Chapter 1 - The Unexpected Guest at the Mistletoe Gate
Thirty-two weeks pregnant, I watched my husband walk into his family’s Christmas party with another woman wearing the diamond necklace he had secretly purchased during an illicit weekend getaway. Sixty elite guests were watching when I finally looked into his cold, calculating eyes and said, “Since you brought someone, I brought someone too.” But Matthias had no idea that his shameless infidelity was no longer the most dangerous secret I had uncovered in his web of corporate deceit.
For forty-three agonizing minutes, I had been standing beside the roaring limestone fireplace at the Dre estate nestled outside Greenwich, Connecticut. My swollen ankles throbbed inside my designer heels, and our unborn daughter kicked relentlessly beneath the heavy fabric of my burgundy velvet maternity dress. The air smelled of burnt pine, expensive champagne, and old money arrogance.
Then the heavy oak front doors swung open against the freezing December wind.
Matthias entered with Fiona Vale clinging possessively to his arm. Snowflakes clung to the lapels of his custom cashmere overcoat, while Fiona’s ivory silk evening gown and sparkling three-carat diamond choker glittered shamelessly beneath the grand chandelier. I recognized that diamond choker instantly. Three weeks ago, I had discovered the private jeweler’s receipt crumpled inside the inner lining of Matthias’s briefcase—a seventy-thousand-dollar piece of platinum deceit.
My baby kicked hard against my ribs.
“I know, sweetheart,” I murmured under my breath, smoothing my palm over the tight dome of my belly. “Just a little longer.”
Across the crowded grand ballroom, Matthias’s dark eyes locked onto mine. For one brief microsecond, a flash of pure calculation crossed his handsome features. It wasn't guilt. It wasn't remorse. It was the cold assessment of a predator trying to gauge whether his prey was going to cause a scene before the press arrived. He whispered something into Fiona's ear, left her sipping champagne near the towering pine tree, and made his way toward me with smooth, measured strides.
“Serena.” He leaned down and pressed a dry, rehearsed kiss to my cheek. “You made it.”
“I drove myself through a blizzard,” I replied evenly, meeting his gaze without flinching.
“I was going to send a car for you downtown after my meeting,” he said, adjusting his platinum cufflink. “There was an unexpected situation with the Hensley merger.”
I shifted my eyes toward Fiona, who was already surrounded by three junior partners, laughing into her flute of vintage Dom Pérignon. “She looks like an extraordinarily expensive situation, Matthias.”
Matthias’s jaw hardened, the muscle ticking beneath his tailored beard. “Keep your voice down, Serena. Look around you. The entire board of directors is here. Judge Vance is here. My parents spent six months planning this gala.”
“My voice is perfectly level,” I said softly.
“Fiona is heading crisis communications for our acquisition,” he insisted, his tone dripping with condescending patience. “She needed to be here to interface with the stakeholders. It’s strictly business.”
“Is the seventy-thousand-dollar diamond choker around her neck deductible as a business expense too?”
His face paled, the blood draining from his lips for a fraction of a second. After nine years of working twelve-hour shifts as a head trauma nurse at Hartford Memorial, I knew how the human body reacted to sudden terror. The dilated pupils, the shallow breath, the slight tremor in the carotid artery.
“What necklace?” he asked, trying to summon his usual dismissive arrogance.
I didn't answer. Three weeks ago, I had logged into Matthias’s private laptop to print out health insurance forms for our impending delivery. The browser had remained open to a five-star hotel booking in New Haven. Two guests. Presidential suite. Room service charged with vintage Krug and oysters. He had told me he was sleeping on an airport cot in Chicago due to weather delays. When I dug deeper, I found encrypted folders, shell company wire transfers, and a calendar marked with Fiona’s initials.
Yet the affair wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was the unmarked manila envelope delivered by a courier to my private postbox four days ago. Inside was a blueprint of this very estate, tonight’s date circled in red grease pencil, and a chilling memo bearing the logo of Matthias’s private equity firm: Collateral losses within acceptable parameters for property insurance liquidation.
Someone was planning to burn this empire down tonight with sixty guests inside, and Matthias was either the mastermind or the ultimate patsy.
“Tonight needs to go smoothly,” I said, looking him dead in the eye.
“Yes, it does,” Matthias whispered threateningly. “Don't embarrass me in front of the board.”
“Since you brought someone, Matthias... I brought someone too.”
Matthias froze. “What did you say?”
I turned my head toward the grand double doors of the foyer. The butler had just opened them again, revealing three figures stepping out of the falling snow.
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The man in front was Special Agent Marcus Vance of the Department of Justice Financial Crimes Division—and flanking him was Matthias’s former business partner who had supposedly died in a suspicious car wreck in Zurich two years ago.
Matthias’s champagne glass slipped through his fingers and shattered against the marble floor.
