Chapter 1
Before the call even connected, my best friend Lindsey Linnehan called me first. She was furious.
“James is disgusting!” she snapped. “Everyone said Washington’s golden boy finally turned over a new leaf for you, that he’d changed! But if that’s true, then why won’t he even have a child with you?
“One hundred pills, Isabella! One hundred! You’ve gotten so thin, that a breeze could blow you away. Doesn’t he care even a little?”
Isabella Coffey felt her eyes sting at those words.
Her father had been an Interpol officer from the UK. Her mother, a war correspondent from the US.
At 20, she had been the youngest woman ever recruited by the international agency, admitted with top honors.
Her parents were proud of her. Her colleagues admired her. No matter where she went, Isabella always stood out.
But for James, she gave it all up. She resigned from Interpol, shelved her badge, and stepped away from a brilliant future–all for a marriage without even a license to make it legal.
For the past three years, she kept convincing herself that her sacrifice was worth it. That as long as James truly settled down, her dream of a real marriage and a family would eventually come true.
But reality had just slapped her hard across the face.
In three years of marriage, James insisted–every single time–that she take a birth control pill afterward.
Even with her police academy training, she couldn’t keep fighting this endless drain on her body and spirit.
Fighting back tears, Isabella forced herself to respond with a few polite words, clinging to the last shred of dignity she had, and then ended the call.
It was a chilly spring night. Restless and unable to sleep, she got up to walk, hoping it would clear her mind. Then, a faint noise drifted from the study. “Isabella…..”
She followed the voice, and what she saw next made her entire body freeze.
The moonlight cast a pale glow on James’s figure through the narrow gap in the curtains.
He stood there, tall and well–dressed as always, but his eyes–those same eyes that always looked at her with indifference–were now burning with an emotion she’d never seen before.
And they were locked on a photo in his hand. He was pleasuring himself to it. To a picture of Jessie Catley, his stepmother.
When he finally finished, James let out a slow, satisfied breath, then gently caressed the photo like it was something sacred.
“Jessie… I love you.”
Isabella stood in the dark in disbelief, paralyzed. The moonlight was cold, and it seeped straight into her bones.
So, the same James who treated her like a lifeless object in bed–rough and thoughtless—could restrain himself when it came to someone he
loved.
Shattered, she drifted back into the bedroom like a ghost. In the dim light, her reflection caught in the full–length mirror. What she saw was a pale, broken woman she barely recognized.
Isabella used to be the golden girl–fearless, radiant, unstoppable.
She could tear down a highway at full speed, lead the charge in a sting operation, and leap from a moving vehicle to make an arrest–all to the awe of her colleagues.
She wasn’t afraid to go deep undercover either, hiding her identity for months to crack a ten–year cold case wide open.
Men lined up from the United Kingdom to France, hoping to win her over, but she turned them all down with a simple line. “I can’t let a relationship get in the way of my career.”
Then came the International Task Force case four years ago.
At the global summit, James walked in wearing a sleek black suit and gold–rimmed glasses. Even among the world’s most powerful, his presence was undeniable.
When the suspect realized the trap and pulled a knife to escape, James didn’t even blink. He raised a single hand–within seconds, the room was locked down by bodyguards.
The suspect lunged, blade inches from James‘ chest.
Panic spread like wildfire through the conference room, yet James stood still, calm as ever, watching as the man was tackled to the ground. He
255 Vouchers
looked like someone born to be in control.
Isabella’s heart skipped a beat as she watched him.
She hadn’t meant to fall for him, but it happened, all at once, without warning.
A colleague tugged her sleeve and whispered, “Isabella, look, you can fall for anyone, but don’t mess with James.
“He’s a rich boy from Washington–has a new girlfriend every month. Never once brought any of them home to meet the family.”
Isabella lifted her chin with that signature pride. “I’ve never lost on the job or in love.
“I’ll make him settle down. I’ll be the exception.”
To win him over, she flew back and forth between the U.K. and the U.S. for a whole year, chasing him across time zones like a tireless migratory bird.
James finally said yes to her confession.
And even though he claimed he didn’t believe in marriage, even a wedding without a legal certificate was enough to send her over the
moon.
But on the day of the wedding, she learned the truth–Jessie was terminally ill.
James married her not out of love, but because he believed the wedding would bring Jessie some joy. Now, standing alone in the dark, his voice from that night in the study echoed in her mind–his gentle words for another woman. It hit her like a slap to the face.
His womanizing, his reformation, his supposed loyalty–it was all because he was in love with someone he could never have. Jessie.
And she–Isabella–had been nothing more than a cover for that forbidden
love.
A bitter northern wind slipped through the cracks in the window, chilling her to the bone, and cutting her open with a pain that bled to her soul.
Her tears hit the floor like shatters of glass.
She had always believed that the word failure would never apply to her.
But now, as she typed the words “Isabella requesting reinstatement, badge reactivation“, she wiped her tears and whispered to herself, “James, I’m leaving. I won’t make a fool of myself anymore.”
