Political Marriage With A Friendly Enemy Novels & Stories

he said. I looked at him. “Not because the first one wasn’t real,” he said immediately, turning to meet my eyes. “It was real. It became real. I’m not trying to erase it or replace it.” He held my gaze with that particular steadiness that I had come to understand was not the absence of feeling but its most concentrated form. “I want to marry you in a room full of people who know us. With your mother there, and Amara, and Diana. With vows that we write ourselves and that say what’s actually true rather than what an officiant provided.” He paused. “I want to do it because we choose to. Not because an arrangement required it.”

She clung to Eric's arm and mentioned with a grin, "No worries. We can start over and get to know each other again." This so-called best friend of mine wasted no time flaunting her affection with Eric the moment she thought I'd lost my memory, her gaze laced with provocation. And Eric? He seemed to relish the thrill of cozying up to another woman right in front of his girlfriend. "Lila's right. You two are best friends, and your boyfriends are best buddies too—what a coincidence!" "It's all good. Just think of it as meeting a new friend for the first time."

Myaeb would have helped Enoch's business better than his son, who was currently ruining everything with his poor decisions. "Did you just decide to marry me? We've never met, and in no world is that normal," she threw back at me. I had not expected her to get confrontational with me. I lean in and shake my head. "I guess I am not normal, right?" I smirk, and she looks at me unimpressed by my choice of words. "At least not according to the rumours." "You want to know a lot, but the truth is that the less you know, the safer you are," I say. It's too early to let her know she was going to work against her family. "I am your husband now, and that is all that matters."

"Let me correct you. There is no matrimony here. Just leverage. Just a pawn-me-handed over like property to secure peace between monsters." The guests gasped, their faces a picture of shock and fascination. Mikhail's eyes locked onto hers, his gaze like frostbite. Donatella's smile never wavered. "So let's raise our glasses, shall we? To fear disguised as loyalty. To strategy disguised as vows. And to a marriage forged not in love-but in power." She downed the champagne in one go, the glass shattering on the floor like a promise of things to come. The silence that followed was deafening.

“Get ready in an hour.” I don’t say anything. I just turn and walk towards the door. And when I turn to look at him, my hands on the knob, he isn’t looking at me. That’s enough I need to walk away. If he’s going to detach, then I will too. Besides, the marriage was never for any of our personal desire, but rather, a strategic alliance to destroy our mutual enemies.

Three times. Marriage Contract — Aria Coleman & Damien Blackwood. "You want me to marry Damien Blackwood." Not a question. A statement delivered from somewhere very flat and very dangerous. "It's a business arrangement…" "Answer the question Dad." He loosened his tie. His tell. I had been watching him do it my whole life and it always meant the same thing, he knew he was wrong and had already decided he didn't care. "Yes," he said. "Damien Blackwood."

And somewhere along the way, we both started to want a life beyond the battlefield—something like a home of our own. The decree of reward and the marriage edict spread through the capital at the same time. On the day before my wedding, news came that Yuvan had taken his own life. I looked up at the birds flying freely across the sky, and could only think how unpredictable life truly was. I hoped that in his next life, he would live more simply and happily, and that he would never again let hatred take control of his entire existence.

She thought about 1998, about Wolfe Meridian Corp, and about the brutal efficiency of a plan that didn't just neutralize the threat but removed the person behind it from the board entirely. "He will know it was me," she said. "When it collapses, he will know I was involved." "Yes," Caiden said. "Does that change anything?" He looked at her across the desk. "It changes nothing," he said. "He will know you were involved and he will know I was involved, and he will know that the two of us, together, ended him. I consider that an appropriate outcome." She looked at him. Together. The word settled somewhere deep inside her. Once, this marriage had been nothing more than a contract. Somewhere alon