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A Proposal in Disguise

Author: Winternight
last update Last Updated: 2025-06-28 21:26:03

PRESENT DAY

Frederick stood at the observation window of one of New York’s top trauma hospitals, arms folded as he listened to the head physician rattle off stats and success rates. His gaze, however, was elsewhere. He barely registered the room’s polished sterility or the pristine white coats bustling through double doors. His attention was drawn to the woman who had just walked in from a side corridor, clipboard in hand, her hair longer than he remembered, tied back in a low ponytail.

She moved with practiced ease, her scrubs slightly creased, a stethoscope slung carelessly around her neck. There was something familiar about the way she furrowed her brow while reading a patient chart, something in the curve of her mouth as she murmured instructions to a nurse. The name tag clipped to her chest read Dr. Amelia Hart.

Frederick didn’t move, didn’t blink. It was her. He didn’t need confirmation. She passed him without recognition, her steps brisk, her mind elsewhere. He turned his head slightly, watching her disappear through a side door.

"Luke," he said quietly. His assistant, who had been talking to a resident across the room, stepped beside him.

"Yes?"

"That doctor, Amelia Hart. I want a full file. Education, family, work history. Discreetly."

Luke gave a slight nod, not asking questions. He's been with Frederick long enough to not ask questions.

Later that evening, Amelia returned to Jane’s apartment. The day had been long, and the week longer, but nothing prepared her for finding a man in a tailored navy coat leaning against the doorframe.

She stopped short. Her keys froze halfway into the lock.

"Dr. Hart," he said, his voice smooth, precise. "I hope I’m not intruding."

She frowned. "Do I know you?"

"Not yet. My name is Frederick Blackwell. I believe you’ve heard of the Blackwell Foundation."

She blinked, unsure how to respond. Everyone in the medical field had heard of the Blackwell Foundation. Grants, endowments, infrastructure. But why would he be here?

"I’m listening" she said cautiously.

He straightened and gestured for her to unlock the door. "May I come in?"

"Jane isn’t home yet" she said.

"This is about your clinic, not Jane. I promise this will only take five minutes."

She hesitated, then pushed the door open. He entered without hesitation, his eyes briefly scanning the modest apartment. There were textbooks stacked on the counter and an unopened bottle of wine on the coffee table.

"Have a seat," she said. She stayed standing.

He didn’t sit. He turned to face her directly. "I know about your off-site community clinic. I know it’s underfunded and that your last proposal for city support was denied."

Her arms folded. "Are you spying on me?"

"No," he said simply. "I’m offering you help."

Her brow arched.

"A partnership. Funding, upgrades, staffing support. I believe your clinic could be something great."

She laughed quietly, disbelieving. "And what do you want in return?"

He didn’t flinch. "Your time. A personal contract. It’s a business proposal, but it involves public appearances and the maintenance of a temporary relationship dynamic. I need someone like you."

"Like me?"

"Smart. Poised. Capable. Convincing."

She studied him, trying to piece it all together. "This sounds like a PR arrangement."

"In a way. There’s a legacy in motion. My name, my company, everything my grandfather left behind—it hinges on perception. I need a partner. You need support."

She hesitated. "This is insane."

"Most opportunities are, until you take them."

He turned to leave, then stopped at the door. "Think about it, Dr. Hart. I don’t need an answer tonight."

She watched the door close behind him, her pulse racing.

A contract. A man who appeared out of nowhere, offering everything she thought she’d have to fight for alone.

She looked down at her hands and realized they were trembling.

Outside, Frederick stepped into the backseat of his car and adjusted his cuffs. Luke looked at him in the rearview mirror.

"So?"

Frederick only said, "She’s perfect."

*****

Jane got back home a little after 11 and found Amelia on her laptop. Amelia did not acknowledge her presence immediately she walked in.

"Um, hi. Hello, I'm back. " Jane mocked as she walked into Amelia's point of view

"Yea, sorry. I'm just..." She turned the laptop's screen to face Jane.

She was looking up Blackwell Empire. "Why are you stalking The Blackwells?"

"You know about them? I mean, apart from their foundation."

"Everyone does. Multibillionaire legacy. Generational wealth. An empire and establishments is all seven continents. They're not just rich, they're bloody rich."

"Okay...umm.." Amelia narrated the day's events to Jane.

"What the hell? He came here? Wait, what did you say?"

"I..I just called his bluff and that was it."

"Girl, we need the money and before you say you're gonna come off as easy, it's a contractual marriage. It's just for the press."

"Um, so...wait. This is crazy. All I have to do is just play pretend to an entire world I have no idea of."

"We need funding but we also need to be careful. If you read the contract and it's shady, you walk out immediately. Whatever decision you take, I'm ten toes behind you."

"He didn't leave his card or anything. So, I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed."

Amelia went back to doomscrolling through Wikipedia when an email came in.

Blackwell Enterprises.

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Comments (8)
goodnovel comment avatar
Aira
hear me out Amelia is falling in love with him first and Fredrick won't let go of her.
goodnovel comment avatar
Damigella
she's falling first and he's falling harder!!! I love it
goodnovel comment avatar
Bubblegum
Fredrick is going fall hard like the walls of jericho
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  • Sinful Arrangement   When The Walls Watch

    The screen went black.The last flicker of that familiar hair burned into Amelia’s mind, lodging itself behind her eyes like a splinter she couldn’t pry free. The silence that followed was worse than the ping of alarms, worse than the static hum of the machines. It was heavy. Crushing.Frederick didn’t move at first. He stood there, muscles locked, jaw clenched, one hand braced against the console as if the weight of the entire Empire rested on that single point of contact.She wanted to reach for him, to close the gap, but she knew him well enough now to recognize the stillness. It wasn’t calm. It was storm.When he finally spoke, his voice was a low scrape of gravel. “They want me to believe it’s you.”Her throat tightened. She took one step closer, her bare feet whispering against the polished floor. “And do you?”The question hung between them.Slowly, painfully, Frederick turned his head. His eyes found hers, dark and raw, threaded with a kind of fear she had never seen in him be

  • Sinful Arrangement   Through The Fractured Veil

    Amelia’s chest tightened so fiercely that it felt as if her lungs had been compressed in a vice. Her fingers shook as she reached for the folder, as though touching it might erase the damning truth printed in cold black letters. She didn’t. She couldn’t. To do so would be to admit that maybe, in some twisted corner of reality, the accusation could be true. That maybe her presence at the Empire had been exploited, or worse, that someone had used her without her knowing.“Frederick…” Her voice trembled, soft, almost pleading. “You have to believe me. I wasn’t there. I didn’t—”“Then explain it,” he snapped, the words slicing through the room. His hands clenched the folder until the edges bent. “Tell me how your card was used at the Empire at the exact time the security systems were breached. Because right now, Amelia, it looks like you’ve been lying to me.”The accusation hung in the air like smoke, curling around her ribs, suffocating. She took a trembling step back, then another, the

  • Sinful Arrangement   Shadows In Her Name

    Amelia’s breath refused to steady. She sat on the floor of her clinic, glass scattered like sharp stars around her, the note still trembling in her hand. Patients whispered, some cried, nurses tried to calm them, but all the noise blurred into the background. The only thing clear was the paper between her fingers, the threat carved into it with jagged strokes.He will never be yours.The words seared her like an open flame, and for a moment, she thought she might choke on the weight of them. She’d known from the start that being tied to Frederick painted a target on her back, but seeing it written so bluntly, so personally, cut deeper than anything else. This wasn’t just about him. Whoever had sent this wanted her gone. Wanted her broken.The phone still lay where it had fallen, Frederick’s voice spilling out in fragments. “Amelia? … answer me. Amelia.” His tone carried a sharpness that made her chest tighten, as if he were here already, pulling her up, shielding her with that unshaka

  • Sinful Arrangement   The Woman In The Frame

    By the time the room emptied, Frederick was no closer to breathing.He had ordered them out—every technician, every guard, every last witness to the frame frozen on the wall. The silence that followed pressed against his skull, thick and suffocating, leaving him alone with the glow of screens and the shape of a woman who could not, must not, be Amelia.He replayed it again. The movement. The fall of hair over the shoulder. The turn of her body as the ID card was swiped. Credentials flashed on the corner of the screen: Dr. Amelia Hart.Each time, the same truth stared back at him, and each time he refused to believe it.His fists clenched at his sides. His pulse was a steady roar in his ears, drowning out reason, drowning out memory. Yet memory fought to surface—her voice shaking in the dark when she confessed her nightmares, the way her breath trembled against his chest, the desperate honesty in her eyes when she let him touch her as though she’d been waiting her whole life for someon

  • Sinful Arrangement   Shape of Doubt

    The knock at his door barely registered. It came again, firmer this time, and Luke’s voice followed.“Frederick. We need to talk.”Frederick closed the folder slowly, his jaw set. His reflection stared back at him in the glass, sharp and unreadable. The pieces were shifting, and for the first time in a long while, he felt the fragile edges of control slipping through his hands.He didn’t answer immediately. The silence stretched, filled with the faint hum of the city outside and the measured beat of his own heart. When he finally said, “Come in,” his voice was quieter than usual, almost too calm, as if the storm had already begun inside him.Luke stepped through, shutting the door behind him. He looked as though he’d aged in the last hour—eyes sharp but tired, shoulders heavy with whatever truth he carried. He hesitated only for a second before placing a flash drive on the desk between them.“You’re going to want to see this.”Frederick’s fingers tapped the wood, deliberate, steady. H

  • Sinful Arrangement   Between Breath and Fear

    The light found them slowly. Thin streaks slipped through the curtains, crawling across the floorboards and over the tangled sheets, until they reached the bed where Frederick and Amelia still lay. The room felt quieter than it had the night before, as though it knew not to intrude. Her head rested against his shoulder, her breath moving in sync with his, while his hand remained curved possessively at her waist, anchoring her against him even in sleep.But they were awake. Not completely, not ready to leave the safety of the dim morning, but awake enough to know that the night had changed something between them.Amelia shifted first, her eyelashes brushing against his skin as she blinked up at him. She didn’t speak, only watched him, as though trying to memorize the exact weight of his presence after such an unguarded night. Frederick’s gaze followed hers, steady and unreadable at first, until his thumb began to draw idle circles against her side. A small gesture, but enough to tell h

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