PROLOGUE
PAIGE
Dear Mr. Montclair,
My name is Paige Wilde. Emailing you directly like this is… unconventional, I know. But I have something you’ve wanted for a very long time.
You recently made me and the other shareholders aware that you’ve been quietly buying shares of my family’s company for years. I suspect you’re ready to make your move, but as long as my uncle Ben holds the majority stake, he’ll remain in your way.
That’s where I come in. Marry me.
I hold the third-largest stake in the company, inherited from my late parents. I will receive another 10 percent upon my marriage, reverting from my uncle’s trust to me.
By you and I getting married, we’ll combine our shares and gain majority. I only have three conditions.
One, Ben is out the second we do. He is driving the company into the ground with poor decision after poor decision.
Two, you will respect the integrity of the company and invest in its continued success.
Three, as my trust stipulates that I must marry for love, we will have to pretend in public. But between us two, we’d know exactly what this is. A business deal. Nothing more and nothing less.
You have wanted to own Mather & Wilde for years. I’m giving you the easiest path to gain control of the company. You seem single, and I’m very practical. It’s a win-win.
Your future wife,
Paige Wilde
PROLOGUE II
RAFE
Ms. Wilde,
I’ll admit, I was not expecting a proposal by email this morning.
I can meet your three demands.
My lawyers will draw up a proposal and send it to yours for inspection. I’ll book the courthouse.
Raphaël Montclair
CHAPTER 1
PAIGE
Making a deal with the devil was surprisingly efficient.
After I sent the email, his lawyers and mine hammered out the details, the contract, and the prenup with dazzling speed. Both of us had an incentive to move fast.
I don’t know why I thought it would feelbetter,all of it.
Hubris, maybe. Definitely a good dose of desperation, the kind where you’re backed into a corner and the only hand to reach for belongs to the man who made sure you had no other way out.
Raphaël Montclair.
As devils go, he looks the part. At least in the images I’ve seen, where he’s dark-haired and olive-skinned, the picture of casual elegance and wealth. But there’s a glint in his eye, evident even in pictures, like he’s thinking about how to crush your company under his boot and take all the profits.
And today I’m meeting him for the first time.
