The Azure Vista Ballroom a fortress of crystalline chandeliers nervous wealth. It the epitome of Sterling Group power—controlled impeccable designed to host only celebrations of inevitable success. Eliza Chen burst through immense double doors just as the patriarch Director Sterling raised his crystal flute for the final toast. The sudden arrival of his frantic rumpled utterly irrelevant niece a gunshot in a library.
"A beautiful union that will see the Sterling Group and Titan Investments join in a powerful…" Director Sterling's voice trailed off, his face freezing into a portrait of absolute fury. Every movement in the ballroom stopped. The thousands of carats in the room ceased glittering. Victoria "Vicki" Hayes, draped in white silk the smug assurance of a guaranteed future, turned, her smile vaporizing as she recognized her cousin. Ignoring the gasps, ignoring the blinding flash of the press's cameras, Eliza walked straight toward the stage. She moved not with grace, but with the desperate focused momentum of a missile. She stopped five feet from the podium, placing herself between Vicki and Julian Seo.
"Stop the wedding!" Eliza cried out, her voice raw carrying across the massive room. It wasn't the voice of a supplicant; it was the voice of a strategist delivering a final ultimatum. "Julian Seo! Marry me, not her!" The silence that followed so thick it seemed to absorb the light. It wasn't confusion; it was the intoxicating stillness before a riot. Vicki recovered first, her face contorting with a rage so profound it shattered her veneer of society elegance. "Eliza, you are ill! You need help! Security, get this hysterical woman out of here before she completely ruins the family name!" Director Sterling's hand slammed down on the podium. "Eliza! You will leave this instant, or you will find yourself completely cut off—disowned. Your mother will pay for this public spectacle!"
Julian Seo, however, did not move, did not speak, did not flinch. He simply watching. His gaze, usually cold, now an intense analytical black hole that seemed to suck all the other light noise out of the room. He didn't see a hysterical woman; he saw an anomaly. He saw a threat, a challenge, possibly an opportunity. Eliza knew she only had seconds before the patriarch's threat became reality. She didn't plead. She offered a deal.
"Sir," she addressed Julian, maintaining eye contact, her heart hammering against her ribs. "I have absolute proof the Sterling Group's Southeast Asian infrastructure subsidiary will be subject to a criminal regulatory crackdown due to undisclosed off-shore assets within the next nine months. This will result in an operational loss of approximately $850 million for any partner leveraged with them." The numbers staggering, instantly changing the tenor of the room. The nearby investors stopped watching the spectacle started watching Julian. "I have the location of the assets the name of the regulatory body set to strike," Eliza pressed, her voice gaining strength. "I can save Titan Investments from a catastrophic financial reputational loss. The trade non-negotiable. I need your ring, the full authority of the Seo name behind me, immediately."
Vicki gripped Julian's silk-covered arm, tears of genuine panic now welling in her eyes. "Don't listen to her! She's mentally unstable! She's trying to sabotage us!" Julian finally turned his attention to his ex-fiancée. His withdrawal of focus brutal, clinical, complete. "A successful partnership, Victoria, requires transparency. Your cousin presented a financial threat that, if even partially true, negates the value of this merger entirely." He gently detached her fingers from his sleeve, a silent public declaration of their end. Julian then stepped down from the podium, crossing the short space to Eliza. He stood directly in front of her, his height presence utterly commanding. He looked past the raging family, past the stunned guests, down into Eliza's determined eyes.
"You came to me with a business proposition, Miss Chen. A desperate calculated gamble," Julian stated, his voice quiet but carrying perfectly through the sudden acute stillness of the ballroom. "I accept your contract." Chaos erupted. Vicki shrieked, a sound of raw violated entitlement. Director Sterling livid, his face swelling with purple rage as he ordered his guards to seize Eliza. Before anyone could move, Julian took charge. He placed a possessive hand on Eliza's waist, pulling her flush against his side—a gesture of ownership protection. "The deal is sealed," Julian announced, his voice now booming with the unshakeable authority of a man worth billions. "Any physical aggression toward my fiancée, Eliza Chen, will be met with immediate legal financial retaliation from Titan Investments. This engagement now closed. Good evening." He didn't walk; he moved with Eliza in a controlled powerful stride straight out the nearest exit.
They were in the back of Julian's black sedan before the Sterling family could effectively mobilize. The sudden silence of the car deafening after the maelstrom. "You were reckless, Miss Chen," Julian said, his eyes on the city lights, not her. "Exceedingly so. You gambled everything on a single throw." "And I won," Eliza countered, her voice now steady. She had done it. Vicki's thread of fate now dangling, ready to be spliced with the misery Eliza had narrowly escaped.
An hour later, they were in the penthouse boardroom of Titan Investments, the city lights below them a distant constellation of indifference. The contract, drafted with shocking speed by Julian's in-house counsel, lay between them—a dense fifty-page document detailing their new synthetic reality. Julian had changed from his tuxedo into a simple dark cashmere sweater, his presence no less formidable. "Let's dispense with the fantasies. This marriage a shell. You provide the strategic intelligence; I provide the shield. Now, the absolute truth. How do you possess knowledge that ten months away from public disclosure?"
Eliza knew she couldn't lie. The shock of his immediate acceptance, his unnerving composure during the crisis, suggested he wasn't just sharp; he was different. She had to risk everything for total trust. She recounted the full story: the exhaustion, the terminal illness, the discovery of the ledgers her murder, the violent flash, waking up ten years in the past. She finished by explaining the horrifying relentless logic of the fate swap. Julian listened without a single interruption.
When she finished, he didn't call her mad. Instead, he reached inside his jacket pulled out a small worn leather wallet. He retrieved a small silver-backed photograph: a blurry faded image of a vehicle—a small nondescript white sedan, completely crushed against a concrete barrier. "That is the vehicle I was in on December 2nd, 2023," Julian stated, his voice now heavy low. "The exact same date as your death. I was following a lead in an unrelated case was hit by a truck running a red light. I died instantly." Eliza's hands flew to her mouth. She wasn't insane. She wasn't alone.
"I woke up in this body, Julian Seo, the night of my accident," he continued, his gaze intense. "I remembered everything: the market crashes, the Sterling Group's lethal expansion, the news reports of your murder. I believe in the transfer of fate, Eliza. The universe demands balance. We both living on borrowed time." He slid the contract closer, red pen in hand. "You chose me because I already destined to die, hoping my old fate would protect you, that by becoming my wife, you would force your misfortune onto Vicki. You chose the most powerful target who, in your mind, already a dead man. Am I correct?" "Yes," Eliza confirmed, the single word a profound admission.
"Then we have a shared problem, not just a contractual agreement. We must amend the terms. This no longer just about business. It about survival." Julian began revising the contract clauses with swift precise strokes. "First, the 'No Affection, No Intimacy' clause remains, but we must act like a genuine power couple. You will receive unlimited access to Titan's resources—legal, financial, strategic—to prosecute your revenge." "Agreed." "Second, you will share every piece of future knowledge with me, no matter how small or seemingly irrelevant. We will use the threat of a corporate audit to push the Sterling executives and Vicki into panicking making the precise criminal mistakes that led to your original end." Julian's eyes hardened. "And the final term, Eliza, a new one. If you fall into any danger that relates to your past fate—if that original thread tries to snap back—you must trust me implicitly. Your survival now my primary corporate objective. Our lives intertwined, whether we like it or not."
Eliza looked at the amended contract—no longer a cold agreement, but a pact between two survivors. She picked up the pen signed her new name: Eliza Chen-Seo. "Welcome to the battlefield, Mrs. Seo," Julian said, the faintest hint of a grim smile touching his lips. "The Sterling Group doesn't know it, but they've just invited two ghosts to their funeral."