The needle slid into Emma Rhodes's arm for the third time that week, and she didn't flinch.
She had learned, in the five years since her mother fell down those stairs, that flinching only made Juliette smile wider. So Emma sat perfectly still in the cold medical suite of White Enterprises, watching her own blood fill a series of vials as it belonged to a stranger. Because in a way, it did belong to a stranger. The body she inhabited now… twenty-three years old, dark hair, dark eyes, thin wrists she could almost circle with her fingers, was not her first.
Her first body had drowned.
Emma closed her eyes and let the memory wash over her like the black water that had filled her lungs. Celeste Laurent. Oscar nominee. Wealthy heiress. Engaged to a monster named Marcus Webb who had held her head under the waves until the light went out. That had been fifteen years ago. Fifteen years since she woke up gasping in the body of a seven-year-old girl named Emma, daughter of a fading real estate mogul and his quiet, gentle wife.
She had spent sixteen years pretending to forget.
Sixteen years watching Juliette poison her new mother…slowly, carefully, in ways that looked like illness before pushing her down the main staircase. Sixteen years enduring Evelyn's cruelty, her father's indifference, the slow suffocation of being a ghost in her own home.
And now, at 23, Emma was being sold.
"Miss Rhodes." The nurse's voice was clipped, professional. "Mr. White requires a full tox screen, genetic compatibility panel, and fertility baseline. You'll need to sign the consent forms."
Fertility baseline.
Emma's stomach turned to ice, but her face remained smooth as marble. Celeste had been an actress. Emma had learned to wear masks before she could walk in this life.
"Of course," she said quietly. "Where do I sign?"
The nurse blinked, surprised by the lack of resistance. Most girls cried. Begged. Tried to run. But Emma had learned something over two lifetimes: running got you killed. Standing still, watching, waiting… that was how you survived.
Revenge required patience.
She signed her name with a steady hand. Emma Rhodes. The same name Juliette had dragged through the mud. The same name Evelyn had whispered in cruel giggles at every charity gala.
Soon, that name would be Emma White.
And Nicholas White, the man who owned this building, this city, this entire godforsaken industry would have no idea he had just handed a weapon to the woman who planned to burn his world down.
The nurse left. Emma sat alone in the cold room, staring at her reflection in the polished steel of the medical equipment. She barely recognized herself anymore. Not because she had changed but because she had changed so completely.
You died once, she told herself. You can survive anything.
The door opened.
A man walked in. Not Nicholas, someone else. Someone younger, sharper, with the kind of face that belonged on magazine covers. He was tall and lean, dressed in a suit that probably cost more than her father's car. His eyes were the color of whiskey, and they held no warmth at all.
"Emma Rhodes," he said. "I'm Lucas Grey. Mr. White's head of security." He didn't offer his hand. "I'm here to escort you to the signing."
Emma stood slowly, smoothing her dress. "I know where the penthouse is."
"Today, the meeting is elsewhere." Lucas stepped aside, gesturing toward the door. "Mr. White is particular about his privacy."
Particular. That was one word for a man who had never been photographed without approval, never quoted without permission, never seen in public without a wall of bodies between him and the world. Nicholas White was a ghost in plain sight, the most powerful man in the city, and the most unknown.
Emma followed Lucas through a maze of corridors, down an elevator that required three separate biometric scans, and into an underground garage where a black SUV waited. The windows were so darkly tinted that she couldn't see inside.
"After you," Lucas said.
Emma climbed in.
The interior was warm, smelling of leather and something else… cedar, maybe, or smoke. A partition separated the front seat from the back, giving the passenger compartment the feeling of a private cocoon.
She wasn't alone.
In the seat across from her, legs crossed, phone in hand, sat a woman. She was older… forties, maybe… with silver-streaked dark hair and eyes that missed nothing.
"You must be Emma," the woman said without looking up from her phone. "I'm Sloane Vance. I'm Mr. White's attorney. I've been handling his contracts for twelve years."
"I didn't know I'd be meeting with anyone except Nicholas."
Sloane looked up. Her eyes were sharp, assessing. "You're about to sign a marriage contract that will bind you to one of the most dangerous men in America. Did you really think he'd let you do that without someone making sure you understood what you were agreeing to?"
Emma's jaw tightened. "I understand perfectly. My father owes forty-seven million dollars. Mr. White owns the debt. The contract stipulates that in exchange for forgiving the debt, I become his wife." She paused. "I've read the document. All one hundred and forty-three pages."
Sloane's eyebrows rose. "Impressive. Most people don't make it past page ten."
"Most people aren't being sold like livestock."
A flicker of something… surprise, maybe, or respect, crossed Sloane's face. "You're not being sold, Emma. You're being given a choice."
"It doesn't feel like a choice."
"Choices rarely do." Sloane set down her phone. "Here's the truth: Nicholas White doesn't need your father's money. He doesn't need your father's company. He doesn't need anything from your family at all." She leaned forward. "He chose you. Specifically. For reasons I'm not at liberty to disclose."
Emma's heart hammered. "What reasons?"
"That's not my story to tell." Sloane sat back. "But I will tell you this: Nicholas is not a cruel man. He's not kind…not in the way most people understand kindness. But he's not cruel. If you agree to this marriage, he will protect you. He will provide for you. And he will never raise his hand to you."
"And love?"
Sloane's expression softened, just slightly. "Love is a luxury neither of you can afford. Not yet."
The SUV stopped. Emma looked out the window—they were at a private airfield, a sleek jet waiting on the tarmac.
"Where are we going?"
"To meet your future husband," Sloane said.