Chapter 5 The Anonymous Threat

CHAPTER 5

Rose's POV

Morning came like a thief, stealing away the night. Creeping in through the window, while the morning breeze lightly caressed my face. Today should be my day off at work, I thought to myself.

Yes, it was. That meant I had all day to stretch, run, make breakfast, do more research on Damien Sterling, and see if I can find some guy to drag to bed. That thought made me smile, pulling my lower lip between my teeth.

That sounded nice. I just needed to arrange my room to prepare for the man. I stretched, sinking into the feeling of my warm, cozy bed with its silky sheets.

Silky sheet? Silky?

I frowned, squeezing and realizing it didn't feel like a fabric. I dared to open my eyes, and what I saw made me scream out loud.

In a jiffy, I was off the bed, shaking like a leaf on water.

"What the hell? Why did you let me do all that?"

He raised a brow, looking even sexier than I remembered, with his hair tousled-looking like I did that to him-and his arm propped on the side to support his head. A smirk curled the corner of his lips. "What? I thought you were practicing how to act like a lover."

Judging by how hot my face felt, I knew I was red all over. I hoped it was obvious it was from anger, not embarrassment. But then my nose twitched. My body was betraying me.

"I wasn't..." This was my chance to redeem myself. "You're right. I was practicing. Now, I'd like to take a shower and go back home."

"Really? Well, before you do that, I need to make things very clear." His tone was serious, and that made me feel squirmy.

He disappeared through a door and came back about a minute later.

"While you were asleep, I had my assistant draw this up." He handed a stack of papers to me. "That's a contract, if you don't already know what it is."

"I know what a contract is," I murmured, flipping through the pages. One stopped me in my tracks. "Rules?"

"Yes," he answered too casually, leaning against a nearby table with his arms folded. "If we are going to get through this safely, you have to abide by them."

I glanced back down at the list of ridiculous rules, scoffing at each one.

"I have to come live with you, cut off romantic ties, and play my role perfectly?" I chuckled. "What is this? Enslavement?"

But when I looked back up at him, he wasn't smiling. "If you want us to work together to find your sister, you'll do these." He checked his wristwatch. "I'll drop you at yours. Tomorrow morning, I'll send my assistant to get your things. See you later, partner."

The car finally stopped in front of my house, but nothing about my place felt the same anymore. The warmth and sanity I used to know had dissipated, replaced by the chilling certainty that I couldn't stay there anymore.

My phone pinged. I checked and saw it was a message notification. Someone had dropped a photo, and it was an unknown number.

I clicked on the photo. My knees buckled, and I held on to a nearby chair, settling on it. It was a picture of my sister, battered and beaten up, with a gun to her head. A message popped up underneath it.

"Play your role perfectly if you want to see your sister again."

***

While the sun rose high in the sky, I was dressed in a casual crop t-shirt, a pair of joggers, and some sneakers. I put my hair up in a ponytail and grabbed my suitcase before stepping outside to a sleek, black Audi. A tall, lanky man with a pair of tiny rimmed glasses stood like a statue by the backseat door. He looked primed and proper, like a chauffeur.

"I'm here to pick you up on orders of Mr. Damien Sterling. I'll help you with your luggage." Before I could refuse, the middle-aged-looking man with an unsmiling face had grabbed my suitcase and put it in the trunk.

In no time, we were moving. Except we weren't on the way to the Sterling estate. I didn't bother to ask, as the chauffeur already looked like he'd been bothered his whole life. I just trusted fate to lead me somewhere nice. And that it did.

The building before me looked more like a home than the one at the estate. It was tall, but the architecture wasn't dystopian. It looked like the owner built it to move his family of four into it. While I was still admiring the house, a woman approached me.

She was tall and slender, her hair slicked back into a bun, and she was wearing a red pencil skirt and white shirt. She wore a wide, unnerving smile as she stood before me.

"Hello, Miss Sinclair. I am Madison, your marriage lawyer and legal adviser." I took Madison's handshake, but it was surprisingly soft for a woman who looked like she had worked in corporate since she was two. We began to walk side by side into the house, and I couldn't have been more impressed. "Mr. Sterling has explained everything to me, so you don't have to worry about me. Follow me to the dressing room."

She slowly brought out a black gown that looked simple. "This is going to be your outfit for your official public announcement as Mr. Sterling's fiancée. Also," her mouth twitched with a smile as she invited me into the dressing room, "a gala for stinking rich people."

In no time, I had been dressed and styled as the fiancee of Damien Sterling, forced into a life of lies to find and save my sister.

Checking myself in the mirror, I could barely recognize myself.

"Suck it up, Rose. You need to be strong for her."

Just then, the door flung open, and he stepped in like a battle soldier in suits. I squealed and stepped back, only to see him pause in his tracks, his eyes slowly trailing my body.

A blush warmed my stomach, and only when Madison cleared her throat did Damien speak again.

"We are running late. I hope she has studied well for the background story."

I frowned, moving my gaze between the two of them. "Study what for the background story?"

"There is not enough time, Mr. Sterling. You have to go now. I'm sure Miss Rose knows how to handle interrogations as a journalist herself. Don't you, Miss Rose?"

Her brow lifted an inch higher as she glared at me, unsmiling. I knew what she meant immediately, so I nodded. "Yes, I do."

But I had been too quick to judge the situation before finding myself in it. This gala seemed even more exquisitely exclusive, filled with top-tier billionaires from all around the world. The kind of people I have always dreamed of interviewing as a journalist. The kind of people you would agree their wealth is anything but clean.

It was not at all easy conversing with them. The men wanted to know what I did for work and whether I was his new toy to be passed around. Damien didn't take that joke lightly, and even though it was just an act, I turned to the side and smiled to myself.

The women, on the other hand, asked questions like, "How did you get ahold of someone like Damien?"

"No one else has gotten this far except her."

That piqued my interest. "Her?"