Trading my fiance for his billionaire uncle

Isla Bennett was staring at the same page of a legal file she had read four times already. The words weren't going in. Her brain kept wandering to the florist, the caterer, the seating chart she still hadn't finished. Her wedding was in three days. Three days. But here she was, still at her desk at nine pm, cold coffee by her elbow, trying to win a court case against a company run by a man she'd never even met. Damien Cross. She'd heard the name a hundred times in the past six months. Self-made billionaire. Built Cross Industries from nothing. The kind of man who walked into a room and made everyone else feel smaller. Her firm, Sterling & Wade, was trying to stop him from buying out a smaller company in what they called an illegal merger. Isla had built the whole case herself. Every document, every argument, every piece of evidence had passed through her hands. She thought she knew every inch of this case. She was wrong. "You look like death," Jordan Price announced, appearing in her office doorway with his usual impeccable timing and zero tact. Her best friend since their first year as associates, Jordan had the uncanny ability to appear whenever Isla's professional composure was cracking. "When was the last time you slept?" "I'll sleep after the Donovan merger closes." Isla gestured at the chaos across her desk, depositions, financial statements, her notes on Cross Industries' corporate structure. Somewhere under that mountain was a wedding planning binder she hadn't opened in two weeks. "Catherine wants the opposition research brief by Monday." "It's Thursday night. The Thursday before your wedding." Jordan crossed his arms, his expression shifting from concerned friend to cross-examining attorney. "Your wedding, Isla. The one happening in seventy-two hours." "I'm aware." "Are you? Because I just walked past your calendar and there's nothing on it except 'Deposition prep' and 'Review Damien Cross financials.” He picked up a sticky note from her desk. "What's this? 'Call bakery'? Isla, the wedding is Saturday." She snatched the note back. "I'll handle it." "When? Between the eighteen-hour workdays?" Jordan softened his voice. "Look, I love that you're brilliant and driven, but you're getting married in three days to a man you've barely seen in three months. Doesn't that bother you?" It did. Of course it did. But acknowledging that Marcus had become more of a calendar appointment than a fiancé felt like admitting failure, and Isla had spent thirty-two years refusing to fail at anything. "Marcus understands my career." The words sounded hollow even to her. "We've been together since college. We're building lives that complement each other." "Complement? You don't even occupy the same zip code most days." Jordan studied her with those sharp brown eyes that missed nothing. "When's the last time you two had an actual conversation? Not about the wedding logistics or whose family sits where, but a real conversation?" Isla opened her mouth, then closed it. She tried to remember but drew a blank. "That's what I thought." Jordan sighed. "I'm saying this because I love you, you're marrying him because he's part of the plan. Senior associate at thirty-two, married to someone from the right family, partnership by thirty-five. But plans change, Isla. People change." "Not everyone runs from commitment the second it gets complicated," Isla snapped, immediately regretting it when Jordan flinched. "Low blow." "I'm sorry. I didn't mean," Her phone buzzed. Marcus. Finally. She felt a rush of relief. "Hold on." The text read: Can you pick up my tux tomorrow? Running late at work. Not "How are you?" Not "Can't wait to marry you." Just another task to add to her list. Jordan read her expression. "Let me guess. He needs something." Before Isla could respond, her office phone rang. Catherine Sterling's extension. At 9 PM on a Thursday, that couldn't be good. "I have to take this." She reached for the phone, but Jordan caught her wrist. "Go home, Isla. Just this once, go home and spend time with your fiancé before you marry him. The merger will still be here Monday." But Catherine was calling, and partnership meant answering when Catherine called, so Isla picked up the phone. Jordan left shaking his head. "Isla." Catherine's voice was crisp, efficient. "I need you to look at the Eastman documents again. Something's not adding up in the third-quarter financials." Isla pulled up the files she'd practically memorized. "The revenue projections?" "The source documentation. Cross the numbers against the original audits." Isla's fingers flew across her keyboard, cross-referencing spreadsheets. Then she saw it. A discrepancy. Small, but there. A date that didn't match. An audit report that had been... modified? Her stomach dropped. "Catherine, these look…." "Inconsistent?" Catherine finished smoothly. "Yes. I noticed that too. We'll need to investigate further, of course. But it gives us leverage if Cross Industries tries to push the merger through." But that wasn't what Isla was thinking. She was thinking the modification looked like it came from their side. Their firm. "Catherine, if these documents were altered…." "Then we'll deal with it appropriately. After we win." The line went dead. Isla stared at her computer screen, a cold weight settling in her chest. She'd built her entire case on these documents. If they were falsified, if her own firm had manipulated evidence… Her phone buzzed again. Marcus: Also can you call the caterer? They keep calling me about final count and I'm in the middle of something. The middle of something. At 9 PM on a Thursday. Three days before their wedding. Isla grabbed her bag. Jordan was right….she needed to go home. Needed to see Marcus, ground herself in the life she'd carefully constructed. The partnership could wait one night. The Uber ride to their apartment took twenty-three minutes through Manhattan traffic. She used her key quietly, planning to surprise him. Maybe they could order takeout, actually talk, remember why they were doing this. The living room was dark except for the glow from the bedroom. She heard voices…..Marcus's voice, low and intimate. And another voice. Female. Laughing. Isla's hand froze on her bag. There was an explanation. Had to be. Maybe his sister had stopped by. Maybe…. But she recognized the laugh. Had heard it every day for the past eight months across the desk in her own office. Vivian. Her assistant. Isla moved on autopilot, pushing open the bedroom door. The scene burned itself into her retinas: Marcus tangled in their sheets….her sheets, the expensive ones she'd bought because he said they felt cheap….with Vivian Chen. Her assistant. The woman she'd mentored, recommended for a raise, trusted with confidential case files. They froze. Isla wondered distantly if she should scream, cry, throw something. Instead, she felt eerily calm. Detached. Like she was watching this happen to someone else. "Isla." Marcus scrambled up, not even bothering to cover himself. "Babe, it's not what you're imagining." Vivian had the grace to look embarrassed, pulling the sheet up to her chin. The sheet Isla had washed last weekend while Marcus watched football. "Do you plan to keep lying to her?" Vivian asked, and Isla almost laughed at the absurdity, her assistant defending her against her fiancé's lies while literally in bed with him. "Shut your mouth!" Marcus turned on Vivian, then back to Isla, his expression shifting to something she'd never seen before. Calculation. "Baby, look at me. What you're seeing isn't the whole story. I've been lonely, you're never here…." "It's okay," Isla heard herself say. Her voice sounded strange. Distant. "I've been cheating on you too. So now we're even." Silence. Complete, absolute silence. "What?" Marcus and Vivian spoke in unison. Isla's mind raced. What had she just said? But something in her refused to take it back. Refused to be the pathetic fiancée begging for explanations. "Oh yeah?" Vivian recovered first, her embarrassment shifting to something sharper. "And who exactly have you been sleeping with?" Isla's mind blanked. She needed a name. Someone Marcus would believe. Someone who would make this betrayal sting the way hers did. Someone he'd hate. And then it hit her. The perfect name. The one person whose existence Marcus resented more than anyone. "Damien Cross," she said clearly. "I've been sleeping with Damien Cross." The lie hung in the air, enormous and impossible to take back. Marcus's face went white, then red. "You….my uncle? You're saying you've been f*****g my uncle?" Uncle. Right. She'd forgotten that detail in her panic. Damien Cross wasn't just her opposing counsel. He was Marcus's estranged uncle, the self-made billionaire the family pretended didn't exist because he'd embarrassed them by actually working for his money. This was insane. Damien Cross probably didn't even know Isla's first name. But Marcus's expression….the genuine pain there, felt like justice. "How long?" Marcus demanded. Isla grabbed onto the lie, made it bigger. "Does it matter? You clearly moved on too." She looked at Vivian. "How long?" "Six months," Vivian admitted quietly. "Since the merger case started." Six months. Half a year of looking Isla in the eye every morning, taking notes in her meetings, organizing her files. Half a year of Marcus kissing Isla goodbye and coming home to someone else. "Well then." Isla's voice didn't shake. "I guess that makes the wedding pretty pointless." "You won't actually call it off." Marcus stood, grabbing his pants. "Think about what you're saying. Our families, the venue, the deposits. You've worked too hard on your image to throw it all away over this." And there it was. He knew exactly which knife to twist. Her image. The girl from nowhere who'd clawed her way into this world and lived in constant fear of being exposed as a fraud. "You're right," Isla said slowly. "I have worked too hard. On a wedding to a man who doesn't respect me. On a life that's making me miserable. On being perfect for everyone except myself." She turned toward the door. "Isla, wait…." Marcus grabbed her arm. She pulled free, and something inside her shifted. Hardened. "The wedding is off. I'll make sure everyone knows exactly why." "You wouldn't dare. The humiliation…." "Yours or mine?" Isla smiled, and it felt like breaking. Like freedom. "I'm done being humiliated quietly, Marcus. If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me." She walked out of the apartment, down the elevator, onto the street. Her phone buzzed constantly….Marcus calling, texting, Marcus's mother somehow already texting in all caps. Isla kept walking until she found herself in front of the Carlyle Hotel, where the Cross Foundation charity gala was happening. The event Marcus's entire family would be attending. The event he'd skipped to f**k her assistant. She looked down at her outfit, the rehearsal dinner dress she'd planned to show him tonight. Cream silk, appropriate for a bride-to-be. Perfect for making a scene. Jordan's voice echoed in her head: Plans change, Isla. People change. She walked through the hotel entrance, past security who recognized the Webb family name, into the glittering ballroom where Manhattan's elite pretended to care about charity. And somewhere in that crowd was Damien Cross, the man whose name she'd just weaponized, who was about to become very surprised. Isla grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and drained it. Time to burn it all down.