The Billionaire playboy Who Couldn't Let Her Go

I'll Do It

Ivy POV

It was Nikolai Westwood.

I didn't know him personally, of course, but you’d have to live under a literal rock in this country not to recognize that face.

He was a permanent fixture across every business journal, financial broadcast, and high-society gossip rag—the untouchable, completely ruthless heir to the multi-billion-dollar Westwood corporate empire.

He was a notorious playboy who looked like he’d been carved out of dark marble and exceptionally bad intentions.

He stood in the entryway for a brief moment, casually brushing a few stray drops of rain from the broad shoulders of a tailored charcoal wool coat that probably cost more than I made in an entire year of working four separate jobs.

His dark hair was slightly damp, a single rebellious strand falling loose over his forehead, highlighting the sharp, aristocratic lines of his jaw and cheekbones.

But it was his eyes that made my breath hitch painfully in my throat. They were the color of glacial ice—cold, piercing, and entirely devoid of any recognizable human warmth.

He looked around the dingy, aggressively lit convenience store with an expression of profound, arrogant irritation, as if the very air inside the building was beneath his dignity to breathe.

He didn't look like an ordinary driver whose car had just broken down on a bad highway. He looked like an apex predator who had accidentally wandered into a cheap cage and was thoroughly annoyed by the lack of space.

Nikolai began walking toward the checkout counter, his heavy, custom leather shoes clicking with a slow, deliberate, and terrifying cadence against the cheap linoleum floor.

Every single movement he made practically dripped with innate authority, a structural power that demanded the entire room submit to his presence without him having to say a single word.

He stopped directly in front of my register. Up close, the sheer physical size of him was completely suffocating.

He dominated the small space, his broad frame casting a long, dark shadow over the plastic counter.

He smelled like expensive tobacco, fresh rainfall, and the kind of staggering wealth that could buy and sell entire city blocks on a whim.

He didn't look at me. Not really. His icy gaze swept right past my face, treating me like an automated vending machine rather than a living, breathing human being who was staring back at him.

"Black Devils," he commanded. His voice was a low, guttural rumble that physically vibrated straight through the Formica counter.

"And a lighter."

My voice felt completely trapped in my throat for a fraction of a second, paralyzed by the sudden density of the air around him.

I quickly cleared it, forcing my blank, customer-service mask firmly back into place, though my hands were suddenly trembling as I turned around to face the massive tobacco wall behind me.

"We don't carry Black Devils, sir," I said, my voice sounding incredibly small, thin, and hollow in the quiet store.

"We have Marlboro, Camel, Newport..."

A heavy, dark silence settled over the space behind me. I turned back around, holding my breath, half-expecting him to bark an insult.

Nikolai’s jaw tightened, a sharp muscle feathering against his tanned, flawless skin. His eyes narrowed slightly as they finally flicked down to land directly on me, pinning me to the spot with a terrifying, heavy intensity.

For a second, I felt like a small insect stuck under a microscope.

He looked at my damp hair, my oversized green vest, and the cheap, plastic nametag pinned to my chest, his expression one of pure, dismissive boredom. He was analyzing my entire existence in a single second and finding it utterly lacking.

"Marlboro Black," he drawled, his tone clipped, sharp, and intensely impatient.

"Two packs."

I turned around again, my fingers fumbling slightly against the clear plastic dividers as I grabbed the boxes from the top shelf. My heart was hammering against my ribs, but I forced my movements to remain steady.

I placed the two packs on the counter, along with a cheap blue plastic lighter from the display tray.

"Will that be all?" I asked, keeping my eyes firmly locked on the digital register screen.

I absolutely refused to let him see how much his mere presence was rattling my composure.

He didn't bother to answer. Instead, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a sleek, matte-black designer wallet.

He slid a crisp, unwrinkled one-hundred-dollar bill across the counter with a single, manicured finger.

I stared down at the bill. It was completely dry, perfectly pristine, despite the absolute monsoon happening just outside the doors.

As I reached out to take the money, my fingers accidentally brushed against his. A sudden, violent jolt of heat shot straight up my arm, a sharp, shocking contrast to the freezing rain outside.

I flinched imperceptibly, quickly pulling the bill toward me and punching the numbers into the register. The heavy machine clicked open with a loud, metallic tang that felt inappropriately noisy in the silence.

Nikolai didn't even notice the physical contact. He had already torn into one of the packs with an efficient, highly practiced motion, pulling out a single cigarette and tucking it securely between his lips.

He picked up the cheap lighter, flicking it open with a casual snap of his thumb.

The small, orange flame illuminated the harsh, striking angles of his face for a brief second before he inhaled deeply. He blew a thick, heavy stream of grey smoke straight toward the ceiling, completely ignoring the prominent 'No Smoking' sign posted right beside his head.

I began counting out his change, placing the bills and coins onto the counter one by one, keeping the numbers organized.

"Your change is—"

"Keep it," he interrupted, his voice a flat, dismissive rumble. He didn't even cast a glance at the pile of cash.

He simply picked up the second pack of cigarettes and the lighter, shoving them deep into his coat pocket.

He leaned one large, leather-gloved hand flat against the Formica counter, leaning in slightly as he checked his heavy platinum watch. The subtle movement brought him incredibly close, his icy gaze tracking the smoke rising from his cigarette.

He was completely trapped here, waiting out a storm with a dead engine in a neighborhood he clearly despised, and he looked like he wanted to tear the corporate world apart with his bare hands just to rectify the personal inconvenience.

I looked down at the stack of change left on the counter—nearly eighty dollars. It was more than I made in an entire eight-hour shift at this register.

It was a week’s worth of groceries. It was electricity. And he had abandoned it without a second thought, as if the physical paper bills were nothing more than garbage to be left behind.

I looked up at his profile, watching the hard, unyielding line of his jaw and the complete, terrifying coldness that surrounded him like an aura. This was the man from the magazines. The billionaire. The ruthless king of the city who broke companies and people for sport.

I just want to marry a rich man.

My mind whispered again, the thought returning with a fierce, desperate, and vicious vengeance.

I didn't need a fairytale. I didn't need a man who loved me, or whispered sweet things in my ear, or held my hand in front of the world.

I looked at Nikolai Westwood—a man who clearly viewed the rest of human society as nothing more than bugs beneath his expensive leather shoes—and I didn't feel a single shred of fear.

I felt a strange, hollow, and absolute determination. If a man like him could save me from the living, suffocating hell I was currently drowning in, I would gladly sign my soul over to him in blood.

Nikolai took another slow, heavy drag of his cigarette, his glacial eyes shifting back to the dark window, watching the rain pour down on his broken car, completely unaware that the girl behind the counter was staring at him like a lifeline in a storm.

The silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating, punctuated only by the steady hiss of rain against the glass and the faint, rhythmic crackle of his cigarette burning down.

I stood perfectly still behind the cash register, my hands resting flat on the cold counter, acutely aware of the eighty dollars in change sitting untouched between us.

To him, that money didn’t even register as paper. To me, it was a few grocery trips, a fraction of a utility bill, a temporary shield against the wolves at my door.

Nikolai didn't move. He leaned against the counter with a casual, terrifying grace, his eyes locked on the storm outside.

Smoke curled around his sharp profile, blurring the harsh edges of his jawline but doing nothing to soften the lethal glare in his eyes.

He was a man accustomed to shifting the orbit of entire boardrooms with a single word, yet here he was, grounded by a faulty alternator in a neighborhood that didn’t even show up on his GPS.

Suddenly, the sharp, aggressive buzz of a phone cut through the quiet.

I flinched, my raw nerves jumping at the sound. Nikolai didn't even blink. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a sleek, custom-encrypted device, and glanced at the screen.

I watched the muscle in his jaw clench so tightly the bone looked ready to snap through his tanned skin. A volatile, dark energy rolled off him, turning the air in the cramped convenience store instantly freezing.

He swiped the screen and brought the phone to his ear. He didn't bother stepping away. To him, I wasn't an audience; I was part of the furniture.

"Speak," he barked, his voice a low, gravelly snap that made the hairs on my arms stand up.

The voice on the other end was faint, tinny, and frantic, but in the absolute quiet of the dead-end shift, the words bled through the receiver. It was a man, sounding thoroughly exhausted and deeply terrified.

"...contract terms, Mr. Westwood. Celeste Beaumont’s legal team just sent over their final revisions. They’re demanding an immediate transfer of the maritime logistics shares prior to the noon ratification, or she won't sign. And the Vance family just leaked a statement to the press implying—"

"Tell the Vance family I will personally liquidate their holding company by Friday morning if they breathe another word to the media," Nikolai interrupted, his tone terrifyingly calm, a quiet promise of total destruction.

"And tell Celeste she can take her demands and burn them. I don't negotiate with parasites."

"But sir!" the voice pleaded, sounding close to a panic attack. "The Board meeting is in exactly eight hours. Sebastian has already called the senior trustees. If you walk into that boardroom without a signed marriage license, the succession clause triggers automatically. Your cousin is already in the building. We’re out of time. Every single candidate on the registry is leveraging the deadline against us. They know you're cornered."

Nikolai’s fingers tightened around the phone with enough force to shatter the glass casing. "Then find someone else," he hissed.

"I don't care if you pull a woman off the street. Find me someone who knows how to sign her goddamn name and shut her mouth, or you’re fired before the sun comes up."

He slammed the phone face-down onto the Formica counter. The heavy slap of the device echoed like a gunshot in the empty store.

He took one last, deep drag of his cigarette, exhaling a thick cloud of grey smoke that drifted over my head. He looked cornered.

Like an apex predator caught in a trap of his own family’s making, his glacial eyes wide with a cold, desperate fury.

Eight hours. A signed marriage license. A succession clause.

The puzzle pieces snapped together in my mind with a sudden, violent clarity. The trashy magazine articles I had been skimming to stay awake weren't just gossip; they were a roadmap.

The great Nikolai Westwood, the untouchable titan of the city, was about to lose his multi-billion-dollar birthright because he couldn't find a woman who wasn't consumed by her own transparent greed.

He needed a ghost. A contract. A quick, bloodless transaction to satisfy an old man's twisted ultimatum.

And I needed a miracle.

My heart began to hammer against my ribs, a frantic, deafening rhythm that felt loud enough to fill the entire room. My hands grew cold, my breath catching in my throat as the reckless, insane whisper in my mind returned with a deafening roar.

I just want to marry a rich man.

It wasn't a joke anymore. It wasn't a pathetic birthday wish blown out over an unlit candle on a stale, crushed cupcake. It was a door appearing in the middle of a blank wall. One hundred and forty-two thousand dollars of debt.

Four jobs.

Four hours of sleep.

Nine years of my youth, systematically ground down into nothing to pay for a coward's betrayal. If I stayed on this track, I would be dead or broken before the principal balance even hit zero.

I had absolutely nothing left to lose. My dignity had been stripped away months ago by collection agencies; my pride was buried under a pile of pink past-due notices. The only thing I had left was my survival instinct, and right now, it was telling me to leap into the dark.

I swallowed the dry lump in my throat, forcing my hands to stop shaking as I gripped the edge of the counter.

"I'll do it," I said.