Prologue

Prologue

The night breeze felt cold against my damp skin, sending goosebumps across my arms and shoulders as I stood frozen at the edge of the pool. My black top and short shorts was dripping wet and was clinging to every curve of my body and water dripped from my hair down my back.

The towel I held felt suddenly useless in my hand.

Keegan Blackwood stood only a few feet away from me looking different under the moonlight. He looked less like the cold, untouchable billionaire I worked for and more like a man.

He was wearing black trousers and a fitted dark t-shirt that stretched across his broad chest and muscular arms and his striking blue eyes were locked onto me with an intensity that made my stomach twist.

The air between us felt thick, heavy and charged with something I couldn’t name.

“You’re doing it again,” I whispered, my voice softer than I wanted it to be.

Mr Blackwood took one slow step closer. “Doing what?”

“Looking at me like that,” I breathed. “Like you’re trying to figure something out. Like you’re trying to figure me out.”

He didn’t deny it, instead he leaned in slightly closing the distance between us even more. He was so close that I could feel the heat radiating from his body and his rich, woody and dangerously addictive scent wrapped around me.

“Nara…” he said, my name rolling off his tongue . His voice had dropped lower and was rougher sending a shiver racing straight down my spine.

I couldn’t move or look away as the moonlight highlighted every sharp line of his face,like his strong jaw, his high cheekbones and piercing blue eyes that seemed to see straight through me.

Yeah, my boss was beautiful in the most terrifying way possible.

He was cold, distant and frankly speaking very impossible to work with. He gave orders through an intercom like a ghost, disappeared for days, and had more rules than I could count. And yet… every time we were in the same space, the air crackled with something unknown.

Then he continued in a voice that sent heat flooding through my body and spoke the words that completely destroyed my world.

“Marry me.”

The world stopped as I stared at him like he had lost his mind, stunned into absolute silence. My lips parted, but no sound came out and the towel slipped from my numb fingers and fell softly to the floor between us with a quiet thud.

Marry him?

This cold, ruthless and emotionally unavailable man who wore black gloves like armor and had hundred pages of strict rules and a gorgeous fiancee had just asked me to be his wife.

My mind went completely blank.

“What… what did you just say?” I finally managed in a shaky and disbelieving voice which was barely above a whisper.

Mr Blackwood didn’t flinch or smile. He didn’t say it was a joke or even take it back, like I thought he would. Those intense blue eyes stayed locked on mine with a terrifying kind of certainty as he took one final step closer, towering over me.

“You heard me, Nara.”

Heat rushed to my face and my heart was beating so wildly I was sure he could hear it as I continued staring at him.

This wasn’t a joke or some kind of twisted game.

I stood there, dripping wet, breathing too fast and staring up at the most complicated man I had ever met. I was completely speechless and for the first time since I started working for him, I had absolutely no idea what to say.

 Because Keegan Blackwood the reclusive billionaire who never let anyone close had just proposed to me.