CHAPTER TWO: Let The Games Begin
1137 Words
Nyra’s POV:
Nyra Kingston had always believed she could survive anything. Cold fathers. Empty mansions. The sharp bite of expectation disguised as love. But as she stood in front of the floor-length mirror in her marble-walled dressing room, she realized she’d never prepared for this.
A forced marriage.
She tugged the zipper of her black sheath dress higher, as if armor could protect her from the absurdity of her reality. Her fingers paused at her collarbone, tracing the spot where her mother had once placed a pendant and called it “inheritance.”
Tonight, she’d meet him Jace Taylor.
Her fiancé.
Her jaw tightened at the thought. “Fiancé.” The word tasted like ash.
She had known of him, of course. Their families had brushed shoulders for years in society events and fundraisers heir to the Taylor dynasty, raised in golden light and endless privilege. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been eighteen, all sunshine smiles and dimples.
Back then, she’d called him boring. Predictable. A good boy with a spine made of air.
She doubted anything had changed.
“Nyra,” her mother’s voice drifted in from the hallway, clipped and anxious. “We’re leaving in ten. Please don’t start.”
Nyra didn’t reply. Instead, she dabbed a final swipe of lipstick across her mouth and smirked at her reflection. Perfect. Composed. Dangerous.
Just how she liked it.
❄️❄️❄️
The ride to the private restaurant was silent. Her mother kept wringing her fingers, her diamond rings clicking against one another like they, too, wanted to escape.
“You know he’s not a bad man,” she finally whispered.
“I don’t care what he is,” Nyra said, eyes fixed on the blur of city lights outside. “He could be a monk or a murderer. It’s the why that bothers me.”
Her mother turned to her. “The why?”
“Why he agreed to this farce. Why someone like Jace Taylor would sign a contract to marry someone like me, someone he barely knows unless he wanted something.”
Her mother didn’t answer. That told Nyra everything she needed to know.
❄️❄️❄️
The restaurant sat atop a luxury hotel, wrapped in glass and drowning in candlelight. It was all elegance and shadows like stepping into a billionaire’s daydream.
Nyra walked in like she owned the place. Every inch of her screamed money and menace. She spotted the Kingston-Taylor entourage seated at a long table, sipping aged wine and laughing like the empire wasn’t crumbling beneath them.
Her gaze locked on him instantly.
Jace.
God help her, he was beautiful.
Tall, lean, and tailored to perfection, he looked like a man born in slow motion skin kissed with warmth, jawline clean-shaven, eyes too calm. And that smile. It wasn’t the wide grin of a boy anymore. It was… measured.
Dangerous.
He rose when he saw her, his gaze never once leaving hers. “Nyra,” he said, voice smooth like aged scotch.
She tilted her head, lips curling. “Jace.”
They shook hands.
His grip was firm. Too firm. She noticed the slight twitch of his thumb against her pulse. She pulled back first.
Let him wonder if he imagined it.
❄️❄️❄️
Dinner was a masterclass in performance.
Her father praised Jace like he’d bred him in a lab. Her mother beamed as if she hadn’t cried last night over Nyra’s resistance. Jace, meanwhile, played the golden boy polite, attentive, responding to her barbed comments with calm amusement.
“You’re quieter than I remember,” Nyra said, swirling her wine.
He smiled. “And you’re just as sharp.”
“I try.”
Their parents fell into talk about dates and guest lists. Nyra tuned them out, watching Jace.
He hadn’t once looked away from her since she arrived. Not even when speaking to someone else.
There was something unsettling about it.
Like he was watching her breathe. Like he already knew what she’d say before she said it.
❄️❄️❄️
As dinner ended, her father stood, wine glass in hand.
“I propose a toast,” he said, voice thunderous. “To the future Mr. and Mrs. Taylor. May their union restore what both families have lost—and build something even greater.”
Nyra didn’t raise her glass.
She stared at Jace.
He raised his glass slowly. “To us.”
“To hell,” she muttered under her breath, and knocked back her drink.
❄️❄️❄️
Later, as the families mingled near the terrace, Jace approached her quietly, hands in his pockets.
“You handled that well,” he said.
“Did I?” she replied coolly. “I was aiming for insufferable.”
“You nailed that too.”
She turned to face him fully. Up close, he smelled like something expensive and clean cedarwood and confidence. It irritated her.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, voice low. “The contract. The marriage. You could’ve said no.”
His expression didn’t change. “And you could’ve.”
She blinked.
“But you didn’t,” he added, stepping slightly closer. “Neither of us did.”
Her mouth parted, but no sound came.
He looked down at her hands, at the way her fingers clutched her clutch like it could shield her from him. Then his eyes met hers again, unreadable.
“I’m not here to hurt you, Nyra,” he said. “But I won’t apologize for wanting you.”
She laughed, short, bitter, amused. “You don’t even know me.”
His voice dropped a notch. “I’ve known you longer than you think.”
Before she could demand what that meant, a camera flashed behind them. Reporters. Their parents posing for PR shots.
Jace stepped back and smiled like a gentleman. “Shall we?”
She took his arm.
She didn’t have a choice.
❄️❄️❄️
That night, Nyra couldn’t sleep.
She stood by the balcony of her penthouse suite, city lights twinkling like tiny betrayals. Her phone buzzed on the table with Zimra’s text.
“How did it go? Need me to poison someone?”
Nyra smiled faintly and typed back:
“It went… weird.”
“Weird how?”
She hesitated. Then typed:
“He’s not what I expected. And I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”
A beat passed. Then Zimra replied:
“Careful, babe. Pretty faces hide the sharpest teeth.”
Nyra locked her phone and stared out at the night.
She didn’t trust Jace. She didn’t trust anyone.
But somehow, for the first time since her father dropped the bomb, she wasn’t just angry anymore.
She was… curious.
- Writer
