Chapter Five: The Terms

The silence between us pressed against my chest like a weighted hand. Dominic Blackwood sat at the edge of my hospital bed, his fingers laced together, elbows resting on his thighs. He stared straight into my soul and all I wanted to do was disappear.

“There’s no room for hesitation now,” he said without preamble. “You agreed. Let’s finalize this now.”

I blinked, still dazed. “Can you just… give me a second to think?”

He looked up then, slowly. One brow lifted. “A second?”

My jaw clenched. “Forgive me if my brain isn’t functioning at your desired speed, Mr Blackwood. I fell out of a fifteen-story window just yesterday. Nearly lost my baby. And I just found out my entire life has been a pathetic performance for a family that tried to kill me.”

His face didn’t shift much—but the corners of his mouth curled ever so slightly.

No amusement. No warmth.

Just something that might’ve been the ghost of a smirk.

Then he turned his back to me and pulled out his phone.

“Bring it in,” he said quietly into the receiver. Then he hung up.

I stared at his back, trying to steady my breathing.

This is my life now?

This cold man. This cold room. This cold silence.

Have I gotten myself into the worst situation I could ever imagine?

My fingers tightened around the edge of the blanket. I watched his shoulders, the rigid line of his posture, the precision in the way he moved. Dominic Blackwood looked like a man who’d never once lost control of anything.

And now he wanted me.

I didn’t know what I’d expected when I said yes. Didn't know what I was thinking.

Maybe a heartbeat of comfort. Maybe some hint of alliance, of mutual pain, of understanding.

But Dominic didn’t do comfort.

He did strategy.

I looked down at my hands—scratched, bruised, still stained faintly with blood. Blake had left me to die. Victoria had prayed for a miscarriage. Delilah had smirked as she tried to push me through glass.

And I had survived.

For what?

To sign my name beneath another man’s?

No. No.

Not anymore.

This isn’t submission.

This is infiltration.

The door opened without a knock. A young man in a charcoal-gray suit stepped inside, holding a thick black folder with golden corners. His face was sharp, almost too clean. Assistant, I thought. Or bodyguard. Maybe both.

He crossed the room in brisk, soundless steps and handed the folder to Dominic.

“What is that?” I asked, voice dry.

The assistant didn’t even blink. “Your marriage contract, Ma’am.”

I stared at him.

Dominic offered the folder without a word.

I didn’t move.

My throat felt like sandpaper. “You drew up a legal contract in—what—less than twenty-four hours?”

His voice was silk dipped in steel. “Efficiency is one of my few virtues.”

I swallowed hard, fingers curling into the thin hospital blanket. “I said I’d marry you. I didn’t say I’d sign my life away.”

He looked up then, storm-gray eyes cutting into mine like scalpels. “You won’t be signing your life away. You’ll be trading it up.”

“For what?” I whispered. “Another cage?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he flipped the folder open and pulled out a sleek contract—black ink on ivory paper, his signature already scrawled across the bottom. I recognized the Reynolds family lawyer’s seal in the corner. Somehow that made it worse.

Hysteria started to bubble up. This is too much, this… this is-

“Take it,” he said.

I reached for the folder with reluctant hands. The weight of it startled me. Inside, page after page of clauses, conditions, contingencies. I scanned the first lines.

A cold ball of nausea settled in my stomach as I skimmed the clauses.

Marriage, public and legal. Duration: one year minimum.

Three scheduled public appearances a week.

No other romantic affiliations.

No unauthorized interviews.

All assets merged, then returned after divorce.

In exchange? A fifty million dollar deposit, transferred to my name upon signing.

What?!

I nearly dropped the folder.

“Read it,” Dominic said.

“I am.”

“You’re trembling.”

“I’m exhausted.” I am trembling.

He said nothing. Just studied me with that same detached curiosity—like I was a chess piece he was still learning how to move.

I flipped to the last page and saw his signature already there.

Dominic Elias Blackwood.

And waiting beneath it: a blank line for me.

I looked up, throat tight. “You’re really serious about this.”

He pulled out his phone and tapped something.

A moment later, he turned the screen toward me.

Account Credit Alert: +$50,000,000 USD

Sender: Blackwood Enterprises

I blinked. “That’s already… mine?”

He nodded once. “Sealed the moment you said ‘I accept.’ I’m not in the habit of making empty offers.”

“You didn’t even wait for me to read it.”

“You’re pregnant, broke, and hunted. I assumed urgency was a factor.”

My throat tightened. I looked at the money again. Fifty million. I could vanish with that. Start over in another country. Build a life for me and my baby, far from Blake, far from all of this.

But Blake would follow.

The Reynolds would hunt me down and declare me insane.

They’d win. They always did.

I forced myself to look up. “Let's go through my conditions now.”

Dominic nodded. “Let’s do that.”

“I’m not your puppet. If you want me to play the role, I’ll do it. But I won’t be controlled like I was before.”

He said nothing, but the air grew sharper around him.

“No interference with my medical care,” I continued. “No say over how I raise my baby. No demands on my body. I’m not sleeping with you. This will be a marriage in name, not in flesh.”

A slow smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You think I’m that desperate for sex?”

“I think you’re the type of man who never does anything without strings.”

His eyes flicked down to the contract. “Fine. Add it.”

“You’ll sign it?”

“I’ll sign anything that doesn’t get in my way. And remember, I’m not marrying you for warmth, Scarlett. I’m marrying you to burn the Reynolds empire.” He grabbed the pen from the side table and scribbled his name again beneath my added conditions. Then he slid the folder toward me. “Your turn.”

My fingers hovered above the page.

This isn’t love. It isn’t even kindness.

It is survival, wearing a silk tie.

I picked up the pen and signed.

When I looked back up, something flickered across Dominic’s face—gone too quickly to name.

“It’s done,” I whispered.

“Yes,” he said softly. “You’re mine now, Scarlett. Legally. Publicly. And for the next year, unshakably.”

The weight of those words settled into my bones.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to run.

Instead, I leaned back into the pillows and stared at the ceiling.

Was this what winning felt like?

It didn’t feel like freedom.

It felt like falling again—but this time, without a window to blame.

He walked toward the door, then paused, hand on the knob. “We get married in forty-eight hours.”

My chest tightened. “That fast?”

“The world doesn’t wait, Scarlett. Neither do I.”

Then he opened the door, walked out, and left me alone—with fifty million dollars, a baby growing inside me, and a future married to a man who smiled like sin and made promises like war.

Doomed, I am doomed.