DEBT OF DESIRE
The night my father collapsed, I learned some men negotiate with money… but Noah Thorne negotiates with lives. I never planned to marry a billionaire CEO, especially not the man my father owed $50,000 to. But when the hospital demanded an $80,000 deposit before surgery, life made the choice for me.
While my mother sobbed in a cold hallway, Noah’s bodyguard arrived with an offer, an arranged marriage, a contract marriage that would clear the debt and cover every medical bill. When I confronted Noah, he presented the terms without cruelty: one year, no intimacy, public appearances only, and freedom after. He believed he was offering mercy but I felt like beautifully packaged captivity.
Desperation crushed pride, and I signed.
Our “marriage” was a seven-minute formality, no vows, no meaning. Moving into his penthouse was like stepping into a museum built to contain silence. Publicly, we were the perfect romance. Privately, we were strangers navigating a fragile arrangement thick with unspoken tension.
Complications followed us: Noah’s elegant, smug ex who treated me like a placeholder, and my own ex-boyfriend, whose sudden reappearance triggered jealousy in Noah he couldn’t hide. Arguments, silences, and late-night moments softened something between us. Slowly, painfully, the man behind the empire emerged, the lonely boy shaped by loss, abandonment, and guarded walls.
We began to care. We tried to deny it. Feelings weren’t in the contract but feelings don’t read contracts.
Near the end of the year, Noah pulled away. I thought he wanted freedom. He signed the release papers with steady hands and a breaking heart.
I was almost gone when he whispered the truth: “Please don’t go.”
We tore up the contract.
A year later, we married again, this time for love, not survival. This time, I chose him
読む
Chapter: CHAPTER 4: THE CONTRACT'S EDGEThe subway to Manhattan feels like a one-way ticket to hell. My bag’s slung over my shoulder, Noah Thorne’s contract inside like a lead weight. It’s 2:45 p.m., and I’m headed back to Blackwood Tower, the glass monolith that looms over my life. Dad’s pale face, gasping in the hospital bed haunts me, his heart monitors beeping in my ears. The doctors stabilized him this morning, but the words $80,000 for his treatment echo louder than Mom’s prayers. I step off the train, the October wind cutting through my black blouse and jeans. My hair’s pulled into a tight ponytail, a feeble attempt to look in control. Blackwood Tower looms ahead, its sleek facade mocking my frayed nerves. The lobby’s still a cathedral of marble and chrome, security guards eyeing me like I’m an intruder. I flash the black card from Noah’s lawyer, Gerald Crane, and they wave me to the private elevator. It hums upward, each floor ticking like a countdown to my fate.The doors open to Noah’s penthouse office, same as y
最終更新日: 2025-11-24
Chapter: CHAPTER 3 : THE HEART OF THE MATTER The hospital smells like antiseptic and fear, a sterile assault that burns my nose as I sit in the waiting room, my hands twisting in my lap. The lights buzz overhead, too bright, making the clock’s ticking feel louder than normal in my skull. It’s 8:47 a.m., hours since Dad’s heart attack turned our world upside down. Mom’s beside me, her eyes red-rimmed, clutching a tissue like it’s a lifeline. Her dark hair, usually neat, is a mess, and her whispered prayers in our island’s dialect fill the silence. I want to comfort her, but my own heart’s pounding, stuck on Dad’s ashen face, his hand gripping mine as the paramedics wheeled him away.“Scarlett,” Mom says, her voice hoarse. “He’ll be okay. He has to be.”I nod, but my throat’s too tight to speak. The image of Dad slumped in his recliner, gasping, won’t leave me. Lee Family Kitchen, their dream, our anchor, it’s killing him. The fifty-thousand-dollar debt to Blackwood Industries, the interest piling up, the foreclosure looming it’s
最終更新日: 2025-11-24
Chapter: CHAPTER 2 : THE WEIGHT OF DUTYThe subway ride home is a haze, I felt like I was looking through the world from a stained mirror made worse by the weight of Noah Thorne’s contract pressing around me. My bag digs into my shoulder, that cursed envelope inside like a ticking bomb. His voice, low, cold, commanding, played in my head repeatedly: One year, Scarlett. Five million buys freedom. Freedom for who? My parents, maybe, but not me. At 26, I thought I’d be chasing my interior design dreams, design for the rich and big city people, not bartering my life to a billionaire stranger. Leaving all my dreams and plans behind, worse it's just for a year. I wouldn't want to be branded names by the social media because I knew how popular Mr. Thorne was.I’m American, born here, but my parents had their old-world expectations, tied to our island’s roots which chained me to their dream: Lee Family Kitchen, our crumbling restaurant. I had wanted to work my way through the debt and leave my life the way I want. The train rattle
最終更新日: 2025-11-24
Chapter: CHAPTER 1 : THE DEBT'S SHADOW Chapter One: The Debt's Shadow The late afternoon sun slants through the cracked window of the Lee family Kitchen, painting golden streaks across the chipped linoleum counter. I’m scrubbing at work so hard my knuckles ache, sweat beading on my forehead despite the October chill creeping through the walls. My apron, stained with soy sauce and grease, clings to me like a second skin. At least it was empty here for a while as I had the opportunity to clean around. The restaurant, my parents’ dream, a tiny Southeast Asian haven in Brooklyn’s quiet corner where it smelled of lemongrass and despair. The lunch rush was a pathetic trio of customers, and now it’s just me, the hum of a dying fridge, and the weight of a debt that’s choking us.My phone buzzes on the counter, flashing Mom. I ignore it, my jaw clenching. I know what she’ll say: another plea to keep this place alive, another reminder of the fifty-thousand-dollar loan from Thorne Industries that’s drowning us. Five years ago, we to
最終更新日: 2025-11-24
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