“There’s something else you should know about tonight…”
Isabella turned slowly.
Her dress caught the chandelier’s light.
Like a blade.
Alex swallowed hard.
His arrogance was gone. Replaced by pure, suffocating panic.
“That fifty grand you wagered?” she said, her voice echoing across the silent room. “It wasn’t a joke. In front of a hundred witnesses and rolling phone cameras, it constitutes a binding verbal contract.”
Alex let out a desperate, forced laugh.
“You own half this estate. You need my fifty grand?”
“No,” Isabella smiled.
“But your creditors do.”
Alex froze.
The blood completely drained from his face.
“Your tech startup, Alex. The one you’ve been illegally using my family’s name to secure funding for? I bought your debt at 9:00 AM this morning.”
Gasps ripped through the ballroom.
“And the woman you so casually offered to dump?”
Isabella gestured gracefully to the blonde in the diamond necklace.
The blonde woman didn’t look embarrassed anymore.
She looked lethal.
She unclasped the heavy diamonds, handed them to a waiter, and walked over to stand right beside Isabella.
“Meet Elena,” Isabella said softly. “My lead corporate auditor.”
Elena looked Alex dead in the eye.
Zero trace of the affectionate, blushing date she had played all night.
“You’re totally bankrupt, Alex. We froze your offshore accounts three minutes ago.”
Alex stumbled backward.
He hit a cocktail table.
Champagne glasses shattered against the hardwood—a violent crash in a dead-quiet room.
Ten seconds.
That’s all it took to dismantle his entire life.
Isabella stepped in close.
“You wanted a dance, Alex,” she whispered, her voice dark and sweet. “Watch your empire burn. It’s my favorite routine.”
She snapped her fingers.
“Security. Escort the trespasser out.”