The corridor leading to the main hall was dark and narrow. Harding bent his arm, offering it to her.

Anissa slipped her hand through the crook of his elbow. Her fingers brushed against the bespoke fabric of his suit. The sudden, intense heat of his body radiated through the material.

The warmth hit her like a physical blow. Her brain misfired. A violent wave of PTSD crashed over her.

The dim wall sconces blurred. The hallway twisted, morphing into the freezing, snow-covered streets of New York from her past life.

She remembered the agonizing cold. Ashlee had framed her. The Roy family had thrown her out without a dime. The temperature was twenty below zero.

She remembered dialing Connor's number with frostbitten fingers. She remembered hearing Seraphina's sweet, giggling voice on the other end before the line went dead.

She remembered Lorraine's voice on the voicemail. Die in the street, Anissa. Just don't bleed on my carpets.

The phantom ice clawed at her lungs. Her chest tightened. She couldn't breathe. Her knees buckled, and she stumbled forward.

Harding's arm shot out. His large hand clamped around her waist, gripping her tight. He pulled her flush against his solid chest, stopping her fall.

"Are you afraid?" his voice rumbled right against her ear, deep and incredibly grounding.

Anissa looked up. She stared at the sharp, perfect lines of his jaw. The memories shifted again.

She remembered floating above her own dead body.

She saw Harding. The ruthless tyrant of Wall Street, standing in a sterile morgue. He had taken off his own wool coat and draped it over her frozen corpse.

She saw his private armed security storming the Roy estate, taking her ashes by force.

She saw him standing alone in a private cemetery in Long Island, hosting a funeral for a woman he barely spoke to in life.

She remembered the suffocating weight of the dirt, the terrifying finality of death. She remembered the sheer, incomprehensible shock of waking up today, breathing, her heart beating in her chest. Why was she back? How was she back? The universe had given her a second chance, a miraculous reversal of fate that defied all logic. And in this new life, the only man she knew she could trust was the one who had shown her mercy when she was nothing but a memory. He had stood in that freezing cemetery, a solitary figure of absolute power, giving her the dignity in death that her own blood had denied her.

In the present, Anissa's fingers dug into his arm. Her knuckles turned stark white.

She took a ragged breath. She shoved the vulnerability deep into her stomach and shook her head. "I just realized it's too late."

"Too late to see them for who they are," she whispered, her voice hardening into steel. "But early enough to destroy them."

Harding looked down at her. His eyes dropped to the faint redness at the corners of her eyes. A violent, terrifying darkness flashed in his pupils.

His assistant's voice crackled over the radio. "Sir. The main hall screens are rebooted. The press is in position."

Harding lifted his hand. He gently adjusted the edge of her lace veil. The softness of his touch completely contradicted the lethal aura surrounding him.

"Once we push these doors open," Harding said in a low gravel, "you are the hostess of Manhattan. No one will ever make you lower your head again."

The organ music abruptly stopped. A second later, the grand, imposing chords of a royal wedding march shook the walls.

The heavy oak doors at the end of the hall were slowly pulled open by two ushers. Blinding white light from hundreds of camera flashes spilled into the dark corridor.

Anissa straightened her spine. She lifted her chin, her eyes turning into chips of ice. She looked like a queen stepping onto a battlefield.

"Pleasure doing business with you, Uncle," she whispered.

Harding heard the word. His jaw twitched. A dark, possessive smirk touched his lips.

"According to the legal documents being drafted right now," Harding corrected her, "you will call me husband."

The doors opened completely. A thousand eyes and camera lenses snapped directly onto them.

Inside the main hall, hundreds of Upper East Side elites whispered furiously. The buzzing sound of gossip almost drowned out the organ.

Lorraine sat in the front row. Her face was pale and tight. She leaned over to her husband, Harold, frantically whispering about how to handle the PR nightmare.

Ashlee sat next to them. She held a tissue to her face, pretending to cry, but the corners of her mouth twitched upward in a victorious smile.

The reporters from Vanity Fair and Page Six had their telephoto lenses aimed at the altar. They were hungry for the shot of the abandoned, weeping bride.

Suddenly, the twelve massive LED screens lining the church walls went pitch black. A collective gasp echoed through the pews.

Three seconds later, the screens flared back to life. The scrolling gold letters that read Connor & Anissa were gone. In their place, massive, bold text read: Harding & Anissa.

Near the altar, the million-dollar custom ice sculpture had been altered. Harding's crisis team had swiftly draped a velvet cloth over the original piece and wheeled out a pre-prepared, sleek silver plaque that perfectly covered the old base, displaying a sharp, immaculate H.

A guest in the third row read the screens and let out a piercing scream of disbelief.

Lorraine's head snapped up. She stared at the LED screen. All the blood drained from her face. She blinked rapidly, convinced she was having a stroke.

Harold's phone began to vibrate violently. Wall Street board members were spamming him, demanding to know if a hostile takeover of the Snow empire was happening.

The main doors groaned open. The blinding backlight framed two tall silhouettes standing shoulder to shoulder.

The flashes exploded like a violent thunderstorm. The shutter clicks sounded like machine-gun fire.

As the cameras focused, the entire church stopped breathing. A dead, horrifying silence crashed over the room.

The man walking Anissa down the aisle was not a groomsman. It was Harding Snow. The phantom emperor of Wall Street, a man who despised public appearances.

He wore a bespoke Tom Ford suit that fit his broad shoulders perfectly. His presence was so suffocatingly powerful that the front-row guests instinctively shrank back in their seats.

Anissa wore a diamond tiara. Her chin was high. There was no grief in her eyes. She looked down at the crowd with absolute disdain.

Ashlee jumped to her feet. Her ankle rolled in her high heels, and she nearly collapsed into the aisle. Her mouth hung open in pure shock.

As Harding and Anissa walked down the red carpet, the guests began to stand up. It wasn't out of respect for the wedding. It was pure, instinctual fear of Harding's power.

Lorraine lunged forward, trying to run into the aisle to stop them. Harold grabbed her wrist and yanked her down, hissing at her not to provoke Harding.

They reached the altar. The priest was sweating profusely. His hands shook so badly he nearly dropped his Bible.

He stammered, looking at Harding in terror, completely unsure of which script to read.

Harding shot the priest a freezing glare. "Skip to the core."

The priest swallowed hard. He raised his voice, though it cracked. "Do you, Harding Snow, take Anissa Roy to be your lawfully wedded wife?"

The crowd leaned in. Everyone assumed Harding was just standing in to save his nephew's face. A fake ceremony.

He leaned toward the microphone. "I do. This vow is legally and personally binding, effective immediately and without exception."

The vow dropped like a bomb. The media section lost their minds. The shutter noise became deafening.

The priest turned to Anissa. Before he could finish the sentence, Anissa looked straight into Harding's eyes. "I do."

Harding reached out. His assistant handed him a velvet box. Harding pulled out a ring. It was a massive, flawless blue and pink diamond heirloom.

He took Anissa's left hand. He slid the ring-the ultimate symbol of the Snow family matriarch-onto her ring finger.

Harding stepped closer. He lowered his head, and right through the thin tulle of her veil, he pressed his lips against hers in a deeply possessive, claiming kiss.

The black Rolls-Royce Phantom glided away from Trinity Church, leaving the screaming paparazzi eating dust.

Inside the cabin, the soundproof partition hummed as it rolled up, completely cutting off the driver. The back seat became an absolute vacuum of privacy.

Anissa let out a long, shaky breath. The adrenaline crashed. She reached up and pulled the heavy diamond tiara from her hair, dropping it onto the leather seat.

Harding loosened his silk tie. He poured two glasses of amber bourbon from the crystal decanter and handed one to her.

Anissa took the glass. The freezing condensation against her skin snapped her back to reality. "Thank you," she whispered.

Harding took a slow sip. His eyes dropped to the massive blue diamond on her left hand. "That ring stays on your finger for the next three years. Do not take it off."

Anissa rubbed her thumb over the cold stone. She nodded. "What are the exact terms of our contract?"

"Simple," Harding said, his voice flat and businesslike. "In public, we are a devoted couple. In private, we do not interfere with each other. You will have unlimited access to my Black Card, and I will guarantee your absolute safety."

The car descended into the underground garage of a hyper-luxury building on Billionaire's Row.

They stepped into a private, biometric elevator. It shot straight up to the Penthouse.

The elevator doors slid open. Eleanor Prentiss, the head butler, stood in the grand foyer with a line of uniformed staff.

"Welcome home, Madam," Eleanor bowed deeply. "Your custom walk-in closet and the master bedroom have been prepared."

Anissa caught the words. She turned her head and looked at Harding, her brow furrowed. "Master bedroom?"

Harding shrugged off his suit jacket and handed it to a maid. "The media pays well for leaks. To ensure the staff doesn't sell stories about a fake marriage, we share the primary suite."

Anissa's heart skipped a beat. Her stomach tightened, but she forced her face to remain blank. "Understood."

She followed Eleanor into the bedroom. She stopped dead in her tracks. A massive wall of floor-to-ceiling glass offered a breathtaking, unobstructed view of Central Park.

A sudden, piercing chill crawled up her spine, raising the fine hairs on her arms. Her eyes darted from a row of perfectly sized stilettos to a rack of coats tailored exactly to her shoulder width. How could he possibly know her precise measurements? Even the shoes were a specific half-size she only ever ordered privately from European boutiques. This wasn't a rush job. Harding had been preparing this space for her long before Connor ran away today. The realization hit her like a physical weight. This level of surveillance, this meticulous, silent observation... it was terrifying. She clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palms. The man she had just married was not just a shield; he was an apex predator who had been watching her from the shadows. She had walked willingly into the den of a man far more dangerous than she had ever anticipated.

She took a hot shower. She changed into a conservative, high-necked silk pajama set. When she walked out of the bathroom, Harding was sitting on the sofa, scrolling through a tablet.

He wore a dark gray bathrobe. The V-neck hung open, exposing the hard, muscular lines of his chest. The sterile, untouchable aura he had in the church was gone.

The air in the room was thick with the scent of his body wash-a sharp, intoxicating mix of cedarwood and dark tobacco.

Anissa stood frozen on the rug. She stared at the massive bed, unsure of where to go.

Harding didn't look up from his screen. He tapped the right side of the mattress. "That side is yours. I have mild insomnia. I won't touch you."

Anissa walked over stiffly. She pulled back the heavy duvet and lay down. Her muscles were coiled tight as springs.

Harding reached over and killed the main lights. Only a dim, amber reading lamp remained. He lay down on the far left side.

A massive gap of empty space separated them. But the room was so quiet she could hear the slow, rhythmic sound of his breathing.

She thought the anxiety would keep her awake. But the heavy scent of cedarwood wrapped around her like a heavy blanket. It grounded her.

She closed her eyes. The freezing memories of her past life melted away. Within ten minutes, her breathing deepened into sleep.

In the dark, Harding opened his eyes. He turned his head and stared at her sleeping face.

He lifted his hand. He traced the curve of her cheek in the empty air, inches from her skin.

"Welcome home, Anissa," he whispered to the shadows.