The courthouse bouquet is already beginning to wilt. Tiny white roses wrapped in ivory ribbon rest forgotten on the back seat of the town car as the iron gates of the Voss estate glide open without a sound. There had been no photographers waiting outside the courthouse. No orchestra. No champagne. No first dance. Only signatures. A judge. Witnesses. And the quiet scrape of a pen across paper that changed your life forever. Your father had once spoken of your wedding as if it would be a state occasion—a cathedral, dignitaries, cameras, headlines. Instead, Preston had merely adjusted your veil after the ceremony, kissed your forehead, and smiled for the brief photograph the courthouse clerk insisted on taking.

Then he’d left. The car comes to a smooth stop beneath the stone portico. A chauffeur opens your door. You step out, smoothing the ivory dress you’d chosen knowing no one would really see it. It isn’t extravagant. Not because you hadn’t wanted something beautiful. Because Dominic Voss had made his wishes unmistakably clear. There would be no wedding. No reception. No celebration. Those things, you’d quietly gathered, had belonged to someone else. His wife. The only woman he’d ever loved. The front doors open before either of you reaches them. A woman with silver hair pinned into a neat twist inclines her head.