The Billionaire's Cruel Secret Contract Marriage Deal

The smell of stale beer and half-digested pizza was the first thing to assault Imogen's senses. She was on her knees, the rough fibers of the cheap synthetic rug biting into her skin through the holes in her jeans. Her hand moved in a mechanical rhythm, scrubbing at the stain Tyler had left behind after his party.

The bleach fumes made her eyes water, but she didn't blink. If she stopped, the stain would set. If the stain set, Linda would deduct the cleaning fee from the imaginary ledger she kept of Imogen's existence.

"You missed a spot."

Imogen didn't look up. She knew that voice. It was the voice of a woman who had turned psychological warfare into a domestic art form. Linda descended the stairs, the hem of her silk robe brushing against the banister. She stepped over Imogen as if she were a piece of furniture, or perhaps a pet that had soiled the carpet.

"I'm getting it, Linda," Imogen said, her voice hoarse.

"Don't take that tone with me. Not after what we've done for you." Linda stopped by the bucket of gray, soapy water Imogen had placed beside her. With a casual flick of her slippered foot, she tipped it over.

The water sloshed out, dark and foul, soaking instantly into the knees of Imogen's only white button-down shirt-the one she had ironed three times for her interview at the architecture firm tomorrow.

Imogen froze. The cold, dirty water seeped through the fabric, chilling her skin. She watched the puddle expand, swallowing her hope for a clean appearance in the morning.

"Oops," Linda said, her voice devoid of apology. She dropped a crumpled envelope onto Imogen's wet shoulder. "Electric bill is due. Since you're so eager to work, you can pay for the lights you use to draw those stupid pictures all night."

Imogen's hands curled into fists, dripping with suds. She stood up, her knees cracking. "I paid the electric bill last week. And the water. And the internet."

"Interest, Imogen. It's called interest."

Rick walked in then. He was holding a fresh beer, though it was barely noon on a Tuesday. His eyes were glassy, scanning the room with the predatory gaze of a man looking for a reason to explode.

"Chad called," Rick said, taking a swig. He burped, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "He's willing to drop the restraining order if you agree to dinner. Said he's got five grand for us if we convince you to stop being a stubborn bitch."

Imogen felt the blood drain from her face. "I'm not seeing Chad. He broke my ribs, Rick."

"He said he was sorry," Rick shrugged. "Besides, five grand covers a lot of your debt to this family."

"I don't owe you anything!" Imogen's voice cracked, sharp and sudden. She reached into her back pocket, her wet fingers fumbling with her phone. She pulled up her banking app, thrusting the screen toward them. "Look! Look at the transfers! I have paid you back for every meal, every night in that closet you call a room, every textbook since I was sixteen!"

Linda's eyes narrowed. She didn't look at the screen; she looked at the defiance in Imogen's posture. She hated defiance. She snatched at the phone. "Give me that!"

Imogen twisted her body, shielding the device. Linda's momentum carried her forward, her hip checking the corner of the heavy oak coffee table. She let out a shriek that was too loud, too theatrical.

"She hit me! Rick, she hit me!"

The air in the room shifted. It became heavy, charged with violence. Rick set his beer down on the mantel with a terrifying calmness. He picked up the empty bottle next to it.

Smash.

The glass shattered against the wall inches from Imogen's head. Shards rained down, one slicing a thin, hot line across her calf. Imogen didn't flinch. She had learned long ago that flinching only excited him.

"You ungrateful little parasite," Rick growled, stepping over the broken glass. "After we took you in? After nobody else wanted you?"

He raised his hand. Imogen saw the palm, calloused and wide. She braced herself, tensing her neck muscles, but the impact still rattled her teeth. The slap echoed like a gunshot.

Her head snapped to the side. A high-pitched ringing filled her left ear. She tasted copper.

"Get out," Rick breathed, his chest heaving. "Get out before I kill you."

Imogen looked at him. Really looked at him. She saw the fear behind his anger-the fear of losing his punching bag, his paycheck. She spat blood onto the carpet she had just scrubbed.

"Gladly."

She turned and sprinted toward the utility closet that doubled as her bedroom. She grabbed the handle of the suitcase she kept packed-always packed-hidden behind the vacuum cleaner.

"You walk out that door," Rick shouted from the living room, "and you don't get your papers! You hear me? I'll burn your passport! I'll burn your birth certificate!"

Imogen froze at the front door. Her hand hovered over the knob. Without those papers, she was a ghost. She couldn't get a lease, couldn't get a verified job, couldn't leave the state.

But then she heard Rick's heavy boots stomping down the hallway.

Survival instinct overrode logic. Imogen yanked the door open and threw herself into the night. The rain hit her like a physical blow, icy and relentless. She dragged her suitcase over the threshold, the wheels catching on the uneven concrete of the porch.

"Don't come crawling back!" Rick screamed into the storm.

Imogen didn't look back. She ran. She ran until her lungs burned like she had swallowed fire. She ran until the suburban houses blurred into wet streaks of light. She ran until she reached the bus stop on the corner of 4th and Main, collapsing under the flimsy plastic shelter.

She was shaking. Not just from the cold, but from the adrenaline crash. Her cheek throbbed in time with her heartbeat.

She knelt on the wet pavement and unzipped her suitcase, her hands trembling so badly she could barely work the zipper. She tore through the clothes-the worn sweaters, the jeans.

Empty. The inner pocket where she kept her documents was empty.

Linda. Linda must have found them while Imogen was at her morning shift.

A sob trapped in her throat, choking her. She sat back on her heels, the rain lashing at her legs. She had forty dollars in her pocket. No ID. No home. And a face that was starting to swell.

Her phone buzzed. A text from Chad.

Rick says you're free. I'm coming to get you, baby.

Imogen threw the phone into her bag as if it were toxic. She looked out at the dark, slick street. She wasn't going back. She would die in this gutter before she went back.

The rain had turned into a deluge, a curtain of water that blurred the world into gray static. Imogen huddled deeper into her jacket, checking her phone again. 3% battery.

She had ordered an Uber. It was a reckless expense, twenty-five dollars to get to a Motel 6 on the other side of Queens, but she couldn't stay here. Chad knew where this bus stop was.

The app said her driver, Mohammed, was driving a black Toyota Camry. Arrival in 1 minute.

Headlights cut through the darkness, blinding her. A sleek black car pulled up to the curb, its engine purring with a low, expensive rumble. Imogen squinted through her rain-spattered glasses. It was black. It was a sedan. It had to be him.

She didn't wait. Panic was a cold hand pushing her forward. She grabbed the handle of her suitcase and wrestled it off the curb, splashing through a puddle that soaked her sneakers instantly.

She yanked open the back door of the car.

"Thank God," she gasped, shoving her heavy, waterlogged suitcase into the footwell. It didn't fit well; she had to jam it against the pristine leather of the front seat.

She dove into the backseat, slamming the door shut against the storm.

The silence was instant. The roar of the rain vanished, replaced by the soft hum of climate control and the faint, woodsy scent of cedar and expensive cologne. It was warm. It smelled like safety.

Imogen collapsed back against the seat, wiping the water from her glasses with her wet sleeve, which only smeared them further. "I am so sorry about the wet luggage," she breathed out, her chest heaving. "The rain is insane. Thank you for coming so quickly."

There was no response.

Imogen frowned, putting her glasses back on. Her vision cleared enough to take in her surroundings.

This was not a Toyota Camry.

The interior was vast, upholstered in butter-soft cream leather. There was a console between the front seats with a touchscreen glowing with climate controls. And in the seat next to her-not the driver, but a passenger-sat a man.

He was in the shadows, illuminated only by the passing streetlights. He wore a dark hoodie pulled up, but his posture was rigid. He had been in the middle of typing on a tablet, his fingers now hovering over the glass.

He turned his head slowly to look at her.

His eyes were dark, intelligent, and utterly cold. He looked at her dripping hair, her muddy sneakers on his custom floor mats, and the suitcase jamming his legroom. He didn't look scared. He looked... inconvenienced.

"You," the man said. His voice was deep, a baritone that vibrated in the quiet cabin. "Are not supposed to be here."

Imogen's heart stopped. She looked to the front. The driver was a large man with a thick neck, his face obscured by a dark baseball cap pulled low, staring at her in the rearview mirror with wide eyes.

"Boss?" the driver asked. "security breach?"

The man in the hoodie-the Boss-didn't break eye contact with Imogen. "Wait."

Imogen scrambled backward, pressing herself against the door. "I... I thought this was my Uber. It said a black car."

"This is the wrong car," the man said dryly, his tone leaving no room for argument.

The realization hit her like a physical slap. She had jumped into a stranger's car. A rich, powerful stranger's car. In Queens. At night.

"Oh my god," Imogen whispered. She fumbled for the door handle. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

The door was locked. Child lock? Security lock?

Panic spiked. "Let me out!"

The man signaled to the driver with a slight nod. Click. The lock disengaged.

Imogen didn't hesitate. She threw the door open and tumbled out onto the pavement, slipping on the wet asphalt. She scrambled up, her knees screaming in protest.

She saw headlights approaching behind the large black car. A beat-up Toyota Camry with an Uber sticker in the window.

"Wait!" she yelled at the Toyota, waving her arms.

She ran toward the Uber, diving into the backseat just as the driver unlocked it. "Go! Just go!" she yelled.

"Lady, you okay?" the Uber driver asked, looking at her terrified face.

"Just drive!"

As the Toyota pulled away, merging into traffic, Imogen slumped against the window, watching the taillights of the sleek black car fade into the distance.

Her breath caught in her throat.

Her suitcase.

She sat up, patting the empty seat beside her. She looked at the floorboard. Nothing.

"Stop the car!" she screamed.

"What?"

"My bag! I left my bag in the other car!"

But it was too late. The black luxury sedan had turned a corner and vanished into the rain, taking with it her clothes, her shoes, and the only thing that mattered more than her life-her sketchbook.

Gael Fuller stared at the wet stain on the leather seat next to him. It was shaped vaguely like a human being-small, shivering, and desperate.

"Should I call the police, sir?" Emmet asked from the front seat, his eyes scanning the mirrors for threats. "That could have been an assassination attempt. A plant."

Gael picked up the tablet he had been using, but he didn't unlock it. "She was soaking wet, Emmet. And she was wearing shoes from Payless. If that was an assassin, the industry has really gone downhill."

"What about the package?" Emmet gestured to the footwell.

The suitcase sat there, a bulky, pathetic thing with a broken zipper and duct tape on the handle. It was dripping muddy water onto the carpet.

"Pull over," Gael commanded.

Emmet eased the car to the curb under a streetlight. Gael leaned forward. He shouldn't touch it. Standard protocol dictated he let security handle it. But something about the sheer panic in that girl's eyes-the way she had looked at him like he was the monster-bothered him.

He reached down and unzipped the bag.

Clothes. Cheap, worn clothes. A toothbrush in a plastic bag. A half-eaten granola bar. It was the inventory of a life on the run.

And right on top, wrapped in a plastic grocery bag to keep it dry, was a black hardbound sketchbook.

Gael took it out. The cover was battered, the corners soft from use. He opened it to a random page.

He stopped breathing for a second.

It was a sketch of the new waterfront development. His development. The Fuller Group had been soliciting bids from the world's top architectural firms for months. He had seen hundreds of renderings-slick, computer-generated, soulless glass towers.

This was different. It was drawn in charcoal and ink. The lines were aggressive, chaotic, yet perfectly structural. The building didn't just sit on the water; it seemed to rise from it, organic and sharp. It solved the wind shear problem on the north face with a cantilevered terrace design he hadn't seen any engineer propose.

He turned the page. A detail of a support strut.

Turned another. A lobby concept that used natural light to filter movement.

"Who is she?" Gael murmured.

He flipped to the inside cover. In neat, block letters: PROPERTY OF IMOGEN SCOTT.

"Emmet," Gael said, closing the book. His voice had shifted. The boredom was gone. "Cancel the dinner with the senator."

"Sir?"

"Take this bag to the penthouse. Have it cleaned. But don't touch the book." Gael tapped the cover with his index finger. "And find out who Imogen Scott is."

Imogen sat on the edge of the mattress in the Motel 6. The room smelled like bleach and stale cigarettes. She was wrapped in a towel that felt like sandpaper. Her clothes-her wet, dirty clothes-were draped over the heater unit, steaming slightly.

She had nothing.

No toothbrush. No change of underwear. No sketchbook.

The loss of the sketchbook hit her harder than the loss of the clothes. That book was her portfolio. It was three years of ideas, of late nights drawing by flashlight so Rick wouldn't see the light under the door. It was her ticket into the architecture program she had been secretly applying to.

She buried her face in her hands. She couldn't even cry. She was too dehydrated, too exhausted.

Her phone pinged. 1% battery. She plugged it into the wall with the charger she luckily kept in her jacket pocket.

A message from Linda.

I know you took the silver frame. Bring it back or I call the cops for theft. Also, here is the info for the man you're meeting tomorrow. 10 AM. Bean & Leaf on 5th. Don't be late. He's a dentist. He's willing to overlook your baggage.

Attached was a blurry photo of a balding man in his forties and a name: Dr. Aris.

Imogen stared at the screen. A dentist. Linda was selling her to a dentist to pay off a debt Imogen didn't even owe.

But she had to go. She had to go because Linda had her passport. If she could just get the passport back... maybe she could play along. Just long enough to steal it.

She looked at her reflection in the cracked mirror opposite the bed. Her cheek was bruising, turning a sickly purple. Her eyes were red-rimmed.

"You are a survivor," she whispered to the glass. It was a lie, but she needed to hear it.