His Sacrifice, Her Cold Indifference

I was forced to marry Drake Knox, a Wall Street titan twice my age. I fought him at every turn, but his cold control slowly melted into a possessive passion I couldn't resist.

Then his ex-girlfriend, Julia, returned, claiming a terminal illness had brought her back to him.

He chose her. When I was injured and left bleeding in a hotel lobby, he ran to comfort her.

When she murdered my dog, Peanut, and framed me, he believed her lies without question.

His punishment for my "betrayal" was to lock me away in his mansion, a gilded cage he called protection.

He sacrificed my safety, my sanity, and my freedom for the woman he truly loved. I was just a substitute.

So I ran. And when he chased me down a highway, I gave him an ultimatum: let me go, or watch me die. I stepped in front of a speeding truck.

I never expected him to swerve his own car into its path, sacrificing himself to save me.

Chapter 1

They said I was going to marry him, a a man twice my age, a Wall Street titan they called the 'Reaper.' I laughed. They didn't know who they were dealing with.

My name is Chelsie Miller, and freedom was my religion. At twenty-one, I owned New York City, or at least, that's how it felt when I was cruising down Fifth Avenue in my vintage Shelby Cobra, wind whipping through my hair, the city lights a blur. I was a Miller heiress, yes, but I built my own empire of defiance. My father, Fred Wallace, called it "wild." I called it living.

Then came the decree: I was to marry Drake Knox. Thirty-one years old, a decade my senior, and supposedly the most formidable mind on Wall Street. He was discipline in a suit, a man who probably ironed his socks. I was chaos in couture. The very idea made my stomach churn. "He'll tame you," my father had declared, a glint of triumph in his eyes. Tame me? That was a challenge I was born to accept.

The first attempt to shake him off was at our engagement party. A lavish affair, naturally, held at his penthouse. I arrived two hours late, wearing a scarlet dress slit to my hip, and promptly started a champagne-fueled dance-off on a table with a gaggle of male models. My father's face was purple. Drake? He just leaned against the bar, watching with an annoyingly calm smirk.

He bought me a diamond necklace the next day. "For your... spirited performance," he'd said, his voice a low rumble. It was easily a million dollars. He thought he could buy me. He thought he could indulge me into submission. It only fueled my fire.

My next move was more direct. I took his prize-winning, meticulously restored classic convertible – a car he adored more than anything, I was sure – and drove it straight into the reflecting pool in front of his Manhattan