One Kiss Before the Contract Ends

The penalty office of Blackwood Enterprises was a glass cage suspended two hundred stories above the city. To Alexander Blackwood, it was a throne room and a prison all in one. The panoramic windows framed a glittering urban sprawl, a kingdom he’d inherited, not earned. At thirty-two, he commanded a billion-dollar empire with the same cold precision he used to lock down his own emotions. He stared at the financial reports on his monolithic screen, but the numbers blurred. A familiar, dull throb pulsed behind his temples—the precursor to a migraine, or perhaps just the ghost of last night's indulgence. The small, unmarked bottle of pills in his top drawer seemed to hum, a siren's call. Not yet, he told himself. Control was everything. His intercom buzzed, slicing through the silence. "Mr. Blackwood, Ms. Reed is here with the contracts for the Shanghai merger." His secretary's voice was carefully neutral. "Send her in." Alexander's tone was clipped, betraying no trace of the tension coiling in his shoulders. The door slid open silently. Eleanor Reed entered, her presence as efficient and unobtrusive as the soft click of her heels on the polished marble floor. She was his executive assistant, a genius with data and logistics who could dissect a complex problem before most people finished their morning coffee. Today, she wore a simple navy dress, her auburn hair pulled back in a severe knot that should have been plain, but somehow only accentuated the sharp intelligence in her hazel eyes. "The finalized agreements, sir," she said, placing a tablet before him. Her voice was low, calm. A single, faint smudge of what looked like purple paint was near the cuff of her sleeve. Her daughter was doing, he realized with a flicker of something he couldn't name. Lia. The five-year-old whose photograph was the only personal item on Ella's impeccably organized desk. "Did legal review the clause on intellectual property?" he asked, his eyes scanning the document. He didn't need to ask; he trusted her work more than the entire legal department. It was a test, a habit—poking for weaknesses. "Page seven, section four-B. I reworked the language myself. It now gives us unilateral control in the event of a joint venture dissolution." She met his gaze steadily, but he saw the faint shadows under her eyes, the almost imperceptible tremor in her left hand as she pointed to the screen. It was gone in an instant, scalded into perfect stillness. Lies, he thought. Not about the contract. She was hiding something. A flaw. A crack. Everyone had them. His own secret was in the drawer, and hers… he suspected it was in a bottle, too. A different kind. He'd seen the way she sometimes clenched her jaw, the extra-deep breath she took before a high-stakes meeting. The signs of a battle fought privately. "Good," he acknowledged, his voice flat. He zoomed in on the clause. Her solution was elegant, brutal in its efficiency. A work of art. "This is why I keep you, Ms. Reed. You think like I do." It was the closest he came to a compliment. A ghost of a smile touched her lips, not quite reaching her eyes. "We both want what's best for the company, sir." Do we? He wondered. He wanted control, order. A bulwark against the chaos that had taken his father. What did she want? Security, probably. For that daughter of hers. His gaze drifted back to the cityscape. "My mother is hosting the quarterly family gala tonight." The words felt like ground glass in his mouth. "She expects me to attend. With a suitable date." Ella said nothing, simply waiting. She was excellent at that—waiting. A silent, brilliant fortress. "The vultures are circling, Ella. The press, the board, my dear brother Lucas… They all see a single heir, unstable, still grieving his father. A man who can't keep a relationship is a man who can't be trusted with an empire." The cynicism dripped from every word. "It's a perception problem." "And how do you propose to solve it, Mr. Blackwood?" Her question was neutral, but he heard the careful wariness beneath. He turned from the window, his dark eyes pinning her in place. The idea, which had been a half-formed shadow in the dark corners of his mind, now crystallized into a sharp, undeniable shape. It was ruthless. It was practical. It was the perfect solution. "A contract," he said, his voice dropping, losing its corporate edge and turning dangerously personal. "Not a business one. A personal one." Her breath hitched, just once. She understood. He saw the moment the comprehension dawned, the flicker of shock, followed swiftly by a calculated mask. The genius in her was already running the variables. "Sir… Alexander… what are you suggesting?" "A marriage, Ella. A contractual marriage." The words hung in the sterile air between them, dark and absolute. "You need financial security, protection for your daughter. I need the image of stability, a wife to silence the whispers. It's a simple transaction." He watched her, this single mother, this genius, this woman with secrets mirrored in her eyes. She was the opposite of everything he was—light where he was dark, hope where he was jaded. And in that stark, terrifying opposition, he felt the first, faint, and utterly unwelcome spark of attraction. The city lights twinkled below, indifferent. The heir had made his move. The game, dark and serious, had begun.