Chapter 3

Wren POV: The corridor leading to the main hall was dark and narrow. Rhett bent his arm, offering it to me. I slipped my hand through the crook of his elbow. My fingers brushed against the bespoke fabric of his suit. The sudden, intense heat of his body radiated through the material. The warmth hit me like a physical blow. My brain misfired. A violent wave of PTSD crashed over me. The dim wall lights blurred. The hallway twisted, morphing into the freezing, snow-covered streets of Chicago from my past life. I remembered the agonizing cold. Bianca had framed me. The Hale family had thrown me out without a dime. The temperature was twenty below zero. I remembered dialing Preston's number with frostbitten fingers. I remembered hearing Bri's sweet, giggling voice on the other end before the line went dead. I remembered Diane's voice on the voicemail. Die in the street, Wren. Just don't bleed on my carpets. The phantom ice clawed at my lungs. My chest tightened. I couldn't breathe. My knees buckled, and I stumbled forward. Rhett's arm shot out. His large hand clamped around my waist, gripping me tight. He pulled me flush against his solid chest, stopping my fall. "Are you afraid?" his voice rumbled right against my ear, deep and incredibly grounding. I looked up. I stared at the sharp, perfect lines of his jaw. The memories shifted again. I remembered floating above my own dead body. I saw Rhett. The most feared captain in the NHL, standing in a sterile morgue. He had taken off his own wool coat and draped it over my frozen corpse. I saw his private security storming the Hale estate, taking my ashes by force. I saw him standing alone in a private cemetery in Lake Forest, hosting a funeral for a woman he barely spoke to in life. I remembered the suffocating weight of the dirt, the terrifying finality of death. I remembered the sheer, incomprehensible shock of waking up today, breathing, my heart beating in my chest. Why was I back? How was I back? The universe had given me a second chance, a miraculous reversal of fate that defied all logic. And in this new life, the only man I knew I could trust was the one who had shown me mercy when I was nothing but a memory. He had stood in that freezing cemetery, a solitary figure of absolute power, giving me the dignity in death that my own blood had denied me. In the present, my fingers dug into his arm. My knuckles turned stark white. I took a ragged breath. I shoved the weakness deep into my stomach and shook my head. "I just realized it's too late." "Too late to see them for who they are," I whispered, my voice hardening into steel. "But early enough to destroy them." Rhett looked down at me. His eyes dropped to the faint redness at the corners of my 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." Rhett lifted his hand. He gently adjusted the edge of my lace veil. The softness of his touch completely contradicted the dangerous aura surrounding him. "Once we push these doors open," Rhett said in a low gravel, "you are the queen of Chicago. 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. I straightened my spine. I lifted my chin, my eyes turning into chips of ice. I walked like a queen stepping onto a battlefield. "Pleasure doing business with you, Uncle," I whispered. Rhett heard the word. His jaw twitched. A dark, possessive smirk touched his lips. "According to the legal documents being drafted right now," Rhett corrected me, "you will call me husband." The doors opened completely. A thousand eyes and camera lenses snapped directly onto us.