiving glow of a bedside lamp, but there was more than enough light to see the brutal, horrifying truth. Just a single day before our highly anticipated wedding, I was forced to witness my fiancé, Pierce, violently thrusting his body into another woman.

The wet, slapping sounds of their flesh colliding echoed loudly through the dark room, making my knees go completely weak. It wasn't just a simple betrayal; it was a visceral, physical assault on my senses. I watched in paralyzed horror as Pierce stood behind her, his hands gripping her hips tightly as he drove his penis deep into her vagina with savage, unrelenting force. She was on all fours, her back arched, taking him from behind with shameless, careless ecstasy. Her heavy breasts were spilling out of a revealing black corset, bouncing wildly with every brutal thrust he delivered. Pierce’s hand moved down, his fingers hooking ruthlessly into the thin lace lining of her panties, yanking the fabric aside to keep her vagina completely exposed for his pounding.

"Wider—open your legs fucking wider, bitch," Pierce growled, his voice guttural and harsh, a tone I had never once heard him use during our entire relationship.

His crude words made a thick lump form instantly in my throat. My stomach violently churned, and I felt entirely ready to throw up right there on the thick carpet. I immediately slapped my own palm tightly over my mouth to stifle my gagging breaths.

"Aaaaannhhhhhhh, yessssss, thereeeee, fuckk meee, Pierce," the woman beneath him moaned back loudly in response. Her hair was tied back in a tight, messy ponytail, swinging frantically as he roughly dominated her. I recognized that corset. I recognized that hair. It was more than enough to tell me exactly who she was. She was one of his supposedly platonic colleagues from the firm.

A whore.

"Isn't your wedding dayyyyy tomorrowww aaahhhhhh?" she dragged out the words between loud, breathy moans, her voice dripping with absolute malice and amusement.

Her mocking words physically tightened my stomach into painful knots. Hot, stinging tears effortlessly breached my waterline, rolling down my pale cheeks in rapid succession. The brutal reality of the situation hit me with the force of a relentless barrage of bullets, tearing effortlessly through every single illusion of love and security I had painstakingly built around us.

How the hell could he even do this? Was he just playing me this entire time? Those expensive bouquets of red roses, those sweet good morning text messages, those meticulously planned romantic dates over the devoted six months of courting—was it all just an elaborate ruse to make me and my dying father look like absolute fools?

Pierce landed a sharp, echoing spank directly onto her bare butt cheek, and she winced, letting out a sharp, painful moan of pleasure. "Ahhhhhhhh!"

My feet literally shook inside my heels as I desperately tried to figure out a way to escape from the window view. I was frozen, trapped in my own personal nightmare.

"It is, but who cares about that little damsel in distress," Pierce groaned back dismissively, his voice devoid of absolutely any warmth or affection I thought I knew. He ruthlessly grabbed her tight ponytail in his fist, pulling her head back sharply while thrusting his penis even harder and deeper into her wet vagina.

"Cum for me, you little bitch, tell me you are all mine," he demanded, his hips snapping forward in a blur of motion.

Those cruel, degrading words were the absolute last thing that I ever wanted to listen to. In those excruciating, agonizing minutes, his entire carefully constructed facade of the perfect, loving gentleman crumbled to fine dust right before my tear-filled eyes.

"Ahhhh, yessss, I am all yourssss," she moaned back loudly, completely surrendering to his rough pace.

I broke into a thousand more silent, suffocating cries. I shuffled my trembling feet around on the carpet, completely lost in a haze of pure devastation, not knowing what the hell I was going to do now. The sweet romance was entirely dead. It was all a cold, highly calculated trap. My future, which had seemed so bright and secure just an hour ago, was now perfectly clear before my very eyes. In the span of five agonizing minutes, I realized exactly what Pierce was taking me for. Over these past six months, he wasn't after my heart. All he was ever after was my family's billion-dollar heritage.

He was a fucking mastermind. He had his own struggling company, constantly fighting off bankruptcy and market crashes, and he only wanted to direct the massive, endless funds from my father's successful empire into his own pockets through the legal binding of our marriage alliance. He was ruthless enough to use the tragic situation of my bedridden father's rapidly failing health to his absolute advantage. The sudden marriage proposal, the grand drama of falling deeply in love with me at first sight—how could I be such an incredibly blind, naive fool to fall face-first into that obvious trap?

How could you be such a piece of naive bait for his corporate greed, Vivienne?

And how the hell was I going to tell my father? His severe cancer had worsened significantly over the last few weeks. We didn't have any more days to spare, let alone months to find a replacement. He was living on borrowed time.

But I absolutely could not marry this disgusting man knowing exactly what horrifying reality was waiting ahead for me. I had to do something to protect the years-old, proud lineage of my family's legacy. I wanted to run far away from him, to escape