Novel-Verse

The first rule of fake-marrying your fiercest professional rival is delightfully simple: do not trigger the silent alarm during your own wedding vows. The second rule—the one Christian Vance casually neglected to mention before sliding a flawless seven-carat emerald-cut diamond onto my left ring finger—was that the ruthless syndicate broker we had just robbed in Monaco was currently sitting in the third pew holding a silenced Beretta concealed beneath an embossed velvet prayer book.

The organ music swelled in triumphant chords of Bach, reverberating through the soaring limestone arches of St. Jude-by-the-Sea. Sunlight filtered through stained glass, splashing pools of sapphire and violet across the white satin train of my gown. Beside me stood Christian, infuriatingly handsome in a bespoke midnight-navy Tom Ford tuxedo, his dark hair combed back with effortless precision, his jawline sporting that signature, razor-thin smirk that had driven me to near-madness across three continents.

“You’re squeezing my fingers hard enough to fracture the proximal phalanx, darling,” Christian murmured under his breath, keeping his teeth bared in an angelic smile for the two hundred aristocratic guests watching us.

“That’s because Dmitri Volkov’s chief enforcer just locked the south transept doors,” I whispered through my painted smile, my heart hammering against my ribs. “You swore the decoy shipment in Lisbon would buy us twenty-four hours.”

“I said it would buy us twenty-four hours or until Dmitri realized the Romanov Sunburst brooch was made of jeweler’s resin and hardened caramel,” Christian replied cheerfully. “Apparently, he likes to chew his contraband. Do you take me or not, Vivienne? The vicar is looking impatient.”

Vicar Montgomery cleared his throat, adjusting his wire-rimmed spectacles. “Do you, Vivienne Drake, take Christian Vance to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, until death do you part?”

I looked straight into Christian’s eyes—the clear, unreadable grey of storm clouds over the Atlantic. Beneath the playful banter, the pulse at the hollow of his throat was ticking with lethal focus. Underneath his impeccably tailored lapel, I felt the unmistakable stiffness of Kevlar and the slender outline of a ceramic blade.

This whole ridiculous charade had started four weeks ago in Geneva. The St. Clair Cipher—a micro-etched diamond containing the routing numbers to every dirty syndicate bank account in Western Europe—had been locked inside the private vault of the Blackwood Estate. The only way inside the vault was through the estate’s annual Midsummer Gala, and the only uninvited guests permitted past the perimeter security were the newly betrothed heirs to the Vance maritime dynasty. Christian had the family name; I had the safecracking codes and the forged biometric keys. It was strictly a contract: infiltrate, recover the cipher, hand it over to Interpol, divide the twenty-million-dollar bounty, and file for an immediate annulment in Nevis.

Except now, the front doors had clicked shut with the heavy thud of pneumatic security deadbolts.

“I do,” I said clearly, my voice ringing out through the quiet church with melodic composure. “With my whole heart.”

“By the power vested in me,” the vicar smiled, entirely oblivious to the eight men in matching charcoal suits slowly rising from the side aisles, “I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

“Brace yourself, Mrs. Vance,” Christian murmured.

He didn’t wait for my sarcastic retort. His strong hand slid around the nape of my neck, his fingers tangling into my updo as he pulled me into his chest. His lips met mine with an electric, breathless intensity that was neither staged nor courteous. For three dizzying seconds, the scent of expensive sandalwood, ozone, and cold cedar flooded my senses, sweeping every calculated thought clean out of my skull. It wasn’t the kiss of an operative closing a deal; it was a hungry, long-simmering confession that sent a shudder straight down my spine.

In the same split second, Christian’s thumb twisted the silver stem of the white camellia pinned to his lapel.

Click. Phsshhhh.

A concussive pop echoed off the stone reredos, followed instantly by an eruption of blinding, dense violet smoke that swallowed the altar in a wall of opaque fog.

“Down!” Christian barked, his arm hooking around my waist as he hauled me behind the heavy oak communion rail just as the distinctive thwip-thwip-thwip of silenced automatic fire shredded the floral arrangements behind us, sending white lilies and splintered mahogany raining down like confetti.

Shrieks of terror erupted from the pews. High-society dowagers tossed champagne flutes into the air, billionaires scrambled over kneeling cushions, and the church became a screaming stampede toward the exits.

“Violet smoke?” I coughed, reaching beneath the voluminous tulle of my gown to tear off the cumbersome outer skirt, revealing sleek ivory silk trousers tailored beneath. “You promised standard military-grade phosphorus!”

“Phosphorus clashes with your eyes, darling,” Christian retorted, drawing a compact titanium grappling line from his cummerbund. “Besides, theatricality is half the fun. Did you secure the primary drive?”

I snapped open the false bottom of my beaded mother-of-pearl bridal clutch and flashed the gleaming platinum flash drive. “Always. Did you secure our extraction?”

“Working on it,” he grinned. Before I could ask what that meant, he kicked open the ornate side door leading into the estate’s adjoining grand ballroom. “Run!”

We burst into the colossal ballroom just as Dmitri Volkov stepped through the center French doors. The Russian oligarch was tall, impeccably groomed, and possessed the cold, dead eyes of a Siberian tiger. Flanking him were four muscle-bound operators with submachine guns.

“Mr. and Mrs. Vance,” Volkov sneered in heavily accented English, raising an engraved silver automatic. “How touching. A wedding reception to die for.”

“Dmitri, old friend!” Christian hailed him, not slowing his stride by an inch. “You look radiant. Did you try the lobster canapés? The caterer was magnificent.”

“Kill them,” Volkov ordered flatly.

Two gunmen stepped forward. I didn’t give them the chance to raise their sights. Snatching a twenty-four-arm silver candelabra from a banquet table, I spun on the polished marble and hurled it like a javelin. The heavy brass struck the first guard square in the chest, sending him crashing backward into a five-tier champagne pyramid. Hundreds of crystal flutes exploded in a deafening cascade of golden foam and glittering glass shards.

Christian swept low, sliding across the wet marble floor to kick the legs out from under the second guard. In one seamless, fluid motion, he snatched the man’s dropped weapon, ejected the magazine, and hurled the empty frame directly through the ballroom’s massive stained-glass arched terrace doors, shattering the panes into a sparkling rain of emerald and gold.

“The balcony! Now!” Christian yelled, grabbing my hand.

We sprinted through the shattered terrace frame out onto the stone veranda. A hundred feet below, the midnight waves of the Atlantic crashed against jagged black sea cliffs, throwing salty sea spray into the night air. Sirens were already wailing in the distance—the local harbor patrol alerted by the silent tripwire I had tripped in the vestry.

Volkov and his remaining men poured onto the terrace, weapons raised.

“End of the line, Vance,” Volkov snarled, stepping forward into the moonlight. “Give me the cipher, or your bride takes the plunge without a parachute.”

Christian turned slowly, positioning himself between Volkov’s barrel and my heart with that calm, infuriating nonchalance he wore like armor. But his hand found mine behind his back, his fingers weaving tightly through mine.

“You know, Dmitri,” Christian said softly, his voice cutting through the roar of the surf below, “when Vivienne and I signed this agreement, we had an explicit clause covering unexpected interference.”

“Is that so?” Volkov mocked. “And what does the clause dictate?”

I leaned past Christian’s shoulder, flashing Volkov a radiant, venomous smile. “Clause Fourteen: Anyone who ruins the bride’s grand entrance gets an express ticket to the bottom of the bay.”

With my free hand, I tapped the remote detonator concealed in my bouquet. The miniature charges Christian had placed along the support anchors of the gilded wrought-iron balustrade beneath Volkov’s feet blew with a sharp crack. The cantilevered marble ledge tilted violently. Volkov shouted in fury as he and his enforcers lost their footing, sliding backward down the slick stone into the decorative conservatory fountain below with an enormous splash of water, lilies, and bruised egos.

“Remind me never to leave you off the guest list,” Christian panted, looking down at the spluttering syndicate boss.

“Remind me to renegotiate my fifty percent cut,” I replied, catching my breath as the brisk coastal wind whipped my loose dark curls around my cheeks.

We stood on the edge of the high terrace, breathing hard, bathed in the silver radiance of a full moon hanging over the ocean. In the harbor below, Christian’s twin-engine speedboat idle-thrummed against the dock, blacked out and waiting for its cue. The sirens of the state police were closing in on the estate’s main iron gates, ensuring Volkov and his syndicate would be detained before they could dry their suits.

Christian looked down at my hand, where the heavy emerald-cut diamond still caught the starlight.

“About the annulment in Nevis,” he said quietly, stepping closer until his chest brushed the silk of my bodice. The humor had vanished from his gaze, replaced by an intoxicating, molten warmth that made my breath catch once more.

“What about it?” I asked, my voice suddenly barely louder than a whisper.

“I never filed the paperwork with the consulate.”

I blinked, my pulse giving a dangerous, thrilling leap. “You didn’t?”

“No,” Christian murmured, his hand coming up to cup my cheek, his thumb tracing the curve of my cheekbone with breathtaking tenderness. “Because from the moment you walked down that aisle—hell, from the moment you stole that Vermeer out from under my nose in Cairo three years ago—I never had any intention of letting you go.”

I looked up into the eyes of the only man in the world reckless enough, brilliant enough, and maddening enough to match my every stride. A slow, genuine smile curved my lips as I reached up, straightening the lapel of his tuxedo and brushing away a fleck of shattered crystal.

“Well, Mr. Vance,” I whispered, leaning in until our lips were a breath apart, “it looks like you just bought yourself a lifetime of mayhem.”

When he kissed me this time, the world stopped spinning. And as we leapt together into the cool sea breeze toward the waiting boat, I knew with absolute certainty that this was one contract neither of us would ever break.