Vows of Treachery: Claimed by His Ruthless Brother novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Scar Was a Jet Ski
Annika hears her husband laugh about the fire story he sold her, plays the recording into the gala microphone, and finds out she holds the deciding vote against him. Rhys tells her to get in the car.
My husband stood on the gala stage and told four hundred guests he would walk into that fire again for me.
The big screen behind him showed his face, live, for every donor in the ballroom.
"Two years ago tonight, Annika was trapped on the fourth floor of her father's hotel," Emmett said.
"I carried her out on my back. I still have the scars."
The room clapped.
Emmett pressed a hand to his chest and looked down at me at table one.
I smiled up at him, as I had at this story for two years.
Under my gown, on a thin chain against my ribs, hung the cracked steel watch.
I had woken up holding it in the hospital.
Emmett had said it was his and that I should throw it out.
I never did.
Delphine leaned in from the seat beside me.
She had been my best friend since college, and she had stood next to me at my wedding.
"Look at him," she whispered. "He's so proud of you."
"He's been practicing that speech for a week," I said.
"Leave your phone in your bag tonight, Annie." She squeezed my wrist. "One night of just being his wife."
My phone was already in my clutch.
I did not take it out.
Emmett raised his glass.
"To the woman who gave me a reason to be brave," he said. "Now, a short film of our two years together."
"Annika, stay right there. I'll be back for your bow."
The lights dropped and the film began.
Delphine stood. "Powder room," she whispered, and slipped away between the tables.
My shawl was gone from the back of my chair.
I went looking for it in the coat room behind the stage.
The door to the green room next to it was open an inch.
"Relax," Emmett said inside. "She signed the proxy in March. She signs whatever I put in front of her."
"Does she read any of it?" That was Delphine's voice.
I stood still in the dark hallway.
"Monday, the board votes," Emmett said. "Rhys is out, and her thirty percent is mine to vote."
"Then I file for divorce, and she gets the apartment and a very nice goodbye."
"And the fire story?" Delphine said.
"The fire story keeps her grateful." He laughed. "It's been working for two years."
"Your back, Emmett."
"A jet ski, in Cabo, the summer before I met her. She thinks I got that scar carrying her down four flights of stairs."
Delphine laughed too, low and warm.
It was the laugh I knew from a hundred nights on my couch.
"My poor Annie," she said. "She'd stand in a fire for you."
My clutch was already open.
I had started recording the moment I heard the word proxy.
I held the phone up in the dark until they stopped talking about me and started kissing.
Then I turned the screen off and walked back down the hall.
I did not cry.
I thought about the steel watch against my ribs, and the hospital bed, and two years of thanking a man for something he never did.
So I walked back onto the stage.
The film had ended. Emmett was already there, glowing, holding out his hand.
He had slipped out the side door of the green room and beaten me to the microphone.
"There she is," he said.
I took the microphone from his hand.
"Thank you for coming tonight," I said. "My husband told you a very moving story. I'd like to answer it."
I held my phone against the microphone and pressed play.
"She signed the proxy in March," Emmett's voice said, through every speaker in the ballroom.
"She signs whatever I put in front of her."
His smile stayed on his face for the whole next sentence.
"The fire story keeps her grateful. It's been working for two years."
The screen behind us still showed the live feed.
Four hundred guests watched his face change.
"A jet ski, in Cabo," said his recorded voice, and the ballroom made a sound I had never heard a room make.
Then came Delphine's laugh, and the kissing.
I pressed stop.
Delphine rose from table one with her napkin still in her hand.
I took off my wedding ring and dropped it into Emmett's champagne glass.
"The scar is from a jet ski," I said. "Everyone should know that before they clap again."
"Annika, it's edited," Emmett said. "Somebody turn that off. It's been cut together."
Nobody moved to turn anything off.
His father, Augustin Carrow, stood up at table two, gray and furious.
He looked at Emmett, and he sat down again without a word.
I walked off the stage and straight down the center aisle.
One man waited at the last table near the doors.
He was the only person in the ballroom who had not looked at the screen.
Rhys Carrow, Emmett's older brother, ran the company.
He had spoken fewer than twenty words to me in two years, and most of them were at my wedding.
His left sleeve was buttoned to the wrist, as it always was.
His glass of whiskey was full.
"The proxy you signed in March," Rhys said. "Do you know what it gives him?"
"Thirty percent of your company," I said. "I heard."
"It gives him thirty percent on paper."
He picked up my shawl from the chair beside him.
I did not know when he had taken it.
"You never signed over the shares, Annika," he said. "You signed a voting proxy, and you can revoke it with one phone call."
I stared at him.
"Which makes you the one vote on Monday that decides whether I keep my company or he takes it."
He put the shawl around my shoulders.
"He just found that out too," Rhys said. "Get in the car."
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend