Chapter 1 1

The reflection in the floor-to-ceiling window of the skyscraper office didn't look like her.

It looked like a ghost. A very expensive, very breakable ghost wrapped in a simple wool coat that felt woefully inadequate in a room that probably cost more than a mid-sized sedan. The man sitting opposite her, Camden Benjamin, hadn't looked at her face once. His gaze was fixed on the file between them, his expression as sterile as the minimalist decor.

"The terms are non-negotiable, Ms. Harding," he said, his voice a low baritone that seemed to absorb all the sound in the room. "You become my wife in name only. In return, Benjamin Capital will acquire the outstanding debt of the Harding Gallery, preventing its bankruptcy. Your uncle and aunt will be removed from the board. You will be granted full control."

Her fingers, hidden in the pockets of her coat, trembled. She reached for the notepad and pen on the table, her only voice in a world that had stolen it from her. The cold, hard plastic of the pen bit into her thumb. It was a small, insignificant object, yet it held the power to sign her life away.

He finally glanced at her, his gray eyes narrowing. They were the color of a winter storm, intelligent and utterly devoid of warmth. He wasn't looking at her; he was assessing an asset.

"You understand that this arrangement requires absolute discretion and public compliance," he continued, his tone flat. "You will play the part of the adoring fiancée, and then wife. There will be no scandals. You will be... docile."

Docile. The word hung in the air, a bitter echo of another man's preference. She hated that word.

Her stomach churned, a familiar mix of nausea and adrenaline. Three years. Three years she had been Julian Thorne's docile fiancée, a performance perfected in hell. It had ended in a firestorm of betrayal, leaving her with nothing but a mountain of debt her uncle had created and the threat of losing the last piece of her parents: their gallery.

"And in one year," Camden added, tapping a clause on the paper with a manicured finger, "once my obligations to my family's trust are fulfilled, we will have a quiet, amicable divorce. You will leave with the gallery, free and clear, and a settlement that will ensure your silence."

It was a deal with the devil, a gilded cage offered by a man who looked like he'd been carved from ice. He was offering her a weapon to fight her family, but the price was her freedom.

She picked up the pen. Her hand was shaking, but her resolve was not.

On the notepad, she wrote a single question.

Why me?

He leaned back, the leather of his chair groaning softly. It was the first sign of anything less than perfect control he'd shown.

"Because you have no family that matters, no significant personal connections, and a reputation that is currently in ruins," he stated, not cruelly, but as a fact. "You are desperate. That makes you predictable. And safe."

He slid the contract across the polished mahogany. "Sign it, Edlyn. Or walk out that door and watch your world burn to the ground."

She looked at his outstretched pen. She thought of her uncle, Marcus, and her cousin, Chloe, who had laughed while they plotted to sell her parents' legacy for parts. She thought of Julian, who had stood by their side.

They wanted her to run. They wanted her to cry, to flee in shame.

Then, she stopped shaking.

She took the pen.

Her signature was a thin, jagged line on the paper. The moment the ink touched the page, she felt a shackle lock around her wrist, invisible but heavier than steel.

"Good girl," Camden murmured, though there was no affection in it. It was the sound of a transaction being completed. "My lawyer will be in touch."

He stood, offering not his arm, but a curt nod toward the door. The deal was done. She was no longer Edlyn Harding, gallery assistant. She was a commodity he had just acquired.

She walked out of the sanctuary and into a different kind of slaughterhouse.