Her hair isa tangle of honey-blonde waves cascading down her back as she disappears into the bathroom, her lips a perpetually stubborn line of denial despite the satisfaction I can read in every inch of her body. I listen for the shower to start before reaching for my phone on the nightstand, a plan already crystallizing in my mind. Last night was the first step in reclaiming what's mine, but Seraphina's still fighting the inevitable—still clinging to the fiction that what we have is temporary, that she can walk away again. I need to make our situation permanent before she rebuilds those walls I spent all night breaking down. A ring on her finger. A ceremony, legally binding. My name attached to hers so completely that no one—including that pathetic excuse for a fiancé she almost married—can ever question who she belongs to again.
I slip from the bed, pulling on the linen pants I discarded last night and making my way to my office down the hall. The sound of the shower provides cover for my voice as I make the first of many calls.
"Gabriel," I say when my head of security answers immediately. "I need the contents of the safe from my New York penthouse. The one behind the Rothko in the study."
"The red box, sir?" he asks, professional as always despite what must be curiosity about my unusual request.
"Yes. Have it delivered to the island by this afternoon. Private courier, highest security protocols."
"Of course, Mr. Vance. Anything else?"
I pause, considering what else I'll need to make this happen with the speed and efficiency I require. "Yes. Contact Clarence White. Tell him I'm calling in that favor he owes me."
"The jeweler?" Gabriel clarifies.
"The same. I want him personally on a plane to the island by tomorrow morning. Tell him to bring his full selection of settings and stones. Money is no object."
"Understood, sir. Will there be anything else?"
My mind races ahead, planning each step methodically. "Yes. Contact Judge Reynolds. Tell him I need him at my island estate within 48 hours for a private ceremony. His usual fee plus a hundred thousand dollar discretion bonus."
There's a slight pause before Gabriel responds, the closest he'll come to expressing surprise. "Consider it done, Mr. Vance. Congratulations, sir."
I end the call, already moving to my laptop to set other wheels in motion. The shower is still running—Seraphina always did love long, indulgent showers. It gives me the time I need to ensure everything is in place before she realizes what's happening.
The red box Gabriel's retrieving contains my grandmother's diamonds—spectacular D-flawless stones my grandfather gave her over their fifty-year marriage. He was the only other Vance man who understood the importance of claiming and keeping what's yours, who built an empire through sheer force of will.I've kept those stones secure, knowing they were meant for only one woman.
I should have given them to Seraphina eighteen months ago, should have put my ring on her finger before she could convince herself she needed space, needed freedom, needed anything other than me. My mistake. One I won't repeat.
Clarence White is the finest custom jeweler in the country, his waiting list years long for most clients. Not for me. Not when I own the building housing his flagship store, not when I personally financed his expansion into the European market. He'll create exactly what I envision—something spectacular yet suited to Seraphina's understated elegance. Something that screams "taken" to anyone who sees it.
The shower shuts off as I send a rapid series of emails—to the island's small chapel, arranging for flowers and music; to my personal chef, ordering a wedding feast for two days from now; to my lawyer, preparing the paperwork that will bind Seraphina to me legally in every way possible.
Marriage license. Name change documents. Updated will naming her and our unborn child as my heirs. Financial arrangements that will make it virtually impossible for her to leave without my cooperation. All of it designed to create a fortress around what's mine, impenetrable to outside interference or her occasional misguided impulses toward independence.
It sounds controlling. Perhaps it is. But eighteen months of respecting her "space" has proven that approach doesn't work—not for us. Seraphina needs boundaries to push against, needs the security of knowing I won't let her self-sabotage what we have together. She's afraid of the intensity between us, has been since the beginning. Afraid of how completely she surrenders when we're together, how thoroughly I claim every part of her.
I understand her fear. I even respect it. But I won't let it destroy what we're meant to be, won't let it deny our child the intact family it deserves.
The bathroom door opens down the hall as I finish the last of my arrangements. I shut the laptop, moving back toward the bedroom with casual grace, as if I haven't just set in motion the wheels that will permanently bind her to me.
She's wearing another of the silk robes I had placed in the closet, this one a deep sapphire that makes her skin glow. Her hair is damp, her face free of makeup, her expression guarded as she sees me enter.
"Feel better?" I ask, keeping my tone light, giving nothing away of my plans.
"Cleaner, at least," she hedges, maintaining a careful distance between us. "I need real clothes, Knox. And my own things. Not just what you've chosen for me."
"Your luggage should arrive this afternoon," I inform her, watching the surprise flicker across her face. "I had your apartment packed up yesterday."
"You—what?" Her voice rises with indignation. "You had my apartment packed up? Without my permission? Without me even being there?"
"You were rather busy getting married to someone else," I remind her dryly. "Or trying to, anyway."
Her hands clench at her sides, the familiar fire igniting in her eyes. This is the Seraphina I love—passionate, fiery, refusing to back down. So much more alive than the subdued woman who nearly married that cardboard cutout of a man.
"You had no right," she seethes. "Those are my things, my private possessions. What if there were things I didn't want you to see?"
"Like what?" I challenge, moving closer, enjoying the way she holds her ground despite her anger. "Love letters from othermen? Mementos from relationships that didn't matter? There's nothing in your life I don't already know about, Seraphina."
