Chapter 2 The Woman Who Doesn't Beg

Ava didn't cry.

She hadn't cried when her father remarried less than a year after her mother's funeral.

She hadn't cried when Margaret Blackwood slowly erased her from her own home.

She hadn't cried when Lily learned to smile sweetly while stealing everything Ava once called hers.

And she would not cry now.

She drove straight to the military-grade safe embedded beneath her apartment floor. Inside were documents, weapons, passports, and a single black folder marked BLACKWOOD ESTATE.

The inheritance clause was clear.

Married by twenty-eight, or forfeit everything.

Eleanor had written it.

Her father had signed it.

Ava had ten weeks.

She closed the folder and reached for her phone.

There was only one man in the world who could solve this problem without asking questions.

Only one man whose life she had pulled back from the edge of death.

Lucien Drake.

She sent a single message.

I'm calling in the debt.

Three seconds later, her phone rang.

"I was wondering when you'd come," Lucien said, his voice calm, lethal, and familiar.

Ava's lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile.

"I need a husband," she replied.

There was silence.

Then, quietly-

"Good," Lucien said. "I need a wife."