Chapter 3
A month before the wedding, Victoria invited Audrey to lunch at the yacht club.
She arrived with a lawyer Audrey had never met.
On the table sat a folder.
“Just a formality,” Victoria said. “Nothing dramatic.”
Audrey opened it.
It was not a prenup.
It was worse.
A post-marriage equity transfer agreement.
Forty-one percent of Crestwood Maritime would be moved into a joint marital holding company controlled by Dominic as managing partner.
Audrey read the page twice.
Then she looked at Victoria.
“No.”
Victoria smiled like Audrey was a child refusing medicine.
“Dear, marriage is about trust.”
“Then trust me to keep my own company.”
Dominic called her that night.
At first, he sounded wounded.
“My mother is just trying to protect us.”
“Protect us from what?” Audrey asked.
“From you making emotional decisions.”
Audrey went silent.
There it was.
The first real crack.
Emotional.
That was what men called women when they wanted their decisions treated as weakness.
“I’m not signing away control of Crestwood,” she said.
Dominic’s voice hardened.
“No one said control.”
“Forty-one percent with managing authority is control if you combine it with two board votes your mother already tried to influence.”
Silence.
Too long.
Audrey sat up in bed.
“You didn’t think I knew about that?”
Dominic exhaled sharply.
“You’re making this hostile.”
“No,” Audrey said. “I’m reading.”
After that, he became cold.
Not enough for others to see.
Just enough for Audrey to feel the air change.
He stopped asking about wedding flowers and started asking about documents.
He missed cake tasting, then accused her of caring more about frosting than their future.
He told friends Audrey was “nervous about marriage.”
He told Victoria that Audrey had “trust issues.”
Then, the night before the wedding, Audrey woke in her suite on the yacht to the sound of voices beyond the balcony door.
Dominic.
Victoria.
They were on the lower deck, thinking she was asleep.
Audrey reached for her phone.
Not because she expected betrayal.
Because some part of her body had begun preparing before her heart caught up.
She pressed record.
Victoria’s voice came first.
“She’ll fold tomorrow. She won’t walk away in front of everyone.”
Dominic laughed quietly.
“She cares too much about appearances.”
“Good,” Victoria said. “Then use that. Put the contract in front of her before the vows. She’ll sign before she lets a wedding collapse.”
Audrey stopped breathing.
Dominic said, “And if she refuses?”
Victoria’s voice turned sharp.
“Then she looks unstable. You look like the reasonable one. Either way, we get leverage.”
Dominic chuckled.
“I knew choosing the yacht was smart. No easy exit.”
May you like
Audrey’s hand shook around the phone.
👉 The night before the wedding, Audrey finally heard the truth — Dominic had chosen the yacht because he thought she had no way out.
