Chapter 4

The words hung between us, heavy enough to steal the air from my lungs.

Marry me.

I blinked at him, certain I had misheard, but his face remained steady, carved in stone. He wasn’t joking.

“You’re insane,” I whispered. My voice cracked against the sharp edges of the afternoon air. “You don’t even know me.”

“I know enough,” he replied without hesitation. His gaze dropped to my stomach. “You are carrying an heir.”

I flinched, clutching the release papers tighter against me as though they could shield me from him. “You don’t need a wife,” I spat. “You just want my child.”

He didn’t flinch. If anything, the sharpness of his jaw only grew harder. “You are right. I need an heir. Not a wife. Not a lover. Not a woman to cling to my side. I built an empire from the ground up and now every man with a fortune wants to see it divided when I am gone. They circle me like vultures, waiting for weakness. Waiting for the day they can say Damian Blackwood left no successor.”

His name struck me like a slap. Damian Blackwood. Even in prison, I had heard whispers of him. Some say he is ruthless. Others say he’s untouchable. A man who devoured competition and spat out bones. The kind of man people feared more than the law itself.

And now he stood before me, asking for my hand in marriage. No, not asking. Demanding in the calmest tone I had ever heard.

“You are out of your mind,” I said, my throat tightening. “I have already been caged once. I won’t walk into another prison, not even one gilded with wealth.”

His lips curved, not into a smile but something darker, a flicker of amusement that carried no warmth. “You think Adrian and Eloise will let you walk free with that child? Do you think they will raise a toast to your survival and hand you back the life they stole? No. The moment they discover the truth, they will bury your baby under scandal. They will make sure the world forgets you ever existed.”

My heart hammered, every word slicing too close to the truth. He was right. Adrian and Eloise would crush me if they knew. But that didn’t mean I was willing to sell myself to Damian Blackwood.

I shook my head fiercely. “I don’t belong to you. My child doesn’t belong to you. I won’t—”

I didn’t finish, because the sound of shouting voices sliced through the street. Reporters. Cameras. The crowd that had been gathered around Adrian and Eloise had shifted, and now faces turned toward me, curiosity lighting in their eyes.

“Isn’t that her?” one of them hissed. “Adrian’s ex?”

Before I could move, they were on me, microphones thrust forward, cameras flashing.

“Miss Hart, how does it feel to see your cousin take your place?”

“Were you really pregnant when Adrian left you?”

“Is it true you were in prison?”

Their voices stabbed into me, cruel and mocking, each question louder than the last. I stumbled back, my chest squeezing tight, but there was no escape. Their lenses caught every flicker of my panic, every tremble in my hands.

And then, suddenly, an arm slid around my waist, pulling me against a wall of unshakable strength.

I froze.

It was Damian’s.

He held me close, his expression unreadable as he turned to face the sea of cameras. The crowd hushed for a moment, sensing the gravity that seemed to follow him like a shadow.

“She is not Adrian’s anything,” Damian said, his voice carrying like thunder, smooth and commanding. “She is my future wife. And she carries my heir.”

The world went still.

The reporters gasped, then exploded into chaos, voices overlapping, flashes blinding.

“Mr. Blackwood, are you confirming an engagement?”

“Is this true, Miss Hart?”

“When is the wedding?”

I could barely breathe. My legs trembled, and if not for his grip, I would have collapsed right there on the pavement.

His words echoed inside me like a curse. My future wife. His heir.

I shoved at his chest as soon as he steered me into the waiting black car. The door slammed shut behind us, muting the frenzy outside. I rounded on him, fury burning hot enough to sear.

“What the hell was that?” My voice shook with disbelief. “You told them I was your wife. You told them this child is yours.”

He met my rage with infuriating calm. “Because now the world believes it. And once I say something, it becomes truth.”

I gaped at him. “You can’t just decide that I belong to you. That my baby belongs to you.”

He leaned forward, his dark eyes locking onto mine, his presence filling every corner of the car until it was hard to breathe. “Listen to me. Adrian and Eloise cannot touch you now. If they try to smear you, they smear me. If they try to take your child, they face the Blackwood name. From this moment on, you and your baby are untouchable. That is the difference between being alone and being mine.”

My pulse roared in my ears. I wanted to scream at him, to claw at the arrogance dripping from every word. But deep inside, a quiet truth throbbed. He was right. In one sentence, he had made the world see me differently. I was no longer a discarded lover. No longer a woman chewed up and forgotten. I was suddenly someone claimed by Damian Blackwood.

It terrified me.

It also lit a spark of something I didn’t want to name.

I swallowed hard, my throat raw. “And if I say no?”

His gaze never wavered. “Then you walk into the fire alone. And you already know how quickly it burns.”

Silence stretched thick between us, broken only by the roar of the engine as the car pulled away from the courthouse. I turned my face to the window, but my reflection betrayed me, my wide eyes betraying the storm I carried inside.

He needed an heir. And I was carrying one.

I had thought prison was the end of me. But sitting beside Damian Blackwood, I realized it might only have been the beginning.