Chapter 1 📖 Prologue

The soft hum of the city at night was a lullaby only the restless understood. A symphony of car horns, distant sirens, and the occasional hiss of tires against wet asphalt, it was the music of survivors - of those with secrets too heavy to sleep.

Serena Vale wasn't supposed to be here.

She pressed her palm against the cold glass of the penthouse window, staring out at the city skyline like it could offer her answers. The sharp scent of rain still lingered in the air, mingling with the subtle notes of aged oak and cologne that clung to the room. Behind her, the lavish suite stretched in decadent silence - marble floors, deep mahogany shelves lined with books no one read, and art so expensive it should've had a heartbeat of its own.

And somewhere within this palace of shadows, Caden Alistair stood watching her.

She could feel his gaze as surely as if he'd reached out and traced a fingertip down her spine. He was a man made of contradictions - warmth laced with ice, charm shadowed by secrets. The world knew him as the elusive billionaire heir to the Alistair fortune, a man whose name opened doors and closed deals. But Serena had learned the hard way that titles were lies people wore like masks.

The first night they met, it hadn't been fate. It had been necessity.

Desperation was a cruel sculptor. It chiselled away dignity and pride until all that was left was a woman standing in a stranger's penthouse, wearing a gown that wasn't hers, pretending to be someone she was never meant to become.

"I told you," his voice broke the silence - smooth, measured, with an undercurrent of something unspoken. "You don't have to stay."

Serena's fingers curled against the glass. The city lights blurred into a thousand tiny reflections. "And yet, here I am."

She turned to face him, the hem of her silver dress whispering against the floor. Caden stood near the fireplace, his frame tall and commanding, tailored in a dark suit that made him seem more myth than man. The fire cast an amber glow across his face, highlighting the sharp angles of his jaw and the storm in his eyes.

"You're playing a dangerous game," he said quietly, almost regretfully.

"I didn't ask for the rules," Serena replied, lifting her chin.

A bitter smile tugged at his lips. "You should have."

But it was too late for caution. Too late for second thoughts. The arrangement was already in motion - a twisted, silent contract inked with desperation and guarded lies. She was here because of a promise, because someone she loved had no one else to turn to. And he... he was here because he needed a stand-in, a name on paper to fend off vultures and keep family vultures at bay.

A substitute. A pawn.

But neither of them anticipated the one thing neither contracts nor secrets could control.

The heart.

Serena had sworn she wouldn't fall for him. That she could remain distant, untouched by the dangerous pull of his world. Yet every glance, every carefully spoken word, every accidental brush of fingertips chipped away at the walls she'd built.

Caden Alistair was a man with a past shrouded in shadows and a future paved in bloodlines. And Serena? She was the crack in his carefully constructed world.

A fragile, beautiful threat.

A knock at the door shattered the heavy air between them. Caden's eyes darkened. He moved with predator grace to the entrance, opening it just a fraction.

A voice spoke from the hallway. Serena couldn't make out the words, but she saw the subtle shift in Caden's expression - the tightening of his jaw, the flicker of something sharp in his gaze.

When he closed the door, his mask was firmly back in place. Whatever storm had been on the other side of that door, it now lingered in the room with them.

"Change of plans," he said.

Serena's pulse quickened. "What kind of change?"

Caden crossed the room, stopping just short of her. He was close enough for her to see the faint scar above his brow - a flaw most people wouldn't notice. But Serena wasn't most people anymore.

"I need you to be my wife. Tonight."

The words hit like a thunderclap.

She stared at him, the room spinning as his meaning settled. "You said... it would be for appearances. A month. A contract marriage to keep your board at bay."

"It was. But things move fast in my world, Serena." His voice was low, laced with warning. "There are people who'll stop at nothing to take what's mine. And you... you just became my only shield."

Serena's breath caught. Somewhere deep inside, every instinct screamed at her to walk away. To leave this high-rise cage of privilege and peril. But then she thought of her sister's fragile smile, of hospital bills paid with borrowed time. And she knew she couldn't leave.

Not now.

"I'll do it," she whispered, her voice steadier than she felt. "But on one condition."

Caden raised a brow. "And what's that?"

Serena stepped closer, refusing to look away from the storm in his eyes. "No lies between us."

A slow, humorless smile touched his lips. "In my world, truth is the most expensive thing of all."

"Then it's time you paid for it."

For a heartbeat, silence stretched between them. Then - as if some invisible line had been crossed - Caden nodded.

"Deal."

And just like that, the die was cast.

Neither of them knew that the price for this arrangement would be far steeper than either could afford.

Because tangled hearts and twisted lies have a way of unraveling when least expected.

And someone was about to bleed for it.