Aria Morgan is fighting to keep her life together while paying off her mother’s medical debts. When a chance encounter with Ethan Blackwood turns disastrous, she finds herself bound by a contract she never wanted. As his contract mistress, Aria enters a world of power, wealth, and intense desire — a world that challenges her independence at every turn. Ethan is used to controlling everything, but Aria’s defiance ignites a fire he didn’t expect. Their arrangement starts as lust, but soon danger, secrets, and emotional turmoil blur the lines between business and love. Aria must navigate her heart’s desires and her need for independence, while Ethan confronts the walls he’s built around himself. Will the contract protect them — or destroy them both?
View MoreAria Morgan wiped her clammy palms on the apron she had hastily tied over her faded jeans. The restaurant was bustling tonight — a Friday night in New York City always was — and every table was filled with people who didn’t care whether she was stressed, tired, or running on three hours of sleep.
“Table seven needs refills!” a manager shouted from the kitchen window. Aria nodded, clutching a tray of red wine and sparkling water. She had learned the hard way that rushing only caused spills. But tonight, no amount of caution could have prepared her for him. She approached the corner table like any other. That’s when she saw the man. Ethan Blackwood. She had heard the whispers in the restaurant staff room: the infamous CEO, feared in the business world, untouchable, wealthy beyond imagination, and rumored to be ruthless in every sense. And now, he was seated mere feet away from her, looking like a sculpture carved from marble and shadow. He didn’t just sit in his chair. He commandedthe room. Broad shoulders, tailored suit, hair perfectly slicked back, and eyes so piercing that Aria felt as if he could see straight through her. Her stomach dropped. She swallowed hard and stepped closer. “Red wine, sir?” she asked, forcing a smile. Ethan’s eyes lifted slowly, a faint arch of a brow. The slightest smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, and for a second, Aria’s confidence wavered. Something in his gaze made her pulse race. Something dangerous. “Yes. That one.” His voice was low, controlled, and uncomfortably smooth. Aria nodded and steadied the tray. That’s when her heel caught on the edge of a chair. She stumbled. The tray wobbled. Her heart skipped. “No—” And then, the inevitable happened. Red wine arced through the air like a liquid comet and splattered across Ethan Blackwood’s crisp, white shirt. “Oh my God! I’m so sorry!” Aria cried, grabbing napkins and trying to blot the stain. Ethan didn’t flinch. He didn’t shout. He simply looked down at the dark crimson spreading across his suit, then back at her with eyes that were unnervingly calm. “You spilled wine on me.” “Yes! I know! I’m—” “Do you have any idea who I am?” His voice was low, like velvet dipped in steel. “Yes! I—I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean—” Ethan stood, tall, impossibly imposing, and the entire corner of the restaurant seemed to shrink around him. Aria instinctively stepped back, bumping into the chair behind her. “Do you?” he repeated, his gaze slicing through her. “I—I’ve heard your name…” she stammered. “Good,” he said, finally allowing a flash of a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Now, tell me. How do you intend to fix this?” Aria opened her mouth to apologize again, but words caught in her throat. She had no idea how to fix this. Not with him. Not with Ethan Blackwood. “I… I can pay for the dry cleaning?” she offered weakly. He shook his head slowly, as if amused. “Money isn’t the problem, Ms. Morgan.” Her stomach flipped. “Ms. Morgan?” “Yes. Aria Morgan. You’re the one who thinks spilling wine on me is an accident?” He took a deliberate step closer, and she felt her chest tighten. “I—I… it was an accident! I swear!” Her voice trembled. He circled her slowly, inspecting her as though she were both dangerous and fragile at once. “Accident… or carelessness?” Before she could answer, he stopped, leaning just slightly closer so that she could feel the heat radiating off him. He smelled of expensive cologne and something darker — like danger mixed with desire. “You’re reckless,” he said softly, yet his tone carried a weight that made Aria’s knees weak. “I—I—” Ethan cut her off with a raised hand. “Don’t. Don’t apologize. Not yet. You need to understand something first.” Aria’s eyes widened. “Understand what?” His gaze bore into hers, unyielding. “I don’t believe in accidents. Not in business. Not in life. And certainly not with people like you.” People like her? She had no idea what he meant, but the heat between them — the electricity that surged through the air — made her cheeks burn. “I—” she started again. “Enough.” He straightened, adjusting his perfectly tailored suit. “I want a proposition, Ms. Morgan. A deal.” Her brain short-circuited. A deal? “What… what kind of deal?” she asked cautiously. Ethan’s lips curved into a smirk, cold and infuriating. “One year. As my… mistress.” The words hit her like a physical blow. Mistress? “What? No! Absolutely not! I—I can’t—” “You can. And you will.” His voice dropped even lower, the kind of voice that demanded obedience without raising a finger. “One year. No love. No strings. Just… pleasure. You get paid, I get what I want, and everyone stays in their place.” Aria’s head spun. “I—You can’t—That’s—” “I can,” he interrupted sharply. “You have a choice. Sign, and you solve your problems. Refuse, and… well, let’s just say it won’t be good for you, or your mother.” Her chest tightened. He knew about her mother’s medical bills. Panic rose like fire in her veins. How could he possibly know? “Who… how…?” she whispered. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “What matters is that you make a decision. Tonight.” Aria felt like the floor had dropped from beneath her. Everything she had struggled for, every dollar she had saved, every sleepless night — it all came down to this moment. A year. As his mistress. The room felt like it was closing in. She could feel the heat of his presence, the danger, and the raw, unspoken desire that hung between them like a tangible force. Her mind screamed NO, but her body… her body reacted in ways she didn’t want to admit. “I—I need time,” she said finally, voice trembling. “No time,” he said coldly. “Decide now. Or walk away. And don’t come crying to me later.” Aria’s heart pounded. She had never felt so small, so exposed, yet so inexplicably drawn to a man she barely knew. “You… you’re insane,” she whispered. “And you,” he countered, leaning closer, “are far more interesting than you realize.” Her knees nearly buckled. Every instinct screamed to run, to refuse, to never look back. And yet… there was something magnetic about him, something dangerous and intoxicating. The restaurant seemed to fade around them. No clinking glasses, no bustling waiters, no soft background music — just the pull between her and Ethan Blackwood. One year. That was all. One year. Could she survive it? Could she resist him? Could she protect herself… or would she fall completely, irrevocably, into the orbit of the most dangerous man she had ever met? Her hands trembled. She swallowed hard. “Yes,” she said, almost against her own will. “I… I’ll do it.” Ethan’s smirk widened. “Good. You’ll find the rules are simple. Obey, entertain, and enjoy… or suffer consequences. Shall we start?” Aria’s breath caught. And in that moment, as she stared into his eyes, she realized that nothing — not her independence, not her pride, not her carefully guarded heart — would ever be the same again. This was just the beginning.Wind tore across the sand as the black helicopter descended, its rotors scattering smoke and salt spray. Aria raised an arm to shield her face; the air burned with grit and the smell of fuel. Beside her, Ethan steadied himself against the wind, eyes narrowed to slits.“Stay behind me,” he said.She didn’t move. “You can’t keep saying that.”The machine settled halfway between them and the dying fire on the ridge. Its search-light swept the shoreline once, then fixed on them like a single white eye. A hatch slid open. A woman in a flight suit leaned out, shouting over the roar, “Are you Blackwood and Morgan?”Ethan shouted back, “Who are you?”“Your only exit!”The engines pulsed harder, demanding a decision. Above the surf, faint echoes of gunfire drifted down from the cliffs. The Syndicate hadn’t given up.The ChoiceAria turned to Ethan. “If we get in that thing, we might never know who’s flying it.”“If we don’t,” he answered, “we’ll never know anything again.”She hesitated. For o
The morning broke pale and thin over Porto Santo, light seeping through the cloud cover like water through cracks in stone. The Silas Institute sat at the island’s highest ridge, its broken windows glinting faintly. From below it looked dead. From inside, Aria Morgan could feel the slow, stubborn pulse of machines still breathing in the dark.She followed Dr Clara Voss down a stairwell that smelled of rust and brine. The air was heavy with the residue of chemicals, the hum of backup generators echoing through the halls.“Your mother built most of this herself,” Clara said quietly. “She believed information could outlive blood.”“And Ethan believed blood could control information,” Aria answered.Neither spoke again until they reached the lower level. Rows of glass tubes lined the corridor, each one fogged from within, each tagged with a code. Most were empty; some held fragments—vials, samples, names half-erased by mold.Aria’s stomach twisted. “These were… people?”“Prototypes,” Clar
The waves whispered against the hull as the boat drifted through open water. Aria sat at the stern, the cold wind tangling her hair, her hands gripping the edge of her coat. Lisbon was a smudge of gold far behind her now—its lights fading like a memory she wasn’t sure had ever been real.The captain, an old man with skin tanned by decades of sun, stood at the helm, humming to himself in Portuguese. He hadn’t asked questions when she boarded. She’d given him a wad of euros and a destination scribbled on paper: Porto Santo.He only nodded and said, “Long night, menina?”She had smiled faintly, too tired to lie. “The longest.”Now, in the gray light of dawn, the adrenaline was gone. All that was left was the ache.Her body hurt in places she hadn’t known could hurt. Her heart most of all.The Ghost of HimEvery time she closed her eyes, she saw Ethan. His face in the café window. His voice over the gunfire. The way he said too latebefore disappearing into chaos.Part of her still expecte
The ocean wind swept through the narrow Lisbon streets, carrying the scent of salt and diesel and rain-washed stone. Aria walked fast, her hood drawn low over her face. The morning sun was soft and gold, but her nerves buzzed like static.Every instinct told her she was being watched.She passed a café with blue-tiled walls, its windows fogged from the warmth inside. People laughed over coffee and pastel de nata. The normalcy of it all ached.She slipped into a corner seat, her back to the wall, her laptop open.Her fingers trembled as she reconnected to the encrypted archive Nathaniel had exposed. The words Project Silas pulsed in the header, stark black against white.She clicked.The FileA video opened—grainy footage, time-stamped fifteen years ago.A man in a lab coat was speaking into the camera, his face shadowed. “Phase One concluded. The genetic material was stabilized. Subject C has approved continuation under her daughter’s identity—Subject A.M.—to preserve access to Blackw
The rain hadn’t stopped. It fell in soft, endless sheets, turning the streets into rivers of reflected neon. Aria walked without knowing where she was going, her boots splashing through puddles, her body numb from exhaustion. Her mind replayed the last hour in pieces—Ethan’s eyes when he saw her, Nathaniel’s voice, the folder with her name written over and over.By the time she reached the edge of the city, dawn had begun to break.The skyline bled gold and gray.A cab slowed near the curb, its driver eyeing her warily. “Miss, you all right?”She hesitated. Her reflection in the window was a ghost—hair wet, mascara smudged, a bruise shadowing her jaw where Ethan’s grip had been too tight the night before.“Airport,” she said hoarsely. “Any terminal.”The driver nodded. “Rough night?”“You have no idea.”The EscapeShe paid him in cash from her coat pocket—Ethan’s money, though it felt like stolen currency now—and stepped out beneath the flood of terminal lights.Inside, the airport bu
The fire in Nathaniel’s study had burned low, its light flickering against the tall windows. Aria sat at the desk, the folder he had left in front of her unopened.Outside, rain drummed softly against the glass, the rhythm steady as a heartbeat.She stared at the folder for a long time. A single word was stamped across the cover in bold, black ink.BLACKWOOD.It felt like the name itself carried weight, like saying it aloud might summon the storm.Her fingers shook as she reached for it.The FileInside were photographs—grainy, old, some taken overseas. Ethan with men she didn’t recognize. Some meetings looked formal, others dangerous. In one, he was shaking hands with a man wearing a black ring carved with the same dagger-and-circle emblem from the files she’d seen.She turned the pages. There were transactions in multiple currencies, hidden companies, and government seals she didn’t understand. But every few pages, one thing repeated.Her name.Aria Morgan. Linked to numbered accoun
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