Isadora''s eyes widened in shock.


    "Dad, you promised me this before. How can you, as chairman of The Vaughan Group, go back on your word?"


    Richard''s smile was all sly cunning.


    "I did promise you, but I never said when I''d give it to you. Once you''re married, of course you''ll have it."


    He waved her off, the conversation over. "Now go on-go try on your wedding dress. Remember to take some photos so your mother and I can see how beautiful you look. I heard Magnus even found the world''s top wedding designer for the ceremony."


    In the end, Isadora was ushered out by Magnus.


    They made their way down to the underground parking garage.


    Magnus nced at her expression, clearly amused. "Isadora, I never realized you cared so much about The Vaughan Group."


    He leaned in, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "If it means that much to you, after we''re married I''ll give you five percent of Wainwright Holdings. That''s worth far more than thirty percent of The Vaughan Group. So just be a good Mrs. Wainwright, alright?"


    Isadora rolled her eyes dramatically, dismissing his words as pure nonsense.


    "Magnus, why is it so hard for you to understand in English? Do you really think I was joking when I said I wanted to break up? Because I wasn''t."


    Her cheeks were flushed, anger brightening her features.


    Magnus looked at her, captivated by the way her eyes sparkled-even when she was mad, there was something maic about her. She was breathtaking, the kind of beauty that left people stunned. One look into those deep, dark eyes and he could feel himself getting swept away, like she was some kind of dangerous, otherworldly enchantress.


    "I never thought you were joking," Magnus said quietly. "Let me make it up to you, Isadora. This wedding, the dress-let it be proof that I mean it this time."


    Isadora drew a steadying breath.


    She knew Magnus-his arrogance, his confidence. He''d always hurt her with such careless certainty, convinced she''d never walk away.


    "Magnus, I don''t love you anymore."


    I don''t love you.


    She said it calmly, without a hint of drama.


    Magnus''s expression hardened, his eyes narrowing as if she''d just told him an unbelievable joke.


    "Not in love? Isadora, do you really expect me to believe that?"


    "It was you who wouldn''t give up," he reminded her. "You were the one who promised you''d love me forever. That''s the only reason we ended up together."


    Color crept up Isadora''s cheeks as his words struck home.


    It was true.


    She had been the one who''d chased after Magnus, refusing to give up. She had practically forced him to be with her.


    Who would have thought that the passion that once burned so fiercely would now twist inside her like a de?


    Before she was reunited with the Vaughan family, when she was seventeen, Isadora had graduated at the top of her ss and been epted to the most prestigious university in the capital.


    But her foster mother, Ca, had cruelly snatched the eptance letter from her hands and torn it to shreds.


    "A girl doesn''t need college," Ca said. "Better to get married early." She had the nerve to take a finder''s fee-three thousand dors-to set Isadora up with a job on a factory assembly line.


    Ca had her whole future mapped out.


    Isadora refused, her world copsing around her.


    That was when Ca struck her, hard across the face.


    "If you''re so capable, why don''t you just disappear? You don''t have any papers.


    You''re a nobody. You''ll never amount to anything—so stop fighting it."


    Isadora ran out of the house in tears, blinded by despair and ran straight into the path of a luxury car.


    The man who stepped out wasn''t a stranger. It was Magnus.


    Back then, he wasn''t so cold. He rarely smiled, his dark hair and sharp eyes


    giving him a brooding air-yet there was still some trace of boyish innocence left in him.