Chapter 2 02

IRIS QUINN

“Arrested?” I repeated, the word not making sense. “For what?”

“Fraud.” Naomi sighed. “Iris, it’s everywhere on the news and the internet. Everything is chaos here, and your mother, she’s—”

“Naomi!” My mother’s voice cut through the background, shrill and desperate. “Did you reach her? Is she coming home?”

“I have her on the phone now, Mrs. Quinn—”

“Get Mr. Hargreaves on the phone!” my mother shouted, but not at Naomi—at someone else. “I don’t care what time it is in London! Get him now!”

Hargreaves was our family lawyer, the man who handled everything from contracts to speeding tickets. If my mother was calling him, this was no mistake.

“Naomi,” I said, trying to calm myself. “This isn’t a joke?”

“I wouldn’t joke about this.”

I hung up.

As I turned toward the television mounted on the suite wall, my hands were shaking, and I grabbed the remote. Behind me, Dominic sat up on the bed.

“Everything okay?”

I didn’t answer, flipping through channels until I found a news station—any news station.

And there he was.

My father, Richard Quinn, walking through a crowd of reporters with two police officers on either side of him, his hands cuffed in front of him, his suit wrinkled. He looked smaller than I’d ever seen him.

The headline scrolled across the bottom of the screen: TECH MOGUL RICHARD QUINN ARRESTED ON FRAUD CHARGES.

I couldn’t breathe.

“That your old man?” Dominic asked from behind me.

I spun around to find him still on the bed, half-dressed, looking at me like this was an inconvenience.

“Get out.”

He blinked. “What?”

“I said get out. Now.”

“Iris, come on—”

“Shut the hell up and leave!”

He stared at me for a second before grabbing his jacket off the floor. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Good, now get out.”

He left without another word, and the door slammed behind him.

Standing there in the middle of the suite, my dress still half-unzipped, I stared at the television where they were replaying the footage of my father stumbling slightly as they led him up the steps.

I turned to my suitcase, which was still on the floor, half-unpacked from when I’d arrived yesterday, though it felt like a lifetime ago.

I grabbed clothes and shoved them in without folding anything.

My phone buzzed—Naomi again.

“I’m coming,” I said before she could speak. “I’m booking a flight now.”

“There’s one leaving in two hours, and I already reserved a seat.”

“Thank you.”

I hung up and kept packing, my hands refusing to stop shaking.

---

The flight felt endless.

I couldn’t sleep or think, and every time I closed my eyes, I saw him.

Fraud.

What had he done, and how long had he been doing it?

I thought about the argument before I left, the way he’d looked at me across his office desk. He’d wanted me to marry for strategy and business.

Caesar Laurent.

My stomach knotted.

Did he know? Did Caesar know this was coming?

The Laurents and the Quinns had never been allies. We simply tolerated each other because our companies overlapped and mostly because society expected it, but there was no love between our families.

And now my father was being arrested for fraud.

The timing was too perfect.

I stared out the window at the clouds below, my mind racing. If Caesar had anything to do with this, if he’d orchestrated this somehow…

I didn’t finish the thought.

I couldn’t.

Hours later, I arrived at my family’s estate, which looked the same as it always did, even though everything was different.

The car rolled to a stop in front of the main entrance, and I shoved the door open and stepped out, leaving my suitcase in the trunk.

The front door was already open.

Standing in the entryway, Naomi looked pale and drawn. “Your mother is in the living room,” she said quietly.

I didn’t say anything, just walked past her.

The house was a disaster, with papers scattered across the marble floor where two maids were on their hands and knees, gathering them into piles. A vase had been knocked over near the stairs, water pooling on the expensive rug beneath it.

I heard her before I saw her.

“—don’t care what the lawyers say! Get someone who can actually do something!”

I stepped into the living room doorway. “Mom.”

My mother, Margaret Quinn, turned, and for a moment, she just stared at me. She’d been crying. I could tell by the redness around her eyes.

Then she crossed the room in three long strides and slapped me across the face.

The crack echoed through the room.

“Now you show up?” Her body shook with rage. “Now?”

I didn’t touch my cheek.

“This is your fault,” she said, her voice rising. “Your nonsense ego has caused this mess! If you had just—”

“I’ll fix it,” I said.

She laughed bitterly. “Fix it? How exactly will you fix this, Iris? The Laurents brought that wedding proposal a year ago—a year! And they’ve been patient, but you? You threw tantrums and ran off to Paris and ticked them off at every turn, so tell me what you think you can do now.”

My jaw tightened. “Why do I have to be sold like a bridal slave to that family?”

“Sold?” My mother’s eyes flashed. “You think this is about you?”

“Why are we acting like cowards in front of the Laurents?” I shot back. “Why do we need them at all?”

“Because your father made mistakes!” she screamed. “Because without them, we have nothing! Do you understand that? Nothing!”

“Naomi,” she said, her voice suddenly cold. “Get her out of my sight before I do something I’ll regret.”

Naomi moved toward me, her hand gentle on my arm. “Iris, come on.”

I jerked away from her. “I will never marry into that family! Do you hear me? Never!”

My mother just looked at me without saying a word as Naomi guided me out of the room.

“You shouldn’t have lost your cool,” Naomi said softly when we entered the hallway. “Your mother is under a lot of pressure right now, and you need to be more understanding—”

“I could never marry Caesar Laurent,” I cut her off. “Not for any reason.”

“Iris—”

Her phone buzzed.

She pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and her face went white.

“Naomi?”

She didn’t answer—just turned and ran toward the front door.

“Naomi!” I called after her.

She yanked the door open and sprinted toward a waiting car in the driveway.

“Naomi, what’s happening?”

She stopped at the car door and turned back to me, her face stricken.

“The chairman collapsed during interrogation!”

Then she was gone.