Chapter 5:

Skylar

I stared at the man standing at the foot of the bed. Everything about him screamed danger. Expensive danger.

There was something about the way he filled the space that made the room feel smaller than it actually was.

He was a Blackwood. The realization sent a fresh wave of ice through my veins. Yet something about him felt different from the ones I had known. He seemed colder, far more dangerous.

“You crashed into my car,” he said, his deep voice sweeping through the quiet room.

My throat tightened. “It was an accident. I’m sorry, I—”

“Accidents still carry a price.” His dark eyes held mine without mercy. “Twenty-five thousand dollars.”

The number hit me like a punch to the gut. I had nothing left. No savings, no home, no future. Alex had made sure of that, stripping me bare before tossing me aside like yesterday’s trash.

“I-I don’t have that kind of money,” I whispered, my voice barely staying steady.

He didn’t look surprised. He leaned closer, his presence filling the space around me.

“Then marry me.”

The words hung in the air, absurd and impossible. I blinked, convinced I had misheard him. “W…What did you just say?”

“Marry me, Skylar. Become my wife in public. Live under my roof. Carry my name. Follow my rules.”

My heart pounded against my ribs. This man, this stranger was proposing marriage like he was ordering dinner.

“You’re insane. You don’t even know me.”

A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched the corner of his mouth. Then, without breaking eye contact, he listed the pieces of my shattered life as if reading from a private ledger only he could see.

“Skylar Vale. Twenty-three. Dropped out of college a week before your wedding. Betrayed. Humiliated. Divorced.” His voice remained calm. “Recently had a miscarriage.”

Each word landed like a needle against exposed skin.

He knew too much. The realization sank in slowly, like ice spreading through my chest.

At first, it was just shock. Then confusion. But underneath it all, something like fear filled my chest. He was dangerous.

He hadn’t guessed my life. He hadn’t pieced it together from rumours or assumptions. He knew details no stranger should know. Not just my name, but the shape of my downfall.

The more I thought about it, the more it felt like I wasn’t standing in front of a man making an offer, but someone who had already studied me long before this moment.

He stepped closer again, towering over me with that intimidating aura. “I’ll wipe the debt from my car. I’ll place you in a world your ex-husband will never be able to reach. The people who humiliated you? They’ll regret ever crossing your path.”

My breath hitched. Revenge. The word spread dark and tempting in my chest. After everything Alex had done, the idea of watching him squirm sent a dangerous thrill racing through my blood.

I shook my head, trying to cling to reason. “I still don’t trust you.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

His voice stayed perfectly calm. He tilted his head slightly, studying me.

“You stopped college during your final year.”

My body froze.

“How would you feel finishing it?”

That question hit harder than anything else. College. A future. The life I thought I had lost forever when I chose family over ambition.

I looked down at my trembling hands, my eyes falling on the faint mark around my ring finger.

Even after everything, the imprint of my wedding ring was still there. Just like the parts of myself I had lost trying to be the woman he wanted.

“Even if I went back… I’d have to start over—”

“No.”

He stepped closer. “You wouldn’t be starting over.”

Something in me paused.

There was no hesitation in his voice. Like the rules that stopped ordinary people simply didn’t apply to him. The promise felt impossibly real.

My chest rose unevenly. Protection. Money. Status. A real chance to escape the suffocating shadow of my old life.

It all sounded like a lifeline dipped in poison.

My mind tried to resist it, but a picture formed anyway. College. The unfinished degree I had given up on without ever truly choosing to.

“What exactly do you get from this?” I asked, my voice quieter now.

“A wife,” he said simply. “Someone who won’t mistake this for love.”

Silence stretched between us. The weight of his words settled over me. This wasn’t romance. This was a contract. A dangerous opportunity wrapped in the suit of a man who could ruin lives with a single phone call.

He leaned down slightly, one hand resting on the edge of the bed. Not touching me, but close enough that the air between us felt charged. His clean, expensive scent like cedarwood and mint wrapped around me.

It felt like he was measuring every flicker of hesitation in my eyes.

Then his voice dropped.

“Don’t you want to crush your ex-husband?”

The worst part wasn’t that he offered revenge. It was that I hated how quickly my mind stopped fighting the idea.

Alex had taken everything from me once.

And now this stranger was offering me a way to take something back.

My hands trembled slightly as I looked down.

I swallowed hard, the taste of desperation sharp on my tongue. Part of me screamed that this was madness. That accepting would mean selling whatever was left of my soul to a Blackwood.

But the broken part of me whispered that some poisons were worth swallowing.

He waited, patient as a predator who already knew the outcome.

My voice came out hoarse, barely above a whisper.

“…What are the rules?”

The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “Careful, Skylar. You just agreed without knowing it.”