Chapter 1: The Contract

My apartment was barely standing.

The paint was peeling, the kitchen faucet dripped constantly, and I had bills stacked like a paper fortress on my tiny counter. I shoved the last envelope onto the pile without opening it. Probably another rejection letter from the design firms that had been ignoring my portfolio for months.

After the fifteenth, "thank you for your interest, but..." I'd learned to expect disappointment.

Still, each letter felt like another door slamming shut on the life I'd dreamed of building.

Interior design had been my passion since I was twelve. I was always sketching room layouts on napkins and trying to rearrange the furniture in our cramped childhood home, which annoyed my mother to no end.

Now those dreams lived in sketch pads buried beneath student loan statements, gathering dust along with my hope of ever escaping the endless cycle of dead-end admin jobs.

Beside the bills lay my half-finished crossword, clues scribbled in my messy handwriting.

Ancient Roman garment, four letters.

Solving puzzles had always been my quiet escape, the one thing that made sense when nothing else did. There was something comforting about problems that actually had solutions, where the right answer existed and all I had to do was find it.

My phone buzzed. A text popped up. Alex.

Still on for Sunday dinner? I'm bringing that girl I mentioned. Fair warning: she's smarter than the both of us.

Despite how crappy I felt, I smiled. At twenty two, my brother had become everything I'd hoped he’d be:brilliant, kind, completely absorbed in his engineering studies. Alex had inherited our father's gentle nature and our mother's razor-sharp intellect.

Our parents had died in a car accident a few years ago when Alex was just seventeen, and I was twenty one. I was just old enough to become his legal guardian, yet young enough to have absolutely no idea what I was doing.

The life insurance had covered the funeral costs and some months of expenses, but raising a teenager while finishing college had meant shelving my own dreams and finding something practical to do. Alex had helped where he could, but I wanted him focused on his future.

Watching him build bridges and being able to solve equations that looked like hieroglyphics made every sacrifice worth it.

Alex was going to change the world, build things that mattered, and have the kind of successful career I'd always dreamed of having.

Another buzz. Mara. Wine night, Friday? You've been MIA lately and I'm worried about you. Also I saw that job posting at Morrison's and didn't hear you say anything about it. What gives Lena?

I bit my lip.

Mara Blair had been my best friend since we'd bonded over terrible cafeteria pizza in the tenth grade. She was also relentlessly optimistic and refused to let me give up on my dreams, even when I convinced myself it was the right thing to do.

I'm ok, I texted, though we both knew it was a lie. And Morrison wanted five years experience for an entry level position. Makes total sense.

Sighing, I put the phone down, needing to focus on my current problem.

Rent and how I’d pay it.

Great.

I grabbed my pen and started scribbling: ramen for two weeks, find something to sell on F******k Marketplace, maybe skip groceries entirely...

After 10 minutes, the calculations were depressing enough that all I could think of was crawling into bed and crying myself to sleep.

Only ice cream could get me through this.

I thought of my emergency pint of Pistachio caramel I’d stashed away for safekeeping in the back of my freezer.

Pulling the ice cream from its hiding place, I felt the smallest bit of happiness for the first time in days.

I savored the taste in my mouth, wishing I had more.

Then the knock came.

I froze, not expecting anyone.

And this knock was different.

Not the usual rap of the landlord, annoyed that I was paying late…again. And it wasn’t the soft tap of Ms.Gorman who usually came asking to borrow milk.

So who was it?

I hesitated, until something under the door caught my eye.

An envelope.

How had I not noticed it before?

I moved slowly as I went to pick it up.

Cream-colored, heavy, and stamped with a wax seal I'd seen in magazines: The famed Black family crest.

Damien Black.

The name alone made my stomach drop.

I'd read about him in business journals and gossip columns alike: billionaire, gorgeous, utterly ruthless. Dark hair, dark eyes, dark reputation. The kind of man who destroyed companies before breakfast and never explained why. Never in my life would I have imagined he'd know I existed.

My fingers trembled as I broke the seal. Inside was a single document that made my blood run cold.

MARRIAGE CONTRACT

This agreement shall be binding upon signature by both parties…

The legal language blurred together until I reached the handwritten note pinned to the bottom:

Sign this or someone dies.

What?

The paper slipped from my fingers.

This had to be a joke. But if it wasn’t…

I instinctively pulled out my phone, my fingers poised to call for help.

I paused.

Who would I call and what would I even say to them?

Hey, a billionaire is threatening to kill someone unless I marry him…send help.

No one would believe it.

I couldn’t even believe it.

I jumped as another knock came.

Panic flooded my system, my mind racing through all the possibilities, none of them good.

What kind of sick game was this?

On shaking legs, I crept to the peephole. I needed to know who stood on the other side.

Tall, broad-shouldered, with the kind of dark features that belonged on warning labels.

Damien.

His suit was expensive and he radiated the kind of authority that would make most people shake.

Even with the door between us, his presence felt overwhelming.

"Miss Brooks," he said as if sensing I was there pressed against the door. His voice was exactly what I'd expected. Deep, controlled, the kind of voice that made CEOs and world leaders sit up straight.

"Open the door."

Not a request.

A command.

I glanced back at the contract scattered across my floor. Every survival instinct in me screamed to run, but where could I go? If he'd found me once, he could find me again.

He didn't knock again.

That patience, that absolute certainty that I would eventually comply…was more terrifying than anything else.

I wanted to scream, to demand answers, to wake up from whatever nightmare I'd stumbled into. But I couldn't ignore the reality staring me in the face.

He was here. I had nowhere to run. And the contract on my floor suggested that ignoring him wasn't really an option.

My hand moved to the deadbolt before my conscious mind even made the decision. I heard the lock turn with a click.

Behind me, the crossword puzzle sat abandoned on my table, that half-finished clue mocking me with its simplicity.

Ancient Roman garment, four letters.

Toga.

Such an easy answer when my entire world was about to collapse.