After His Mistress Branded Me, I Destroyed Them

The yacht rocked gently at Chelsea Piers. I stood on the dock and looked up at it. White hull. Gold trim. The name *Remington's Pride* painted across the stern in letters taller than me. Emmett's assistant—a nervous kid in a suit two sizes too big—gestured toward the gangway.

"Mr. Turner is waiting for you in the upper salon, Miss Hall," he said.

I nodded and climbed aboard. My heels clicked against the teak deck. The city lights stretched behind me. Manhattan at night, all glass and glitter. Tomorrow I was supposed to marry into this world. Tomorrow I was supposed to stand at The Plaza in a white dress and say yes to a man I'd spent six months trying to love.

The upper salon was empty. Champagne glasses on the bar. Music playing low. No Emmett.

I heard voices below deck. Laughter. A woman's voice, bright and teasing. Then Emmett's, lower, familiar. I moved toward the stairs without thinking. My hand found the railing. I descended.

The lower cabin door was half-open. Warm light spilled into the narrow hallway. I stopped at the threshold and looked inside.

Emmett had Mallory Rose pressed against the wall. Her red dress was unzipped to the waist. His hand was in her hair. Two champagne flutes sat on the nightstand, one tipped on its side, a wet ring spreading across the wood. They were kissing like people who had done this a thousand times before. Easy. Practiced. No hesitation.

I didn't gasp. I didn't cry out. I just stood there and watched my fiancé kiss another woman the night before our wedding.

Mallory saw me first. She pulled back slowly, her lips still parted, and turned her head toward the door. She didn't look surprised. She looked amused. She smiled at me—a small, private smile—and reached up to zip her dress with one hand.

"Don't make a scene, sweetheart," she said. Her voice was soft. Almost kind. "You were always just a placeholder. A name on a contract. Emmett needs someone who has actually sacrificed for him." She tilted her head. "What could a small-town nobody like you possibly offer?"

Emmett stepped back from her. He straightened his cufflink. He looked at me the way you'd look at a stain on expensive upholstery. Annoyed. Inconvenienced.

"Genevieve," he said. Not an apology. Just my name.

I stood in the doorway and waited. My heartbeat was loud in my ears. I thought about the past six months. The dinners where he checked his phone. The events where he introduced me last, if at all. The way he corrected my grammar in front of his friends. I had told myself it was nerves. Wedding jitters. Cold feet. I had told myself he would warm to me eventually.

I had been so stupid.

Emmett moved toward me. He didn't touch me. He stopped two feet away and looked down at me with something like pity.

"Mallory lost her uterus saving my life," he said. His voice was calm. Reasonable. "There was a car accident. She was driving. She shielded me with her body. The impact—" He paused. "She gave up everything. Her future. Her body. The chance to ever have children. She did that for me."

He waited for me to react. To cry, maybe. To apologize for interrupting.

"A woman like you could never understand that kind of devotion," he continued. "You should be grateful you're being given the Turner name at all. This marriage is a business arrangement. Mallory is—" He glanced back at her. She was watching us both with that same small smile. "Mallory is real."

I looked at him. I looked at her. I reached into my clutch.

I pulled out the $300-million stock certificate my father had given me that morning. Hall Corporation. My name printed at the bottom in small, precise letters. I also pulled out the small blade I'd been carrying since I was sixteen. A gift from my mother. *Just in case*, she'd said.

I held the certificate up so they could both see it. Emmett's eyes widened. Mallory's smile faltered.

I sliced the certificate in half. Slowly. Deliberately. The sound of tearing paper filled the cabin.

"You made a mistake," I said. My voice was steady. Quiet. "Both of you."

I dropped the two halves on the floor. They fluttered down like snow. I pocketed the blade and turned toward the stairs.

Neither of them said a word.

I climbed back up to the deck. The assistant was gone. I walked down the gangway alone. My town car was waiting at the curb. The driver opened the door. I slid into the back seat and pulled out my phone.

Diana Choi answered on the first ring. "Gen?"

"Move everything to tomorrow morning," I said. "All of it."

"Are you sure?"

I touched the inside of my left wrist. Once. A private gesture. A promise to myself.

"I'm sure."

I ended the call. The car pulled away from the pier. The city blurred past the window. Lights and glass and a thousand people who had no idea what was coming.

I leaned my head back against the seat and closed my eyes.

Tomorrow, I would burn it all down.