Chapter 1
There were hundreds of people in the church, but all Zara could hear was her own heartbeat.
It was too loud, too fast, too broken.
The ivory silk dress hugged her frame like a second skin. The veil, delicately embroidered with silver, trailed behind her like a whispered promise. She had imagined this day since she was twelve. But not like this.
Not with her heart in shambles.
Not with the echo of his betrayal still burning in her ears.
Her father gave her a proud smile as he offered her arm to Adrian, the man standing at the altar. The man she was supposed to marry. The man whose voice she'd overheard last night, sharp and cold on a call he thought she'd never hear:
> "Make sure it's done before the wedding. She can't know. Not yet."
She hadn't slept.
She hadn't cried.
She'd just walked.
Walked through the ceremony like a ghost in her own fairytale.
---
Adrian Voss, in his tailored black suit, looked at her with that polished smile — the kind that made headlines and opened doors.
The kind she had once fallen for.
But not anymore.
The priest began. His voice was warm, kind.
"Do you, Adrian Elias Voss, take Zara Eden Wren to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold…"
Zara's throat tightened.
Adrian turned to her.
Smiled.
And that was the last straw.
She held up her hand — palm open, trembling.
"I… I'm sorry."
Gasps rippled through the cathedral.
"I can't do this."
She turned. Her heels clicked sharply against marble as she walked down the aisle alone, head held high, veil fluttering like wings torn in a storm.
Behind her, silence cracked into chaos.
---
3 Years Later — New York City
Zara Wren stood in a glass-walled boardroom on the 58th floor of Eden Noir's headquarters — a fashion empire she built from pain, from ashes, from nothing.
Her hair was tied back in a sleek bun. Her voice was cold. Her heels were louder now.
"I don't care how rich he is," she told her assistant. "If he wants to invest, he plays by my rules."
The door opened. The assistant flinched.
A man entered, all power and presence.
Adrian.
Same grey eyes.
Same smooth voice.
Different battlefield.
"Hello, Zara," he said, like nothing had ever happened.
But Zara had changed.
And this time, she wasn't the girl in white.
She was the storm coming for everything he left behind.