LOGINAva Reynolds is broke, desperate, and watching her little sister die slowly in a hospital bed. She’s out of options, until a cold, powerful billionaire offers her a lifeline: marry him for one year, and he’ll pay for everything. No love. No intimacy. Just a contract. Damian Kingsley needs a wife to save his empire. Ava is a nobody, and that’s exactly what he wants. What he doesn’t expect is the fire behind her quiet eyes or the way she makes his cold world start to crack. But Ava isn’t walking into this marriage blind. She knows she’s just a tool to him. And she swears she’ll never fall for a man who treats love like a business deal. Until one mistake rips her life apart. Betrayed. Humiliated. Thrown out like trash. She leaves, broken, but not defeated. And when Damian finally realizes the truth, it’s too late. The girl he once used is gone. In her place stands a woman he can’t control. A woman he can’t live without. Now he wants her back. But Ava doesn’t want an apology. She wants him to burn
View MoreAva’s POV⸻“We might need a bigger library,” I whispered.He froze. His hand on my stomach. Like moving might break it like if he moved, this fragile, impossible moment might disappear.“You’re serious?” he asked softly.I nodded. My throat tightened.But not from fear.He just stared for a while—at me, at my stomach, at the space between us that suddenly felt… full.Too full. Like it held something neither of us knew how to name.Then he laughed. Soft, broken in the middle.Not because it was funny.Just because joy shows up messy sometimes.“I don’t deserve this,” he whispered, resting his forehead against mine.“But I swear… I’ll protect it. You. Both of you. With everything I have.”His hands trembled. But when he kissed me, he didn’t.—That night, he didn’t rush.He touched me like I was something rare. Like he had all the time in the world to learn me again, or maybe for the first time.His lips went to my neck first, just under my jaw.Slow kisses. Open. Warm.I tilted my head
Ava's POV⸻“Let’s not start over,” Damian said softly.He slid the velvet box across the marble like it weighed more than it should.“Let’s start right.”I stared at it.Not because I didn’t know what it was. But because I did.And this time, it wasn’t backed by a contract. No lawyers. No deadline. Just us.He didn’t rush me. He didn’t move at all.But then—slowly, like the choice had to be his too—he dropped to one knee.Not dramatic.Not rehearsed.Just real.“I should’ve done this… way before now,” he said, barely above a whisper, his eyes not letting go of mine for even a second. “But back then I was… God, I was clueless. I didn’t understand what any of it meant. What you meant.”My breath caught.“I don’t have an empire to promise you. Just this,” he said, tapping his chest, voice raw. “Just a man who had to lose everything before he understood what he was trying to build.”He opened the box.The ring wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t even new.It looked like something old. Something mean
Ava’s POV⸻We didn’t move.Lily had gone upstairs, but neither of us said anything. We just… stayed like that.The rain was still tapping on the window. Same steady sound. Like it didn’t care that everything had changed inside.No documents between us. No script. No mask. Just the quiet. And his hand, still holding mine.He didn’t let go.Even when I crossed the room to switch off the lights. Or when I turned the lock on the door. He stayed close, quiet. No pressure. No moves.And maybe that’s why I didn’t ask him to leave.Because for the first time… we weren’t pretending.—We didn’t say much the next morning either.The rain hadn’t stopped. Just kept going like a rhythm we were already used to. The sea sounded rougher outside, and the quiet between us felt full but not heavy. Just there.Like air after you’ve been underwater too long.I was barefoot, wiping down the counter, not really thinking when the bell over the door rang.It wasn’t soft. It rang like someone who knew why the
⸻He didn’t come back the next day.Or the one after.The café stayed open, but I barely noticed the hours. Customers came and went, voices in the fog. I stacked books, cleared tables, pressed coffee, but my hands weren’t really in it. My head wasn’t, either.And then, on the third morning, I found him.Damian.Sitting on the steps outside the café. Damp from mist. He looked wrecked. Like the coat was dragging him down, and his eyes hadn’t seen rest in a while. He didn’t knock.Didn’t speak.Just waited.I stood at the window for too long. He didn’t move. Didn’t check his phone. He didn’t move. Just kept sitting there, like he was waiting on something I hadn’t decided to give.After a while, I got up and cracked the door open. Didn’t say anything. Just left it that way.He didn’t come in right away.But he came.Quietly. Carefully.Like someone who understood that presence was a privilege.—He didn’t call my name. Just stayed in the doorway, wet sleeves and everything, like he didn’












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