Chapter Three
SERENITY VEYLOR-KORVEN
Eleven months later.
After eleven months of marriage, each evening in this estate still reminded me that I was alone in this marriage. Konflict kept his distance, sticking to his promise not to touch me and I stopped wishing he’d ever change his mind.
At first, I tried talking to him when we crossed paths in the hall, but all I got were cold looks that made it clear I didn’t belong. The man who once saved me as a kid couldn’t even look at me without wishing he could end me.
So I built a life without him.
The Korven estate became a place I managed instead of shared. I kept my family’s business afloat and showed the city a Veylor still standing, carrying the weight of two houses while Konflict barely even acknowledged we were married.
The only time I ever saw him was at Big Six galas, where every head of house and spouse had to show up. Every few months, I got an invitation and the same cold message: Be ready.
“Valery,” I called to my assistant, lifting my dress carefully, “how did things go at the casino last night?”
Standing by the wardrobe, she had her tablet in her hands, her eyes already scanning numbers.
Her long legs were accentuated by a fitted suit that hugged her figure.
The Fulani braids she’d gotten a few days ago suited her deep coffee-brown skin beautifully.
Valery had been part of the Veylor family forever.
Her parents joined the household staff a few years before I was born, so she’d always been there, right by my side.
I was grateful this brutal war with the Korven’s hadn’t taken her from me, too. I wouldn’t have survived it.
“We had an issue with a client acting suspicious. The new security lead intervened.”
I paused, the dress half-zipped in my hands. “New security lead?”
“Yes. Konflict replaced Viking and appointed one of his own men.”
The words slipped under my skin before I could shield myself from them.
I remembered Viking’s voice from last week—mocking, loud in the VIP corridor as he told me I had no authority, that without my father my word meant nothing.
I remembered the staff watching him speak to me like that, waiting to see whether I would bow or find enough spine to stand.
I calmly stripped him of his position and walked out without raising my voice once.
I knew he would defy me and linger, and I had already planned to look for a replacement strong enough to handle him.
What I had not planned was for Konflict to hear about any of it.
I certainly had not imagined he would care enough to act.
“Who told him?” I asked softly.
“No one,” Valery replied. “But the Korven’s hear everything before it hits air and given Konflict’s reputation… it wouldn’t surprise me if Viking has already disappeared. Mr. Korven takes his wife’s protection seriously.”
I let out a quiet, humorless breath and turned back to the mirror.
“He protects his name,” I corrected, smoothing the silk over my hip, “not me. He did it because insulting the wife of the head of a Big Six family is the same as insulting the house itself. He was defending his territory, not his marriage.” I paused, letting my words settle.
“Anyway,” I murmured, steadying my breath, “I need to finish getting ready. The council expects perfection tonight, and I won’t give them a single crack to whisper about. ”
The dress settled against my body, stitched for every curve I owned.
Midnight silk clung to my hips, the neckline dipping just enough to whisper confidence without begging for attention.
My skin, deep and warm under the light, caught the shimmer of the fabric as if it had been made to glow against golden-brown tones like mine.
I looked good. So good that for just a breath, I let myself imagine walking into this night as a woman desired by her husband, not merely tolerated by his name.
But I left the estate alone.
Konflict had never once come to collect me for an event, never offered his arm, or acknowledged that appearances mattered for a married couple in the Big Six.
So I climbed into the car with the same quiet resolve I had carried for months and watched the city blur outside the window while I rehearsed the smile I would have to wear.
When I walked into the reception hall, every head turned.
The chandeliers spilled soft gold over the crowd, the music drifting somewhere between luxury and boredom. I felt the eyes before I saw the faces. Judge Marquette and Hollister’s wives were already gliding toward me.
“Serenity, you look stunning tonight,” Halley Hollister said, pulling me briefly into a polite embrace before stepping back to study me. “But… where is your husband? We expected you two together.”
I smiled even though the truth pressed its weight behind my ribs.
“He had an unexpected matter to handle,” I replied smoothly. “He’ll be arriving a little later. I came ahead to represent the Korven’s until he joins us.”
She returned my smile—but her eyes flicked toward the entrance, confusion softening into something sharper.
“In that case, why is he arriving with another woman on his arm?” Maureen Marquette murmured.
My breath stilled.
I turned toward the entrance, expecting her to be wrong, praying I had misheard.
Konflict walked into the hall with a woman clinging to his arm as if she belonged there.
I looked at him, and for a single disloyal heartbeat, my body betrayed me.
He was all I could see. Even from across the room, the light slid over his rich chestnut-copper skin, deep bronze heat making every line of him look sculpted.
The open collar of his suit exposed the beginning of the tattoos climbing his chest. Dark patterns I’d imagined touching more times than I’d ever admit, I once dreamed of tracing with my fingers, my mouth, if he hadn’t spent eleven months pretending I never mattered.
I’d seen the tattoos on his neck, his arms, his hands whenever his sleeves were rolled up or his shirts hung loose, but now, with his collar open, I could see how the designs flowed down over his chest, and it made something inside me ache with curiosity.
I wanted to know how they looked under his clothes, what they meant, if they’d feel hot and real under my fingers.
His hair was cropped close, making everything about him seem more dangerous, more impossible to ignore, drawing my eyes back again and again even when I tried to look away.
I shook my head to pull myself together. Because what the fuck? Why was I drooling over this man when the motherfucker just walked in here with another woman on his arm?
My chest ached at the thought.
I had never been na?ve. Eleven months without any touch, no kiss, and not even a moment of warmth from my husband told me enough about where he sought intimacy.
I knew he slept with other women. I expected nothing else from a man who had spoken no vows and made it clear I was nothing but a woman he can’t wait to end.
But knowing it and seeing it were two entirely different kinds of pain.
The humiliation rose fast and hot, settling in my chest and making it hurt to breathe. The wives around me shifted uncomfortably, pretending not to stare. Their pity cut deeper than the shame.
Then Konflict finally looked at me.
His gaze swept over my body in one slow, consuming drag, and for a heartbeat the room tilted.
Because the way he looked at me—just for that breath—felt unmistakably hungry.
As if he wanted to strip layers away from my body, leaving nothing but my skin and him wanting every piece of it.
I saw it in his eyes, how they tightened slightly and shifted as if he had to stop himself from reacting, how the air between us thickened into something that scorched down my spine.
If I didn’t know better, I would have believed he wanted to drag me into the nearest dark corner and tear the dress off me just to feel my body against his.
But the moment vanished as quickly as it came.
His expression iced over, and whatever had flickered in his stare was buried under the same hatred he’d fed me since the day we were bound. He didn’t approach me. And he sure didn’t acknowledge me as his wife.
He turned away, dragging the woman with him, straight toward the circle of family heads who watched him with disapproval tightening their lips.
Konflict didn’t care. He never did. Bringing her here wasn’t an oversight—it was a message, one he wanted the entire room to read the same way he had carved his threats into me eleven months ago.
Only this time the blade cut through me.
My vision blurred but I blinked fast, refusing to let tears fall for the entirety of Emberwick’s elite to feast on.
I excused myself and walked toward the bar.
The bartender placed a glass on the counter before I even asked, perhaps sensing the storm trembling under my skin.
I wrapped my fingers around it, hoping the chill would numb the ache building in my chest.
“Beautiful dress.”
I didn’t hear her approach until her perfume drifted beside me.
I turned slowly.