To revenge herself on her unfaithful fiancé Kevin, Isidora hides her striking beauty behind a plain disguise, and targets his uncle — the most formidable man Kevin fears.
After one reckless night, Isidora leaves cash as payment and says lightly, “You were good last night.” She tries to leave quietly, but is pulled into his arms.
“You think you can walk away after this?” he says, his tone low and possessive.
Cedrick is a feared, untouchable titan on Wall Street — elegant, aloof, and completely uninterested in women. Not even the most beautiful socialites in the city can catch his eye. When gossip spreads that he was seen pressing a woman against a wall and kissing her fiercely, no one believes it.
When the rumors name Isidora, the crowd scoffs. He rejects even the most beautiful women, so why would he notice a plain girl like her?
All doubt disappears when they see the dignified Cedrick drop to one knee to help Isidora with her shoe, pleading softly for just one kiss.
When Kevin finally sees Isidora’s true beauty and begs for forgiveness. But Cedrick kicks him out at once, slams a marriage certificate on the table, and says sharply.
“Call her Aunt.”
Wrong Room: Sleeping With My Fiancé’s Uncle Chapter 1 Manhattan Top Floor
The heavy mahogany door of the Plaza Hotel’s presidential suite stood before Isidora.
She gripped the universal keycard so tightly that the sharp plastic edges bit into her palm. The pain was grounding.
She swiped the card. The green light blinked, followed by a soft click.
Isidora pushed the door open. The air inside hit her like a physical blow, thick with the smell of expensive champagne and cheap lust.
She stepped onto the Persian rug. Her eyes immediately locked onto a custom Armani suit jacket discarded on the floor. It belonged to Kevin.
A black lace bra hung from the edge of the crystal chandelier in the hallway. It was Chantelle’s, her former good friend.
Isidora’s stomach violently contracted, acid burned the back of her throat. This was the man she was supposed to marry in a few months.
From the half-open bedroom door, the unmistakable sounds of wet skin slapping against skin and heavy, uninhibited moans echoed through the quiet suite.
She didn’t cry. Instead, a freezing calm washed over her veins.
Isidora pulled her phone from her pocket. She opened the camera, switched to video mode, and made sure the flash was off.
She walked toward the bedroom and kicked the door wide open with her heel.
The screen of her phone illuminated the tangled limbs on the king-sized bed. Kevin was on top, his face buried in the blonde model’s neck.
The sudden light made Kevin freeze. He snapped his head around, his eyes wide with sheer panic.
“What the hell!” Kevin roared, grabbing a pillow and hurling it at the door. “You creepy, ugly freak! Get out!”
Isidora didn’t flinch. She simply tilted her head, letting the pillow hit the doorframe.
Her thumb pressed the red stop button. The video was saved.
She looked at Kevin’s pale, sweaty face. There was no jealousy in her chest, only the cold satisfaction of a hunter bagging a kill.
Chantelle let out a piercing scream, pulling the silk sheets up to cover her chest.
Isidora turned her back on them. She walked out of the suite, her heels clicking against the hardwood floor in a steady, ruthless rhythm.
By the time she reached the elevator, her lungs felt like they were collapsing. She slammed her hand against the button for the rooftop bar.
She needed alcohol. She needed it to burn away the filth she had just witnessed.
The elevator doors opened directly into the dim, purple ambient lighting of the rooftop bar. The heavy bass of a jazz band vibrated against her ribcage, but it couldn’t drown out the churning in her stomach. She forced the nausea down, her face still a mask of thick, uneven foundation and fake freckles, her eyes hidden behind hideous, thick-rimmed black glasses. She was a walking, breathing joke, and tonight, she would lean into it.
She walked to the most isolated corner of the bar, ignoring the sideways glances her strange appearance attracted.
“Dry martini. Make it your strongest,” Isidora told the bartender.
When the glass arrived, she didn’t sip it. She threw her head back and swallowed the burning liquid in one go.
The alcohol hit her bloodstream like a match dropped in gasoline. Her head spun.
Suddenly, the barstool next to her was pulled back. A tall, broad shadow sat down.
Before she even looked at him, a scent invaded her lungs. Crisp cedarwood mixed with a dark, dangerous male pheromone. It completely overpowered the cheap cologne of the men around them.
“Whiskey. Neat,” the man ordered.
His voice was a low, gravelly rumble. It sounded exhausted, like a man who hadn’t slept in a week.
Isidora turned her head. The lighting was terrible, but she could make out a razor-sharp jawline and a black dress shirt with the top two buttons undone.
Cedrick gripped his glass, his knuckles white. His chronic insomnia had been tearing his nerves to shreds for days.
But then, a scent drifted across the space between them.
It was faint. Iris. A very specific, custom blend of iris that hit his brain like a heavy dose of tranquilizers. The constant buzzing in his skull instantly quieted.
Cedrick snapped his head toward the woman sitting next to him.
His dark, bottomless eyes locked onto her. He saw the hideous, thick-rimmed glasses, the cakey, uneven foundation, and the tightly pulled, severe bun. The woman’s appearance was a jarring contradiction to the ethereal, calming fragrance she wore. But in that moment, as the crushing pressure in his skull finally receded, he found he didn’t care. He didn’t care at all. All that mattered was the source of that scent.
Isidora felt the heat of his stare. It was predatory. It made the hair on her arms stand up. It was also deeply confusing. No one had ever looked at her this way while she wore her disguise.
She tried to stand up and walk away, but the martini betrayed her. Her knees buckled.
She fell sideways.
A thick, muscular forearm caught her waist. Cedrick’s hand was burning hot, the heat searing right through the thin silk of her dress.
The urge to destroy Kevin, combined with the heavy alcohol in her brain, reached a boiling point.
Isidora looked up at the stranger. She didn’t pull away. Instead, she reached up and wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders.
The morning sun sliced through the gap in the heavy curtains, stabbing Isidora directly in the eyes.
She gasped, her eyes flying open. Every muscle in her body ached with a deep, throbbing soreness.
She turned her head. A massive, scarred back faced her on the other side of the king-sized bed.
The memories of last night crashed into her skull like a freight train. The rough hands, the biting, the absolute loss of control.
Panic seized her throat. She couldn’t breathe.
Isidora threw the duvet off her naked body. She scrambled across the carpet, grabbing her scattered clothes and pulling them on with shaking hands.
She needed to leave. She needed to make sure this never happened again.
She dug into her purse and pulled out ten crisp hundred-dollar bills.
She grabbed a hotel pen and scribbled on a notepad: Standard service fee. We’re even. She stared at the harsh letters for a split second, her expression hardening into absolute, cold detachment. There was no room for lingering sentiment or regret in the life she was forced to lead.
She slammed the cash and the note onto the nightstand, right next to his heavy, expensive-looking watch and her own pair of ugly, thick-rimmed glasses.
Isidora didn’t look back. She yanked the suite door open and ran down the hallway like a fugitive.
Wrong Room: Sleeping With My Fiancé’s Uncle Chapter 2 The Wolf of Wall Street Descends
Isidora sat in the back of the Lincoln Navigator parked outside The Pierre hotel.
She stared into the sun visor mirror. Her fingers were numb as she applied the third layer of dark, cakey foundation to her cheeks.
She glued the fake freckles back onto her nose. She shoved the heavy, black-rimmed glasses onto her face.
The breathtaking woman from the hotel room was gone. The ugly, pathetic Wyatt heiress was back.
She pulled the collar of her Victorian-style dress higher. The fabric scratched her skin, but it was necessary to hide the dark, violent bruises the stranger had sucked into her neck last night.
Isidora pushed the car door open and stepped onto the red carpet.
Camera flashes exploded in her face. From the corner of her eye, she saw a group of socialites pointing at her.
“Look at her,” one of them whispered loudly. “She looks like a moldy nun. How is Kevin Garrison marrying that?”
Isidora kept her head down. She let the insults bounce off her armor. She walked into the grand ballroom, her eyes fixed on the marble floor.
Her father, Arsenio Wyatt, marched up to her. He didn’t say hello. He grabbed her arm, his fingers digging into her flesh.
“Keep your mouth shut tonight,” Arsenio hissed in her ear. “If you ruin this trust fund merger with the Garrisons, I will make you regret being born.”
Isidora nodded slowly, pulling her arm free.
She scanned the room, looking for Kevin. She needed to know if he had the nerve to bring Chantelle to their official engagement dinner.
Suddenly, the loud chatter in the ballroom died. The live orchestra stopped playing mid-note.
Hyman Garrison, Kevin’s father and the current chairman, was practically sprinting toward the grand entrance. Sweat dripped down his forehead.
Heavy, deliberate footsteps echoed across the marble floor. Each step sounded like a gavel striking wood.
The crowd of Wall Street elites parted like the Red Sea. They pressed themselves against the tables, terrified to block the path.
Hyman grabbed the microphone, his hands shaking visibly.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Hyman stammered. “Please welcome the true head of the Garrison family, returning from Los Angeles… Mr. Cedrick Garrison.”
The name sent a physical shockwave through the room. People gasped. Cedrick was the exiled billionaire, the ruthless hedge fund predator who ate companies for breakfast.
Isidora slowly lifted her head. She pushed her ugly glasses up the bridge of her nose and looked toward the entrance.
The moment her eyes landed on the man surrounded by bodyguards, the blood drained from her face.
Her heart slammed against her ribs so hard she thought they would crack.
The razor-sharp jawline. The cold, dead eyes. The terrifying, suffocating aura of power.
It was him. The man from the hotel room. The man she had left a thousand dollars for on the nightstand.
Isidora couldn’t breathe. Her lungs refused to expand. She took a frantic step backward, trying to hide behind a tall floral arrangement.
Her heel caught the edge of a socialite’s silk gown.
“Watch it, you freak!” the woman shrieked, shoving Isidora hard in the chest.
Isidora stumbled backward. Her hip crashed into the corner of the champagne tower table.
Several crystal glasses tipped over, shattering against the marble floor. The sharp sound echoed like a gunshot in the dead-silent ballroom.
Cedrick stopped walking.
His head snapped toward the corner. His cold, predatory gaze locked onto the source of the noise.
Isidora immediately dropped her chin to her chest. She let her messy hair fall forward, praying the thick glasses and the ugly makeup would work.
Cedrick’s eyes swept over her disastrous outfit. A flicker of deep disgust crossed his face. He began to turn his head away.
But then, a draft from the open ballroom doors swept through the room.
It carried a scent.
Cedrick’s nostrils flared. His entire body went rigid.
It was a faint trace of iris. A scent that inexplicably smoothed the jagged edges of his chronic insomnia for a fleeting second. It was an anomaly that irritated his hyper-vigilant instincts. Why would this pathetic, heavily made-up creature carry a scent that demanded his attention?
Cedrick didn’t walk toward the main table. He pivoted on his heel and walked straight toward the dark corner.
The crowd held their breath. Isidora’s fingers dug into the fabric of her skirt. Her palms were sweating.
Cedrick stopped less than two feet away from her. His massive frame blocked out the light.
Hyman rushed over, laughing nervously. “Cedrick, please excuse the mess. This is Kevin’s fiancée, Isidora Wyatt.”
Cedrick’s eyes darkened at the word fiancée.
He looked down at her. His gaze slowly dragged from her fake freckles down to the high collar of her dress.
Right at the edge of the collar, the thick layers of concealer were caked unevenly, a desperate attempt to hide her own natural pallor.
Cedrick let out a low, dark chuckle that made the hair on the back of Isidora’s neck stand up.
He leaned in, his lips inches from her ear.
“Miss Wyatt,” Cedrick whispered, his voice dripping with lethal intent. “The perfume you chose smells as good as the woman in the hotel room last night.”
Wrong Room: Sleeping With My Fiancé’s Uncle Chapter 3 Fatal Interrogation in the Closet
Isidora’s fingernails bit so hard into her palms that the skin nearly broke. The physical pain was the only thing keeping her from collapsing under Cedrick’s suffocating presence.
Isidora’s breath hitched for a fraction of a second, but she instantly forced her racing heart to steady. She met his suffocating gaze, her eyes completely devoid of the terror he expected.
“It is a cheap, off-the-shelf brand, Mr. Garrison,” Isidora replied, her voice eerily calm and laced with a subtle defiance. “I apologize if it offends your refined senses.”
Cedrick stared down at her cakey, hideous face. His dark eyes narrowed, dissecting her lie. The scent wasn’t just familiar; it was seared into his memory from a single, chaotic night. The same perfume that had clung to the skin of the woman in his hotel room. And now, this creature, his nephew’s fiancée, was wearing it. He opened his mouth to tear her apart.
Before he could speak, the side doors of the ballroom burst open.
Kevin marched in. His face was flushed red with anger. He had just received a text that Chantelle was throwing a tantrum outside the hotel lobby.
Kevin ignored Isidora completely. He walked straight to his father, Hyman.
“Dad, I have an urgent email from the London office. I need to step out for twenty minutes,” Kevin lied through his teeth.
Cedrick slowly turned his head. He looked at his nephew like he was looking at a cockroach.
“What email is more important than your own engagement party?” Cedrick’s voice cut through the room like a blade. “Or is the stray cat you keep on the side meowing too loudly outside?”
Kevin’s face drained of color. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. He didn’t dare talk back to the man who held the family’s purse strings.
Instead, Kevin shot a vicious, hateful glare at Isidora, silently blaming her for his humiliation.
While the crowd’s attention shifted to the tension between the uncle and nephew, Isidora took a step back.
She needed to get out of Cedrick’s line of sight. Now.
She turned and walked quickly down the side corridor. She pushed open the heavy walnut doors at the end of the hall and slipped into the VIP cloakroom.
The room was pitch black, smelling strongly of mothballs and expensive damp wool.
Isidora leaned her back against the door, pressing her hand to her chest. Her heart was beating so fast it hurt.
Before she could even take a full breath, the brass handle behind her turned.
A massive force shoved the door open, pushing Isidora forward.
Cedrick slipped into the dark room. He reached behind him and pushed the lock. The metal clicked with a terrifying finality.
Isidora scrambled backward, but her spine hit the wall of heavy winter coats.
Cedrick didn’t hesitate. He stepped into her space, his large hands grabbing both of her wrists and pinning them against the wall above her head.
He pressed his body against hers. His knee forced its way between her thighs, completely trapping her.
Isidora gasped, her chest heaving against his hard chest.
Cedrick lowered his head. His nose brushed against the skin of her neck. He inhaled deeply, like a predator catching the scent of blood.
“A cheap, off-the-shelf brand?” Cedrick’s voice was a rough, vibrating growl against her collarbone. “You wore this exact scent in my hotel room. Do you take me for a fucking idiot, Miss Wyatt?”
Isidora’s body went rigid. She turned her face away. “Please show some respect. I am Kevin’s fiancée!”
The word triggered something violent inside him.
“Fiancée?” Cedrick sneered, his voice dripping with contempt. His rough thumb pressed hard against her jawline, gripping her chin with bruising force. “Was sleeping with me part of the plan? Did you think one night in my bed was your audition, and when you didn’t get a callback, you settled for my fool of a nephew?”
Isidora sucked in a sharp breath. She shoved her hands against his chest, trying to push him away. “This is none of your business!”
Cedrick’s hand shot up, his fingers tightening their grip. He forced her to look at him.
“You reek of hidden agendas,” Cedrick said, his eyes burning with a dark, calculating rage. “You play the frightened mouse, but you crawled into my bed without an invitation. Now you’re set to marry into my family. Don’t you dare tell me this is a coincidence.”
He was certain of it. This hideous woman had seduced him, played him for a fool, and was now using this pathetic engagement to claw her way into the Garrison fortune. He believed her ugly makeup and dowdy clothes were her true self, the same self he had inexplicably taken to his bed. The memory was a brand of shame on his pride.
Isidora let out a cold, mocking laugh. The fear vanished, replaced by pure defiance.
“You think too highly of your family’s allure, Mr. Garrison,” Isidora whispered, her eyes locking onto his without a shred of fear. “I am merely surviving a business arrangement. If I had any actual power in this game, I wouldn’t be standing in a dark closet being threatened by a tyrant.”
Cedrick’s pupils dilated. The insult hit his ego like a sledgehammer.
A dark, dangerous heat radiated from his body. He lowered his head, his mouth crashing down toward hers. He needed to punish her for the insult, for the deception. He needed to taste the lie on her lips and remind her—and himself—of the night she had so clearly forgotten, a night he now saw as the first move in her disgusting, calculated game.
Just as his lips brushed against hers, heavy footsteps pounded down the hallway outside.
“Isidora! Where the hell are you hiding, you ugly bitch?!” Kevin’s voice screamed through the wood.
The door handle rattled violently.
Isidora stopped breathing. Her eyes widened in absolute terror. She pressed her hands flat against Cedrick’s chest, silently begging him to stop.
Cedrick paused. He looked at the rattling door handle, then down at Isidora’s trembling lips.
A cruel, twisted smile spread across his face. Instead of stepping back, Cedrick pressed his hips harder against hers.