Page 8 of Vows of Deceit
“Mind if I sit?” he asked.
She looked up at him. “Sure. Just don’t ask about the hotel business. I left my sales pitch in the ballroom.”
He laughed and sat beside her. That night, they didn’t talk about their families. Or business. Or the expectations on their shoulders. They talked about books. About travel. About the small café in Florence they both loved and the hidden beach in Spain he remembered from college and somewhere between midnight and dawn, something shifted.
A month later, Cassie found herself walking beside him on a foggy morning in Central Park, latte in one hand, the edge of his scarf in the other.
“You know,” she said, “I was wrong about you.”
He looked down at her. “Yeah?”
“You’re not chasing Kelly.”
Damien grinned. “Took you long enough.”
“I just didn’t expect someone like you to notice someone like me.”
He stopped walking. Turned to face her.
“Cassie, I’ve always noticed you.”
She blushed, tucking her hair behind her ear. “We’re very different people.”
“That’s why it works.”
And then, for the first time, he kissed her. Not like a billionaire kissing a society girl. Not like a man staking his claim. He kissed her like he had waited years to do it.
That summer, they became inseparable. He showed up at her family’s lake house unannounced, bringing champagne and groceries and offering to cook dinner. He slipped her handwritten notes under her hotel suite door during conference weekends. He brought her daisies when she said roses were overrated.
Cassie fell hard and when he proposed six months later, it felt inevitable. Even though her sister hadn’t congratulated her. Even though her parents looked surprised. Even though her instincts whispered she was racing toward something she hadn’t fully unpacked.
She said yes because she believed that finally, she wasn’t the shadow in the corner. She was the center of someone’s story.
Chapter Six
The Night Before
It was a coincidence, nothing more. Cassie hadn’t meant to open the drawer in Damien’s home office. She was looking for spare batteries for the camera she planned to bring to their vow renewal location scout. But instead, she found an old iPhone. Dusty. Untouched. The kind people forgot about until it blinked back to life with a jolt of power.
She should have left it alone but something made her pause.
Curiosity or instinct.
She plugged it into the charger, her heart thumping harder with every passing second. The Sterling crest shimmered faintly on the old lock screen, and surprisingly, it opened without a passcode.
Cassie tapped into the photos app. Scrolled. Mostly old boardroom pictures. Conferences. Some of her. Them together. Her breath caught when she saw one dated the night before their wedding. It started with laughter.
Damien’s voice, slurred but distinct. “You’re really wearing white to my hotel room, Kelly?”
Her sister’s voice was low, teasing. “White is the color of victory, isn’t it?”
The camera wobbled slightly propped somewhere. Forgotten. Or maybe deliberately recorded. Cassie stared,transfixed, horror blooming as she realized what she was watching. Kelly leaned in, wrapping her arms around Damien from behind as he poured another drink.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he muttered, but he didn’t stop her.
She kissed the corner of his jaw. “That never stopped you before.”
“I’m marrying your sister tomorrow.”
