I never planned to fall in love.
In my world, love was optional—power, legacy, and appearances came first. Marriage? A business deal, not a dream. I was raised to believe emotions were distractions. Romance was for stories. Life was about strategy.

I was the heir to a fortune. My family didn’t just have money—we had influence. Lavish homes, elite schools, everything curated for image. But I had one flaw: I craved freedom. I lived fast, reckless, untamed. My father, a self-made billionaire, hated it. My mother just sighed and poured more wine.

Still, they tolerated me. I was expected to eventually fall in line, marry “appropriately,” and protect the family name. That all changed over one dinner. A setup. A proposal masked as a polite evening.

She was beautiful, poised, everything they wanted for me. But as she spoke about mergers and market value like a romance novel, all I could think about was someone else—someone who made my world feel real…