Chapter 145
LEVI
I saw the mischief in her eyes before it even touched her lips.
She’d done it on purpose. She wanted to provoke me. To dare me. To break the silence I’d wrapped myself in.
But instead of speaking, I smiled.
And then I did something better.
I picked her up.
She gasped as her body folded into mine, her back pressed against my chest. My hands found her waist, then slid a little lower—fingers ghosting over the tight fabric that hugged her hips.
I bent down and kissed her neck. Slow. Unhurried. The flash of cameras lit up around us like fireworks, but I barely noticed.
Her breath caught. My hands moved again—stealthy, bold, hidden by the angle of our bodies.
And then—I squeezed her ass.
“Levi! What are you doing?” she hissed, twisting just enough to glare at me, eyes wide with mock outrage.
Her face said scandal. Fear. Embarrassment. Her body, however, told the truth. That little twitch. That sharp inhale. She liked it.
And I knew she liked it.
She was trying to reclaim control—wrestle back the upper hand she thought she’d lost. But I wasn’t going to let her win. Not this time. Not tonight.
I carried her the rest of the way to the car.
The driver opened the door, and we slid into the back seat of the brand-new Ferrari SUV—the latest edition, barely out of prototype. A gleaming machine engineered to scream wealth, power, and legacy.
Tonight, it was doing double duty—as a “symbol of family tradition,” or, depending on which press release you believed, a “testament to love.” Really, it was a marketing stunt. Nothing more.
Mr. Sebastian had told me the whole setup had come from an anonymous applicant—a PR expert gunning for the position of head of marketing. They’d pitched the whole thing as part of a mock campaign for the upcoming racing season, using the “Ferrari SUV Truck 69” as a launch point.
It was glossy. Clean. Intricately planned. Too intricately planned.
As if the person already knew how our company worked from the inside. Maybe a former employee. Which only made me suspicious.
Because anything too good to be true... usually is.
Mr. Sebastian had raved about the application. Called it “impressively thorough.” Said it was a godsend—especially now that we were still scrambling to rebuild the team after Mark and his entire division had been dismissed by my father. No one had heard from Mark since. Others had gone dark too.
Still, I wasn’t about to let her—Mrs. Sebastian—hire someone who refused to reveal their identity. Not after what happened all those years ago.
According to my father, back when I first stepped into the executive seat, there had been a coordinated effort to sabotage us from within—launched from the very same marketing team. And at the center of it all? An intern.
A woman named Isabella.
Apparently, I’d been sleeping with her. That was the accusation. That I’d hired her, protected her, defended her... and that she’d used my trust to gut the company from the inside.
I still can’t bring myself to believe it.
I don’t sleep with employees. It’s company policy. A line I’ve never crossed.
He claimed she did. That I did. That I’d lost all sense because of her.
Absurd.
By the time I got out of the hospital, the case had been closed. No conviction. No justice. Isabella—that Isabella—had been released.
I never asked what happened to her. Never wanted to know. Didn’t dare.
But sometimes, in the quiet, I wonder. What did she look like? Would I have really fallen for her? Is she even my type? Did she look anything like this Isabella—the one I was about to marry?
Maybe that’s why this whole “anonymous expert” scenario grated on me. It dug too close to scars I thought had healed.
And yet… I hadn’t stopped it. Not this time.
Mrs. Sebastian had handled the vetting, like always. Swore it was solid. She only brought it to me for final approval because of the “sensitive nature” of the anonymous applicant.
I was still wary, so I asked her to pause the hire until my marriage was over and I could turn my attention back to the company.
Maybe I should’ve asked my private investigator to look into it. The same one I hired the night this woman—this Isabella—left me naked with questions… and well, naked naked.
Maybe I should’ve asked him to look into the other Isabella too.
But...
Right now, none of that mattered.
Because the only thing I could focus on was her. The woman sitting beside me. The woman I was going to marry in a week.
The door shut behind us with a soft thunk, sealing us into a cocoon of tinted glass and expensive leather. The world outside blurred into streaks of light as the sun climbed even higher to play.
Isabella crossed her legs—slow, intentional. She turned toward me, arms folded, her expression sharp with amusement and just enough irritation to be dangerous.
“So... you’re still not going to talk to me?” she said, her voice lilting with mockery. “How childish.”
I stared at her.
God, she was beautiful when she was smug. Because even in that expression, I could still see my sweet little sub.
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