บททั้งหมดของ The Devil’s Contract: บทที่ 1 - บทที่ 6

By the time I realized the man across the table already knew my name, I had signed three pages of his contract. That should have been my first warning. It wasn’t. My first warning should have been the fact that no one smiled in this building. Not the woman who escorted me from the marble lobby. Not the security guard who inspected my purse as if I might be carrying a weapon beneath a packet of gum and two overdue credit card notices. Not the secretary sitting outside the thirty-seventh-floor office. And definitely not the man watching me from the other side of a black glass conference table. Lucian Vale. Thirty-five years old. Founder and chief executive officer of Vale Holdings. Net worth somewhere north of twelve billion dollars, depending on which article you believed. Owner of enough real estate to make three city skylines partially his. And, according to every search result I had stupidly devoured at two in the morning, one of the most private men in America. There

Chapter ThreeThe doorknob moved again.“Evelyn?”I backed away.Every instinct told me to answer.Someone was standing ten feet away, saying my name in a perfectly normal voice.That was exactly why I didn’t.“Lucian,” I whispered.“I’m here.”The calm had returned to his voice.Almost.“Who is outside my door?”“I don’t know.”“Bullshit.”A pause.“I don’t know who’s physically outside your door.”My stomach twisted.“That’s a very specific distinction.”“I know.”The man knocked.Three soft taps.“Miss Bennett?”Different now.Formal.Maybe staff.Maybe security.Maybe I was standing in the middle of a billionaire’s mansion clutching a seven-year-old photograph and having a nervous breakdown over someone bringing me towels.“Ask him his name,” Lucian said.I swallowed.“Who is it?”“Thomas, miss.”I looked toward the phone.As if Lucian could somehow see my expression.“Do you have a Thomas?”“No.”The answer was immediate.My blood went cold.The handle moved again.“Miss Bennett,

Chapter Five“A body.”I repeated the words because apparently my brain had decided refusing to understand them might make them less insane.Lucian didn’t move.I stared at him.“You put a body in my mother’s basement.”“Yes.”“An actual human body.”“Yes.”“Seven years ago.”“Yes.”I laughed.There was nothing funny about it, but I’d apparently reached the point in my life where laughter was the only alternative to screaming.“Okay.”“Evelyn—”“No. I’m just making sure we’re clear.”I held up one finger.“Yesterday, I was broke.”A second.“Then I agreed to marry a billionaire I’d never met.”Third.“This morning, I discovered said billionaire had apparently been watching me for seven years.”Fourth.“Then his dead brother broke into my bedroom.”Fifth.“I found out my father was secretly laundering money for a criminal billionaire.”Sixth.“Then I found out he was probably murdered.”I ran out of fingers on that hand and switched to the other.“And now you’re telling me there is a d