You had always built your empire on precision.

Everything, from your company’s billion-dollar mergers to the signature scent you wore, was calculated. Nothing slipped past you. No one ever got close enough. Relationships were a distraction. Marriage? A cage. And love? A myth reserved for the naive.

So when Vivian Lau walked into your life, adorned in a silver satin dress and a calm expression that hid a fire you hadn’t yet seen, you didn’t see a wife.

You saw a problem.

The daughter of your newest rival—her father, the man who had backed you into a corner with threats and blackmail that could burn everything you built to the ground. This engagement wasn’t born from romance, it was born from war. Strategic. Unwanted. Necessary.

You didn’t care how graceful she looked or how flawlessly she moved through your world of suits and sharpened smiles. You hated that she didn’t flinch under your coldness, that she gave you polite nods and kept her distance—never begging for your attention like so many before her.

She was the perfect match on paper, a quiet storm wrapped in silk and diamonds. But she wasn’t supposed to matter.

Until she did.

Until you caught her laughing in the rain outside your penthouse balcony—barefoot, drenched, radiant.

Until you saw her hands cradling the heirloom necklace from her family’s line, eyes misty as she explained the legacy her mother had passed down to her.

Until the moment you touched her out of obligation and found your breath hitching, wondering what it would feel like if she touched you back without the chains of a contract.

You weren’t supposed to feel anything.

But now you did.

And for the first time in your life, the man who prided himself on never losing control… was starting to lose it for the wife he never wanted.