Chapter 1Reading Your Gentleness

On my wedding day, I suddenly developed the ability to read minds.

I was listening to my husband’s heart as he smiled, gently taking my hand to place the ring on my finger.

Lyle Whitman sends over this sacrificial lamb and thinks he can just walk away with the Sterling project? He’s dreaming.

My head snapped up, my eyes wide with shock. My hand trembled so violently that the ring slipped from his grasp, clattering onto the floor.

Daniel looked at me, his expression a mask of tender apology, as if it were all his fault.

Clumsy oaf. Born to be slaughtered.

* * *

The wedding had been arranged just three days ago, a decision made by my stepfather, Lyle Whitman. His company was teetering on the edge of a cliff, its cash flow frozen solid, bankruptcy breathing down his neck. Desperate to resurrect his failing business, Lyle had been pulling every string he could, trying to marry me off to secure a financial lifeline.

He’d used my mother as leverage, forcing me to meet six different men in the span of two weeks. There was a fifty-year-old pig in a suit, greasy and obese; a sadistic trust-fund brat with a violent streak; and a mogul with a wife in New York and mistresses scattered across the country.

They were all willing to take me, but none of them offered a price high enough to satisfy Lyle.

Until Daniel Thorne appeared.

He made Lyle an offer that made his eyes gleam with greed. The one condition: the wedding had to be within three days.

Lyle agreed instantly, practically tripping over himself in his haste to deliver me to Daniel’s bed that very night. But Daniel, surprisingly, wasn't in such a rush. He insisted on following every pre-wedding custom, step by step. He even made sure we were legally married before the ceremony.

So, until this very moment, I had seen him as a perfect gentleman—polished, handsome, and deeply respectful. I had even allowed myself to believe in love at first sight, a fairytale I desperately wanted to be true.

Until I heard the chilling truth echoing in his mind.

He hadn't married me for love. He’d married me to set a trap, a meticulously planned scheme to ruin my stepfather.

This was a war between titans, and I was just a pawn on their board.