THE KASTELLAN HEIR.

THE DAY EVERYTHING BROKE.

“Ronan, sign it! You don’t have a choice anymore!” Margaux, Ronan’s mother-in-law, snapped as she slapped a piece of paper down on his desk hard enough to rattle his coffee cup.

Ronan’s face drained of color. Staring at that document, his heart didn’t just beat, it pounded against his chest like something trying to break free. His eyes flicked toward the door of his cramped office, which had swung open. The space was barely more than a cubicle on the ground floor of the huge corporate building, and the scene Margaux and her son were causing had already pulled in a crowd.

“Please, not here!” Ronan whispered sharply, his voice tight with panic. Neither of them moved an inch. “Come on, Margaux, don’t do this at my job.”

She glared at him, her lip curling with contempt. “Did you think we’d just drop this? We’ve chased you around long enough playing this game. Now sign the divorce papers and let my daughter go from this awful marriage right now!”

Ronan knew in that moment his already fragile reputation was about to be destroyed. In a company where he was already seen as nobody, a low-level designer going nowhere, this would turn him into a permanent joke.

“Damn it,” he muttered under his breath. He wished the ground would just swallow him up. “Let’s talk like adults. Please.”

He tried to keep his voice steady as he began to rise, but a heavy hand landed on his shoulder. It didn’t just hold him, it shoved him back down into his chair.

“Sit down, chump,” Coleman, his brother-in-law, sneered. He pulled a pen from his pocket and flicked it at Ronan’s chest. “There. Don’t waste our time.”

Ronan shook his head, jaw tightening as he noticed his coworkers sneaking glances through the glass wall. His temper started to rise.

“What is this? What’s wrong with you two?” he asked, his whisper turning frantic. “Coleman, shut the door. Let’s talk privately.”

Coleman gave him an ugly grin. “Privately?”

The door was already open a crack, but Coleman walked over and kicked it wide with a sudden burst of force. It slammed against the wall hard enough to nearly rip off its hinges.

“We’ve been talking privately for days at home, and you never listened!” Coleman shouted, his voice ringing through the whole department. “Now you want privacy? No! Let everyone see how shameless you really are!”

Coleman was built like a linebacker, thick, muscular, and intimidating, with short blond hair. He towered over Ronan’s desk. “Pick up the pen.”

The embarrassment was suffocating. Ronan closed his eyes, refusing to look at the coworkers peering into his tiny office. He picked up the paper, and as he scanned the bold heading, a cold shock ran through him.

This again. At his job. How badly did these people want him gone? His eyes burned and stung; the commotion had already drawn half the company’s attention.

“Why do you look so shocked?” Margaux asked with a smirk. “Did you think we were bluffing? The divorce papers follow us everywhere.”

Ronan shook his head slowly, staring at them, stunned. “Let’s step outside and talk. You’re humiliating me.”

Margaux looked at her son, and the two of them burst into mocking laughter. “How could we humiliate you when you’re already an embarrassment? I don’t know how this marriage has put up with a parasite like you for so long, Ronan. Because that’s what you are. A parasite.”

Her voice carried clearly across the floor. Ronan felt his standing sink through the floor.

“Wow, Ronan’s getting reamed out by his in-laws,” someone whispered nearby. “Wonder what it’s about.”

“Who cares?” came the flat reply. “He’s useless anyway. Makes you wonder how they’ve put up with him this long.”

The gossip spread fast, though thankfully it hadn’t reached Preston yet.

“You’re wasting your time,” Ronan said, his face pale and grim. The shame weighed on him like a physical thing, but he forced himself to meet their eyes. “I’m not signing it. I didn’t sign it at home, and I won’t sign it here.”

Coleman slammed his fist on the desk, making the wood shake. He looked ready to swing, but Margaux held him back.

“Stop, Coleman. He’s not worth it,” she said, eyes locked on Ronan. She turned her venom back his way. “You won’t let go because she’s rich now, is that it? You’re leeching off her. Your pathetic salary here couldn’t buy one of her earrings. You’re the lowest-paid employee in this building. See how worthless you are?”

“That’s not what matters,” Ronan said, his voice thick with rising anger.

His coworkers weren’t even pretending not to watch anymore. Their murmuring buzzed like a swarm of insects, fueling the fire in his gut. God, he wanted to drive his fist into Coleman’s smug face.

“Then what does matter?” Margaux asked. She was in her late fifties but carried the sharp, aggressive energy of someone half her age. She jabbed a hard finger into Ronan’s chest. “Tell me, lover boy. What matters? Don’t tell me you actually believe in love at your age?”

Ronan’s bloodshot eyes met hers. For a split second, a flash of pure, predatory instinct flickered in his gaze, startling her.

“Tell me why a full-grown fool believes in love?” she asked, recovering quickly and counting on the fact that he wouldn’t dare touch her. “You’re so dense you think a low-level designer at the bottom of the ladder can be in love with my daughter? A woman who attracts men of real importance? You’re kidding yourself.”

“Maybe I don’t earn what she does,” Ronan said, trying to find his footing. “But there’s still love between us.”

Coleman let out a sharp, mocking snort.

“Either you’re stupid, Coleman, or he is!” Margaux snapped.

“The bottom line is I’m not signing anything until my wife shows up,” Ronan said firmly. The stares from his colleagues stung, but he didn’t look away. “We’ll handle this ourselves, like we always have.”

“Really? You want to hear it from her own mouth that she doesn’t love you?” Margaux’s voice dropped into a threatening tone that planted a seed of doubt in Ronan’s chest.

“I’m not signing a thing,” he snapped. “Funny how you can’t get Vivienne on the phone because she’s on a ‘business trip.’ I’ll talk to my wife when she’s back.”

Coleman scoffed, shaking his head. “I’m sure a business trip is supposed to go further than your boss’s house.”

Ronan squinted at him, his face twisting as the words landed. “What do you mean by that?” His voice started calm, but as the implication sank in, his vision blurred with rage. “What the hell do you mean by that, Coleman?”

“You loser,” Coleman said, turning to lead his mother out of the cramped office. “You’ll find out soon enough. It smells like garbage in here. What a joke.”

Ronan rushed to the door and slammed it shut, finally cutting off the mocking stares from the office. He stayed in that room for the rest of the day, his heart pounding and his mind racing with every footstep in the hall.

He thought the day couldn’t get any worse. He was wrong.

Hours later, as he was finally packing up to leave, his door flew open again. He snapped.

“Do you want to break the damn door?” he yelled, not even looking up. “For god’s sake.”

The words died in his throat. Vivienne, his wife, stood there with a cold, blank look on her face. But it was the man walking in behind her that turned his stomach.

It was Preston. His boss.