The Proposal
The dress clung to Seren Idris like a lie—silk, blood-red, and stitched with quiet threat. She sat in the center of Kael Virek’s penthouse, the Manhattan skyline glittering behind her like a sea of cold diamonds, her spine straight, her expression unreadable.
It was an empire built on secrets. Hers. His. And the ones they’d share when the lights went out.
She hated how soft the velvet chair was beneath her, how perfectly the dress fit, how the champagne in her hand still shimmered from the tremble in her fingers. But most of all, she hated him—sitting across from her like the throne belonged to him.
Kael Virek: the heir to the empire that had ruined her family, the billionaire son of a man who destroyed her father, who left her mother broken and her sister in rehab.
And now he wanted to marry her.
“I trust the dress fits,” he said without looking at her. His voice—low, rich, maddeningly calm—was the sound of someone who always got what he wanted.
“It fits,” Seren replied, lifting her chin. “But I don’t wear red for men I haven’t bled.”
Kael turned slowly, deliberately, and his storm-gray eyes finally met hers. He studied her the way a predator studies prey that’s starting to bare its teeth.
Then he smiled.
“You will.”
A flicker of heat sparked in her gut. Unwelcome. Dangerous. She pushed it down.
“This isn’t real, Kael,” she said coolly. “This is a business arrangement. You need a wife to keep your board happy. I need my family’s name cleared. We don’t have to play house.”
He stood. Moved toward her with the confidence of someone who owned every square inch of the space—and maybe her, too.
“On the contrary, Seren,” he said, stopping behind her. “We’ll play whatever game I say. And you’ll smile while you do it.”
His hand ghosted over her bare shoulder, fingers grazing skin like a whisper. She didn’t flinch. She’d practiced this.
“You think I’ll break,” she said, her voice steady. “But you don’t know what I’ve already survived.”
Kael leaned in, breath warm at her ear. “I don’t want you to break,” he murmured. “I want you to burn.”
God help her, she felt herself unraveling just a little.
But this was war. And Seren Idris didn’t lose.
Three Weeks Earlier
Her mother had cried for hours.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” she’d whispered, clutching Seren’s hand like a lifeline. “You’re marrying into the family that destroyed us.”
“That’s the point,” Seren said, pulling away. “I’m going to finish what they started.”
Her father’s death had been ruled a heart attack. But Seren knew better. The Idris family had once held a stake in Virek International. Her father had been forced out in a merger that was more massacre than business deal. Weeks later, he was dead. Her mother, a shell. Her sister, gone.
And now Kael Virek wanted a bride.
He had sent the offer through a law firm. Cold. Precise. Obscene money. Full control of Seren’s media narrative. A return of all the Idris assets—plus new shares in Virek Global—if she agreed to a five-year union. No divorce clause. No scandal. Just perfection.
And power.
Power she would use to destroy him.
Present
Kael poured himself a scotch, slow and deliberate. His movements were exact. He was always too careful, too controlled.
Seren watched him from the shadows of the bedroom doorway. The same place she’d stood for five nights now, watching him drink, watching him burn quietly in silence.
He hadn’t touched her.
Not once.
He was giving her time.
It pissed her off.
“Scared of me?” she asked.
Kael turned, not startled in the slightest. His eyes traveled down the silk of her slip dress. Her nipples were hard. She didn’t care.
“I’m not in the habit of taking things,” he said, voice like a blade through velvet. “Not unless they want to be taken.”
Seren stepped forward. Slowly.
“What if I want you to?” she whispered.
Kael blinked once. The air thickened.
In two strides he was in front of her, hand cupping her jaw. Not hard. Not soft. Just certain.
“You want to make me lose control?” he asked, mouth inches from hers. “That’s your game?”
“I want to see what’s under all that restraint,” she said. “If you’re half as dangerous in bed as you are in the boardroom.”
He kissed her then.
Hard. Deep. Ruthless.
And for one wild second, Seren forgot everything—her father’s funeral, the years of quiet rage, the dossier she kept on Kael’s every move. All she felt was his mouth claiming hers, his hands sliding down her hips like he already owned her body.
He broke the kiss just before she gave in.
“You don’t want to play with me, Seren,” he said, voice raw. “I don’t leave things untouched. Or undamaged.”
She smiled, breathless. “Good.”
