Chapter Four

Sophie's POV  

The cold came first.  

Not the controlled chill of Damien's penthouse climate system, nor the crisp autumn air beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows. This was the lethal cold of honed steel pressed against my jugular - so sharp it burned like fire where it touched skin.  

I didn't need to look down to identify the blade. I'd memorized its contours last Tuesday when I'd found Damien cleaning it at his desk, the ritualistic precision of his movements revealing more than any confession could. Damascus steel, hand-forged, with those hypnotic rippling patterns that caught light like liquid. Now those same deadly waves kissed my throat with silent promise.  

"Last chance to walk away," Damien murmured, his breath warm against the shell of my ear. The contrast was dizzying - the heat of his body pressed against my back, the glacial bite of the knife at my front. His free hand settled at my waist, pulling me flush against him in a cruel parody of intimacy.  

Through the thin silk of my dress, I could map every hard plane of his body. Could count each steady thud of his heartbeat against my spine. The bastard's breathing remained perfectly even - not a single tell to betray whatever game he was playing.  

"You'd lose your inheritance," I said, proud when my voice emerged steady despite the blade's threat.  

His chuckle vibrated through me, dark as the 25 year Macallan we'd been drinking before this little performance began. The knife didn't so much as tremble. "I'd find another wife."  

"Not like me." I tilted my head back deliberately, pressing my throat into the blade's edge. A sharp inhale caught in my chest as steel bit flesh, but I swallowed it down. "The board will smell blood in the water if you suddenly propose to some pedigreed socialite now. But me?"  

I turned in his arms, ignoring the sting as the knife traced a crimson line across my skin. Our faces were inches apart now, close enough that our breath mingled. "They'll believe you'd fall for a struggling artist with paint-stained fingers and rebellion in her eyes. It's practically Shakespearean."  

The silence between us stretched, taut as a garrote wire. 

Suddenly laughter. 

Damien's sudden laughter broke the awkward silence between us.

Dark. Rich. Approving.  

Damien sheathed the knife with a fluid twist of his wrist, the blade disappearing into some hidden compartment of his custom Tom Ford suit. "Hendricks was right," he mused, stepping back to survey me with something dangerously close to admiration. "You continue to be...entertaining."  

His thumb came up to catch the bead of blood welling at my throat. When he brought it to his lips, his tongue flicked out in a deliberately primal gesture that sent an unwanted shiver down my spine. The metallic tang must have pleased him - his pupils dilated fractionally as he met my gaze again.  

"Shall we make this arrangement official, darling?"  

  **The Lawyers Arrived at dawn**

Three of his. One of mine.  

Or rather, one I'd acquired through creative financing - Claudia Vasquez from the notorious boutique firm Sterling & Locke, who specialized in pre-nups for clients whose net worth required scientific notation. She'd cost me nearly every cent I'd scraped together since the gala incident, but the way her razor-sharp gaze immediately caught on Clause 17.2 told me the investment would pay dividends.  

"Material breach upon willful deception," Claudia read aloud, her voice crisp with professional appreciation. A blood-red nail tapped the subclause. "Exceptionally crafted."  

Damien's lead counsel - a human vulture named Richardson whose Patel Philippe probably cost more than my entire college education - snatched the page from her hands. "This wasn't in our draft!"  

"It is now." I sipped my espresso, watching Damien over the gilded rim of the antique Limoges cup. The bitter liquid matched perfectly with the taste of this dangerous game we played.  

The conference room erupted.  

"Completely unenforceable!"  

"No judge would uphold these terms!"  

"This penalty clause is absurd!"  

Through the cacophony, Damien remained preternaturally still. His gaze never wavered from mine, locked on with the intensity of a predator assessing new territory. I could practically see the calculations flickering behind those emerald eyes - risk assessments, threat analyses, cost-benefit ratios scrolling through that brilliant, twisted mind.  

Richardson threw down his Montblanc pen with enough force to crack the marble conference table. "She's attempting to eviscerate the entire agreement!"  

"Leave us."  

Damien's voice cut through the chaos like his knife through silk.  

The room emptied with remarkable speed.  

He moved like liquid shadow around the glass conference table, each step measured and predatory. When he stopped before me, the silk of his blue tie brushed my bare knee - black on bare skin still faintly streaked with cerulean from yesterday's painting session.  

"Explain."  

I held up the revised clause between two fingers, letting the paper tremble just enough to be noticeable - not from fear, but from the adrenaline singing through my veins. "If you lie to me about anything material to my personal or financial welfare, the contract nullifies immediately. I retain all compensation. And I walk away free."  

His fingers closed around my wrist, his thumb pressing into the delicate tracery of bones and veins. Not enough to hurt. Just enough to remind me of the strength coiled in those elegant hands. 

"You think I'd simply allow that?"  

"I think you're a man who understands incentive structures." I leaned in until I could count his individual lashes, close enough to catch the faintest whisper of his cologne - bergamot and smoked oak and something darker beneath. Our lips nearly brushed as I whispered, "Consider this your motivation to be...truthful."  

For one suspended heartbeat, I thought he might close that final distance.  

Suddenly.......

He reached for the pen.  

"Five million dollars," he said as he signed, the ink flowing dark as venous blood across the pristine vellum. "For six months of honesty."  

The scratch of the fountain pen seemed obscenely loud in the silent room. When he finished, he capped it with a decisive click that echoed like a gunshot before meeting my gaze.  

"Your turn, Sophie."    

As the lawyers filed back in, murmuring over the finalized terms like vultures circling carrion, I pressed two fingers to the shallow cut on my throat. The blood had already crusted into a delicate scarlet crescent.  

Damien watched me from across the table, his expression inscrutable. The morning light caught the gold strands in his hair, transforming him momentarily into some gilded Renaissance angel - beautiful and utterly merciless.  

I signed my name with a theatrical flourish, the ink pooling slightly where I pressed too hard. When I looked up, I found him wearing that rare, genuine smile - the one that transformed his face from merely handsome to devastating.  

"Welcome to the family, Mrs. Blackstone."  

I returned his smile with one of my own, all sharp edges and promised violence.  

Because this wasn't merely a contract.  

It was a declaration of war.  

And I had just fired the opening salvo.