Chapter 2

Only three days remained until the "Proposal of the Century"—the night that would supposedly decide the fate of all three of us.

Inside the VIP lounge of a country club just outside Manhattan, the air conditioning hummed silently. Julian Sterling and I sat there, waiting for Chloe.

In my past life, I would have gladly waited an eternity.

Back then, Julian and I believed that while our hands were stained with the blood and cutthroat betrayals of Wall Street, Chloe was the only thing in our world that remained utterly pure.

She was innocent, delicate, and carried herself with an almost poetic aloofness.

We willingly indulged her every little tantrum, desperate to fiercely protect her uncorrupted soul.

Finally, footsteps echoed in the hallway.

But the person who pushed the door open wasn't Chloe. It was Hayes, the Bennett family’s chief legal counsel.

"My deepest apologies, Mr. Sterling, Mr. Vance," Hayes said, adjusting his glasses. "Miss Chloe was so terribly distressed last night trying to choose between you both that she is currently enjoying a spa treatment to soothe her nerves. You know how she despises dealing with cold, hard numbers. Therefore, she has granted me full authority to present this prenuptial agreement."

I picked up my long-cold coffee and lowered my gaze.

Had this been yesterday, my heart would have ached for her having to bear the burden of such a choice and deal with these ruthless legal documents.

But now? Now I knew exactly what was happening. Her supposedly invisible bodyguard, Damian, was definitely standing right beside her massage table. He’d be gently rubbing her shoulders while greedily waiting for us—two fat sheep blinded by love—to carve out our own flesh and serve it up on a silver platter.

"At the banquet, your signatures on this document will serve as the ultimate proof of your devotion to her."

Hayes slid two thick stacks of paper across the table toward us. "The terms are simple. You are each to transfer thirty percent of your unrestricted corporate equity into an independent trust fund under her name. Miss Chloe stated that she doesn't want empty promises; she desires an absolute bond to bear witness to your pure love. She believes the man who truly loves her won't hesitate over a few digits."

Love her? Oh, I had loved her. In my previous life, I had been so blindly in love that I didn’t even calculate what losing thirty percent would mean for my empire. All I wanted was to build an impenetrable fortress of security for her.

The tragedy was that the very next day after the trust was established—a trust built on my devotion and my bottom line—she handed complete control over to her bodyguard. Her excuse? "Damian doesn’t care about money, so he’s the only one I can trust."

I fully expected Julian, sitting completely across from me, to sneer just like he had in our past life: "What’s the matter, Arthur? Can’t bear to part with your precious money?"

But this time, Julian didn't flinch. He just sat there, staring dead-eyed at the contract.

"Pure love..." Julian swallowed hard, his throat bobbing.

"I spent ten blood-soaked years pushing my family to the undisputed top..." Julian sprang to his feet, snatching the contract and glaring fiercely at Hayes. "And she expects me to sign it all away with a stroke of a pen?! And then what? Wait for the cash to clear so she can feed it to that pathetic dog trailing behind her?!"

Smash. He hurled the heavy binder violently onto the marble floor. Papers scattered everywhere.

Hayes stumbled back in sheer terror, his eyes wide in disbelief at Julian's outburst.

Still seated on the sofa, my heart skipped a harsh beat.

Julian. He was awake too.

Seeing Hayes scrambling for the door in sheer panic, I swallowed the shock reverberating in my chest and stood up to intercept him.

I knew perfectly well that if Hayes relayed this outburst back to Chloe in the spa, the grand spectacle of the engagement banquet would be ruined before it even started.

"Hayes," I said, my voice smooth and dangerously calm. "Mr. Sterling has suffered some recent setbacks with his overseas investments. He's been somewhat unstrung lately."

I stepped right up to the terrified lawyer, maintaining a perfectly composed facade. "Go tell Chloe that our love for her has never been in question. She will have her answer at the banquet in three days."

Hayes glanced from a seething Julian to my polite, affectionate smile. Nodding with massive relief, he practically fled the room.

The very second the door clicked shut, Julian snapped his head toward me, his glare as sharp as a knife.

"Are you out of your damn mind?! Do you have any idea what that bitch is going to do to us?!"

"I know exactly what she's going to do, Julian," I replied, meeting his furious gaze dead-on. "If you don't want to rot in a prison cell for the rest of your life, be at my office tonight at ten."

At the word "prison," Julian froze, staring at me as if he'd been struck by a bolt of lightning.

---

10:00 PM. The executive penthouse office.

Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city lights flickered like dying embers. Two men who had once stood at the absolute pinnacle of power now sat in the quiet dark, all defenses stripped away, each gripping a glass of neat whiskey.

"I bled out in a car crash orchestrated by her and her beloved bodyguard." I stared down at the ice swirling in my glass. "Damian literally stood in my blood and told me how he had drained my corporate accounts. And you? You were meticulously set up to take the fall for all the fraud and my murder, serving a life sentence in his place while completely blind to the truth."

"Yeah..." Julian let out a hollow, agonizing laugh, leaning his head back against the leather sofa. "When I was thrown behind bars, I didn't suspect a thing. All the evidence was flawlessly planted against me. And Chloe... Chloe cried those hypocritical tears and swore she believed in my innocence, that she'd wait for me forever. I survived twenty-five years in that sunless, earthly hell, living like a beaten stray dog. The only thing keeping me from snapping my own neck day after day was the fear that without me, Chloe would have no one to protect her."

"But when I finally got out?" Julian gripped his glass so hard his knuckles turned stark white. "I realized they had planned it from day one. Chloe and Damian had been sleeping together the whole damn time! They burned through our empires, bleeding us dry, while Chloe went on national television lamenting how toxic our 'possessiveness' was, claiming our love had deeply traumatized and suffocated her."

A bitter smile crossed my face, and I took a slow sip of the burning liquor.

"Arthur... do you remember when we were seven?" Julian asked suddenly, a distant hollow look pooling in his gray eyes. "Playing pretend in that massive estate garden in Long Island?"

I paused. Nudged by the alcohol, those long-buried memories slowly floated to the surface.

"I remember," I murmured. "I was the prince. Chloe was the princess. And you were the noble knight sworn to protect her."

"Yeah," Julian replied, cracking a smile that looked more painful than a sob. "I was so resentful back then. I never understood why you always got to be the prince. From that day on, I spent my entire life trying to beat you—in the boardroom, in the stock market, and especially in winning Chloe’s heart."

He turned his gaze back to the freezing skyline beyond the glass. "But it took rotting in a cell for half my life to finally realize the truth..."

I finished his thought for him: "We were never the prince or the knight. In her twisted little fairytale, you and I were just the two evil dragons guarding her gold. And she had already chosen the 'brave warrior' meant to slay us."

Julian and I had been mortal enemies our entire lives. But here, in the dead of the night, we finally called a truce.

"The engagement banquet is in exactly three days. All of high society is waiting for us to rip each other's throats out over her, blowing billions just to beg for her hand."

Julian stood up, methodically straightening his rumpled suit.

"Well," he said coldly. "Since the evil dragons have already been slain..."

"Let's let the beautiful princess and her peasant boy face this fucked-up real world on their own."