TRAPPED IN MARRIAGE WITH THE RUTHLESS BILLIONAIRE

CHAPTER NINE

AVA’S POV

The heavy, ivory silk dress was gone, but I could still feel the phantom weight of it pressing against my skin, like a shroud I had been forced to wear while still breathing.

I sat in the darkness of my bedroom, my back pressed against the cold mahogany of the headboard. The mansion was quiet—that terrifying, expensive kind of quiet where even the air seemed to hold its breath. Downstairs, the army of florists and caterers had finally retreated, leaving behind the scent of crushed lilies and floor wax.

Three days.

The number looped in my mind like a sentence. In seventy-two hours, I would stand in the grand ballroom. I would take the hand of a man who looked at me with clinical detestation, and I would bind my life to his.

“A ghost in a wedding dress.”

Lucas’s voice had been so cold it felt like it had left a physical bruise on my soul. He didn't see me. He saw a nuisance. A charity case. A calculated move on a chessboard he didn't even want to be playing on.

But it wasn't the billionaire’s cruelty that was crushing the air from my lungs. It was the debt.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the rain-slicked pavement of many years ago. I smelled the exhaust of the car that had almost ended my life. I felt the warm, papery hand of Nicholas Carter as he reached out from the back of that limousine, pulling me from the gutter and giving me a name again.

I owed him my life. And now, I was paying for it with my soul.

A soft, rhythmic thud echoed in the hallway. The sound of a cane.

I stood up quickly, wiping my face with the back of my hand, forcing my breathing to level out. I couldn't let him see the cracks. Not tonight.

The door creaked open, and the dim light from the hallway framed the fragile silhouette of the man who had been my savior. Nicholas looked smaller tonight. The shadows beneath his eyes were deeper, the gray of his skin more pronounced.

"Ava?" he whispered, his voice like dry parchment. "Are you still awake, child?"

"I'm here, Grandfather," I said, moving toward him to help him into the velvet armchair by the window.

He sank into the cushions with a heavy groan, his hand clutching mine. His skin was paper-thin, his pulse a frantic, fluttering thing beneath my thumb. It was the pulse of a man running out of time.

"I saw the way you looked today," he said, his eyes searching mine in the moonlight. "In that dress. You reminded me of my late wife, Ava. You had that same... quiet dignity."

My throat tightened. "I felt like an impostor, Grandfather Nicholas. I don't belong in that lace. I don't belong at the head of that table."

"Nonsense," he wheezed, a sharp cough rattling his chest. I reached for the glass of water on the nightstand, but he waved it away, his grip on my hand tightening. "You are the only person in this house who belongs there. Because you are the only one who knows what it means to lose everything and remain kind."

He leaned forward, the urgency in his gaze pinning me to the spot.

"As for Lucas... he is lost, Ava. Since his mother died, since his father brought Margaret into this house, he has built a fortress around his heart. He thinks everyone is a predator. He thinks every smile has a price."

"He hates me, Grandfather," I whispered, the honesty finally breaking through my mask. "He looks at me like I’m a debt he’s being forced to pay."

Nicholas’s eyes filled with a sudden, devastating shimmer of tears. "He doesn't hate you. He hates the world for being cruel. And I am a selfish old man... I am forcing this because I cannot die knowing he is alone. I cannot leave him to Margaret and the vultures. You are his anchor, Ava. Even if he tries to cut the rope, you must hold on."

"How?" I cried softly, sinking to my knees at his feet. "How do I hold on to a man who wants to be let go? He told me tonight... he told me I’m just a performance. A ghost."

Nicholas reached out, his trembling fingers brushing a stray hair from my forehead. "The dead can't feel pain, Ava. If you were a ghost, his words wouldn't hurt this much. You are the heartbeat of this house now. Promise me... when the light goes out for me, you won't let him retreat into the dark. Promise me you’ll make him see you."

I looked at him…the man who had given me a bed when I was sleeping on stone, who had given me a future when I was ready to give up. I saw the fear of death in his eyes, but more than that, I saw the desperate love of a grandfather who was terrified for his only heir.

I was the bridge. If I broke, Lucas would fall into the abyss Margaret had dug for him.

"I promise," I choked out, the words feeling like a vow written in blood. "I won't leave him."

Nicholas closed his eyes, a long, shuddering breath of relief escaping his lips. "Good. Then I can sleep."

I stayed on the floor long after he had left, my forehead resting on the empty chair. I had just promised to stay with a man who viewed my presence as an insult. I had promised to love a man who had forgotten the definition of the word.

I looked out the window at the sprawling, dark estate. In three days, the world would see a fairy tale. They would see the orphan girl marrying the king of the empire.

But as the moon disappeared behind a cloud, I knew the truth.

I wasn't the bride. I was the sacrifice.

AUTHOR’S POV

Three floors above where Ava sat in the silent wreckage of her own thoughts, Margaret Carter was doing the exact opposite.

She was preparing.

In the west wing, Margaret’s private parlor was dimly lit, the amber glow of a single desk lamp carving sharp, predatory angles across her face. The room smelled of expensive floor wax and something colder—intent.

When her phone vibrated against the mahogany desk, she picked it up before the first ring could complete, pressing it to her ear while her other hand reached for a thick, manila envelope that had been delivered by a courier only an hour prior.

“Speak.”

“I found it, Mrs. Carter,” a gravelly voice said from the other end. “Nicholas scrubbed most of her digital footprint, but he couldn’t erase the physical archives. I’m looking at the original intake logs now.”

Margaret pulled a stack of papers from the envelope, spreading them across the desk under the lamp’s glow. Her eyes scanned the first page—a birth certificate, followed by a death notice.

“And?” Margaret asked, her voice low. “What exactly is our 'charity case' hiding?”

“Her father Daniel Hart,” the voice continued. “You knew him as a respectable businessman who hit hard times. That’s the story Nicholas sold. The truth is embezzlement. Missing client funds. A web of shell companies that collapsed. He died just as the authorities were closing in.”

Margaret’s fingers stilled on a document titled Notice of Pending Indictment. A slow, cold unfurling of satisfaction spread through her chest.

“So,” she murmured, her eyes locking onto the word Fraud. “The saintly, 'pure' Ava… is the daughter of a thief.”

“It gets better,” the voice added. “Look at the third document in that pile. The police report.”

Margaret slid the papers aside until she found it. A grainy photocopy of a fingerprint card and a brief narrative. Her eyes narrowed as she read.

“The night Nicholas ‘found’ her? She wasn’t just a wandering orphan,” the investigator said. “She had been detained forty-eight hours prior for trespassing and attempted theft at one of her father’s seized properties. She was trying to get into a wall safe, Margaret. Nicholas didn't just find a girl on the street. He bailed a criminal out of a holding cell.”

A soft laugh escaped Margaret’s lips, low, melodic, and completely devoid of warmth. She reached out, tapping the police report with a perfectly manicured nail.

“Oh, Nicholas…” she whispered. “Your heart was always your weakest organ. You didn't give her a home. You gave a criminal a hiding place.”

“Should I leak it to the press?” the man asked.

“No.” Margaret’s gaze drifted to a photograph at the bottom of the pile, a younger, gaunt-faced Ava standing in a police station hallway. “The press is a blunt instrument. I want precision. I want Lucas to see this when the stakes are too high for him to ignore it. I want him to realize that while he’s busy protecting his ‘territory,’ he’s allowed a parasite into the family vault.”

She ended the call and set the phone down. The silence returned, but she remained hunched over the desk, her eyes devouring the evidence.

Across the room, Sonia sat in the shadows, a glass of dark red wine cradled in her hand. She had been watching Margaret in silence, her own face a mask of brittle, desperate hardness.

“Does it even matter, Margaret?” Sonia asked, her voice steadying. “Lucas already knows she was poor. He’ll just see this as another reason to play the hero.”

Margaret didn't look up. She kept her finger pinned to the trespassing report. “You don't understand Lucas, Sonia. He can handle a poor wife. He can even handle a tragic one. But he cannot handle a dishonest one. He prides himself on a very specific kind of integrity.”

She finally looked at Sonia, her eyes gleaming.

“What do you think happens to his 'calculated' decision when he realizes his bride is the daughter of a man who stole from the very people the Carter Group is sworn to protect? He’ll see her for what she is—a liability. A stain on the legacy he’s spent his life defending.”

Sonia leaned forward, the fire of interest finally replacing her doubt. “And scandals have a way of growing,” she whispered.

“Exactly,” Margaret replied. “We have seventy-two hours. We won't go to him now while he's defensive. We wait for the pressure to build. We wait until the moment he is standing at that altar, with the eyes of the world on him.”

Margaret leaned back, the cold blue light of her laptop reflecting in her eyes.

“The higher she climbs under Nicholas's wing, the harder she falls. And I’ve always found the sound of a falling 'angel' to be quite beautiful.”

Seventy-two hours. The countdown had begun.

Ava Carter, the “perfect bride,” was about to learn that some pasts don’t stay buried.

And some falls… are designed.