The champagne flute trembled in my hand, though I refused to let my face show it. Cameras flashed like gunfire as Julian Voss knelt on one knee, ring gleaming under the ballroom chandeliers. I hadn’t even said yes yet—but the headlines were already writing themselves.

Across the room, Liam’s jaw tightened. The man who called me his ‘silent partner’ before erasing me from every contract, every photo, every memory the public held. Now he watched me, helpless, as I seized the spotlight he thought he’d stolen forever.

Julian’s voice cut through the noise: ‘Eleanor Cross… will you marry me?’

The lie sat heavy on my tongue. My name isn’t Cross. It never was. And this marriage? It’s not a union—it’s a declaration of war.