Engaged To The Ruthless Billionaire

My father had never been an affectionate man, but tonight his silence filled the dining room like fog—thick, inescapable, impossible to see through.“Where’s Serena?” I asked, adjusting the hem of my dress as I lowered myself onto one of the chairs. The house still smelled faintly of my mother’s perfume, even three years after her funeral. Or maybe that was my imagination, clinging to ghosts.“She’s upstairs. Homework,” my father said, his voice clipped. “Eliana, we need to talk.”Of course we did. That was why I’d been summoned home from New York on a Wednesday night with no explanation beyond a text: Dinner. Come home. No excuses.I knew that tone. It wasn’t. How are you? Or I miss you. It was I’ve made a decision, and you’re going to follow it. I’d been trained to read his voice the way some children learned piano.“You’re not sick, are you?” I tried to keep the edge of panic from creeping in. “Or Serena—”“No one’s sick,” he said quickly, impatient. “This is about the future.”His

Alexander's POV Damien looked like he wanted to bolt.Christian looked like he was calculating how much longer until Damien got disowned.I looked like I always did: calm.“You’re engaged?” Damien said again, like repeating it might change the answer.“To Eliana Rivera,” I confirmed, sharp and unbothered.Christian’s brow ticked up. “Wow. So it’s officially that kind of day.”He didn’t sound surprised. Then again, he’d been in on the damage control meetings. He knew exactly what was at stake.“I—what?” Damien sputtered. ”Since when? You haven’t been seeing anyone seriously, and now you’re engaged?”“Since three days ago,” I said.Christian leaned forward, fingers steepled loosely in front of him. “Let’s be clear. This isn’t about love. This is about Cassian Rivera having leverage and Alex eliminating it before it hits daylight.”“I already said I was sorry—” Damien tried.“You saying it doesn’t make it less useless,” I cut in. My voice stayed low, but the chill in it could've flash-f

Eliana’s POVThe Grayson Manhattan office building was so sleek and over-designed it looked like a Bond villain’s second home.Marble everywhere. Mirrors polished to a criminal shine. And enough subtle security to make me feel like I’d accidentally walked onto a CIA black site in heels.I stood at the reception desk in a navy dress that said “future wife of a billionaire” and not “woman who was planning his elegant murder last night.”“Miss Rivera,” the assistant said with a polite, practiced smile. “Mr. Grayson is expecting you. They’re already upstairs with the planner.”Of course they were. He was already here.Which meant he had the upper hand. Again.I smiled sweetly and followed her into the elevator, already bracing myself for whatever version of Alexander I’d meet today—The Ice King? The Arrogant Tease? The One I Secretly Fantasized About Despite Hating Him?We stepped into a bright lounge overlooking Central Park. A massive whiteboard was covered in mock-ups of wedding venues

Alexander’s POV.I sent Eliana the information she needed for her move at precisely noon on Sunday. Not out of fear she’d cause a scene in front of my building, but out of reluctant admiration for the stunt she’d pulled at my club.It turned out the delicate little rose had some steel in her spine after all.The following weekend, Eliana showed up at my house again, this time with an army of movers in tow.Cora, my housekeeper, and Raymond, my butler, took charge of guiding the movers through the apartment while I led Eliana to her room.Neither of us spoke, and the silence expanded with each step until it became a living, breathing entity between us.Annoyance wormed its way into my chest.Eliana had been perfectly friendly to Cora, Raymond, and the rest of my staff, whom she’d greeted with warm smiles and fucking cookies from Levain. But when she got to me, she’d shut down like I was the one moving into her house and disrupting her carefully planned life.Like I was the one who’d sh

Eliana's POVI never imagined I’d be the kind of woman who baked to decompress.Yet here I was: barefoot in someone else’s penthouse kitchen, elbow-deep in flour, measuring out ingredients like it would somehow help me make sense of my life.To be fair, it wasn’t just someone’s kitchen.It was Alexander Grayson’s.My fiancé. My captor. My contract.And, as far as I knew, very much absent.He’d left for Europe a day after I moved in. No warning. No explanation. Just a clipped announcement over dinner, like he was informing me the garbage collection schedule had changed.“I’ll be gone a month,” he’d said.It’s been two weeks so far.So I adapted.I unpacked. I rearranged. I cooked—not out of affection, but because it gave me something to control. Because it filled the silence with the smell of butter and spice and defiance.And I wore what I liked.Today, that happened to be a silk camisole and a pair of soft, loose satin shorts. Barefoot. Hair pinned up. Flour dusted across my collarbo