I parked my car in the open lot outside Westwood Corporation's towering seventy-floor headquarters. The glass and steel structure gleamed in the morning light a monument to the Westwood family's reach. They were involved in everything from legitimate enterprises to the kind of gray-area dealings that never made it into public reports.
Hundreds of people streamed in and out of the revolving doors, each with their own desk, their own place in the hierarchy. Everyone… except me.
When Damian and I married, he took me on a tour of this building. At the time, it was presented as a gesture of inclusion an invitation to understand "our" family business. But beneath the polite words, I saw the truth. He wanted me to witness his power firsthand… so I would persuade my father to buy into it.
Our marriage was a transaction from the start. It took my father a year to agree to invest in Damian's company and when he did, he sent Ariella to "represent" him.
