Someone Better Could Be Waiting

I had saved her life.

But it had been an instinctive response to an emergency. I never intended to demand a reward.

She had revealed her identity herself and offered me the chance to work with her as a way of repaying me.

As far as I was concerned, that settled the debt.

At first, she had been courteous and grateful, but not especially close.

She even left the details of the collaboration to her project officer.

Then, a few days later, her attitude changed.

She became extraordinarily interested in me.

She called several times herself, warmly asking everything from my height and weight to my star sign and blood type.

A few days after Julian proposed, she called again, late at night.

She sounded as though she had been drinking.

And she kept asking whether I could stop loving Julian.

“There are plenty of good men in the world, Stella. You’re young. Perhaps you could look around a little more. Someone better might be waiting for you.”

At the time, Julian was all I could see.

I answered with absolute certainty.

“Your Grace, there isn’t a better man in the world. Not to me. I’ll only ever love Julian. In this life. In every life.”

The moment I finished, I heard glass shatter on the other end.

I assumed she was drunk enough to have knocked over her wineglass.

“Your Grace, too much wine isn’t good for you. You should get some—”

The call ended before I finished.

After that night, she never contacted me again.

Soon, we reached the hospital.

Julian led her to the room.

He had already warned her during the drive, giving her a general idea of “my” condition.

But the moment she saw the woman in the bed, tears spilled down her face.

“Animals. What kind of animals could do this to a person? This is monstrous.”

Broken fingers. Missing eyes. A severed tongue. The skin stripped from a face.

And what I had suffered went further still.

I glared at Julian, the murderer, with enough hatred to burn holes through him.

He even managed a few crocodile tears.

“I failed to protect my wife. I was useless.”

The duchess looked startled.

“You’re already married?”

“Yes.”

He showed her the band on his ring finger.

“We had the civil ceremony. We just hadn’t held the celebration yet. Stella was so busy preparing this project with you. We agreed we’d have the wedding afterward. And now…”

He covered his face, choking on apparent grief.

“If only I could suffer in her place.”

He was deliberately turning the project into my final wish.

Anything to soften the duchess and secure the deal.

His performance disgusted me so completely I wanted to slap him across the room.

“Don’t listen to him!” I shouted. “You can’t do this project with the Whitmores.”

First, I couldn’t bear the thought of those animals profiting from my work.

Second, Whitmore Group was riddled with nepotism. Its senior management had broken into factions, constantly fighting one another.

When I was there, I could barely keep them in line and make sure each stage of a project ran properly.

Without me, something would go wrong even if the project got started.

Julian couldn’t control those executives.

He certainly couldn’t handle the calculating old men on the board.