Married To My Ex-Fiancé's Silent Uncle

The corset of the Vera Wang gown was a vice, crushing Darcie's ribs until shallow breaths were the only option.

She stood outside the mahogany double doors of the Presidential Suite at The Plaza, her hand hovering over the gilded handle. Her palms were slick. Not with excitement, but with a cold, greasy sweat that made the metal feel foreign.

"Give me two minutes," she told the makeup artist hovering behind her. Her voice sounded thin, like stretched wire. "I need to see him alone before the cameras start."

The artist nodded and retreated down the plush hallway.

Silence settled. Darcie closed her eyes and counted backward from ten. It was a habit from home, from the days when the debt collectors banged on the trailer door. Ten. Nine. Eight.

The door wasn't locked.

It was cracked open just enough to let a slice of golden light spill onto the carpet. And with the light came a sound.

A low, guttural moan. Followed by a giggle that scraped against Darcie's eardrums like sandpaper.

Floy.

Her hand froze. Her brain, usually so good at calculating odds and solving complex equations, stalled. The variable didn't fit. Her stepsister shouldn't be in her fiancé's suite twenty minutes before the ceremony.

Darcie pushed the door. Just an inch.

The foyer was lined with mirrors. The reflection hit her with the force of a physical blow.

Hugh was bent over the edge of the king-sized bed, his back to her. His hands were gripping hips that weren't Darcie's. Floy was underneath him, her head thrown back, the diamond necklace-Darcie's bridal necklace, the one meant to signify her acceptance into the Maxwell dynasty-glittering obscenely against her neck.

Darcie didn't scream.

She expected to. She expected the hysteria, the tears, the collapse. But instead, a terrifying, arctic calm flooded her veins. It started in her toes and worked its way up, freezing the nausea in her stomach.

She stepped inside. The thick Persian rug swallowed the sound of her heels.

"God, Hugh," Floy gasped. "Faster. Before the hillbilly gets here."

"Don't worry about her," Hugh grunted. The sound was animalistic. "Once the wedding is over and the trust fund unlocks, I'm dumping that trash on a bus back to West Virginia. Or wherever the hell she came from."

"But the land," Floy teased. "You need the Mayo land deed."

"I'll have it by noon," Hugh promised.

Darcie looked to the coffee table.

There it was. The Prenuptial Agreement. A stack of crisp, white paper that she had signed an hour ago. It was the only thing binding the merger. The only thing that made her valuable to them.

Bside it lay a silver Zippo lighter.

She picked it up. The metal was cool against her skin.

Click.

The sound of the lid flipping open was as loud as a gunshot in the quiet room.

On the bed, the motion stopped. Hugh froze. He turned his head slowly, his eyes widening until the whites showed all around.

"Darcie?"