Valerie’s manicured fingers dug into Andrew’s tuxedo jacket. “Andrew, wait! I was joking! Please!”
He didn’t even break his stride. Without a backward glance, he casually brushed her hand off his shoulder like a stray piece of lint.
“Mr. Callahan!” Valerie’s father shoved through the stunned crowd, his face pale, sweat ruining his designer collar. “The merger! Our contract specifically stated that if our families united—”
Andrew paused at the threshold of the glass doors. Outside, the black helicopter’s rotors roared to life, violently whipping the ballroom’s silk curtains.
He finally turned, his expression as cold as the marble floor.
“You’re right, Arthur,” Andrew shouted over the deafening blades. “The contract *did* say a marriage would save your company. Which is exactly why I needed a public, undeniable refusal. On camera.”
Valerie froze. The blood drained from her face as she looked at the guests in the front row. Their phones were still up. The very recording she thought would humiliate him was actually legally binding evidence of her terminating the safety net.
“You set me up,” she whispered, trembling.
“You set yourself up,” Andrew corrected, his voice slicing through the roaring wind. He reached into his pocket and tossed the little red box at her feet. “I couldn’t afford you? No, Valerie. You just cost your family everything.”
Desperate, she dropped to her knees and snapped the velvet box open. The diamond ring was gone. In its place was a neatly folded, miniature foreclosure notice for her family’s entire estate.
Andrew stepped into the leather seats of the chopper.
“Clear the airspace,” he told the pilot, slamming the door shut.
The helicopter ascended into the gray sky, leaving Valerie kneeling on the floor in her red silk dress, utterly bankrupt in front of four hundred silent guests.