The Billionaire's Forced Bride:She Hated Him Until Last Night

The Betrayal On the night of my 24th birthday, I found my fiancé in bed with my best friend. Not in some cheap hotel on the other side of town where I could pretend it was a mistake. Not in a bar after too many drinks. In OUR apartment. In the bed I had spent all morning decorating with brand new white silk sheets because Mark said white was my color and next week was supposed to be our wedding tasting. The door was unlocked. That should have been my first clue. Mark always locked the door. He was paranoid about his law books. I had come home early from work. I had a small velvet box in my purse. Inside was a vintage watch I had saved three months of salary to buy him. $420. It was all I had. I had even written a card: "To my future husband. Thank you for loving an orphan girl like me." I wanted to surprise him. Instead, life surprised me. I heard it before I saw it. Laughter. A woman's laugh I knew better than my own. Jessica's laugh. My best friend since freshman year. The girl who held my hand at my parents' funeral. The girl who was supposed to be my maid of honor in three months. "Elena?" Mark's voice. Panicked. I stood in the doorway of my own bedroom, and watched my entire world burn. Mark scrambled off of her, his face pale, his expensive shirt — the one I ironed for him that morning — hanging off the bedpost. Jessica didn't even have the decency to look ashamed. She pulled my white silk sheet up slowly, deliberately, and smirked. That smirk will haunt me forever. "Oh, please, Elena. Don't look so shocked," she said, her voice sweet and poisonous. "You were always too naive. Did you really think a man like Mark would marry a penniless orphan like you? A junior designer making $3,200 a month? He needs a woman who can actually help his career." My hands were shaking so violently the velvet box fell. It hit the wooden floor with a soft thud and opened. The watch glittered under the cheap ceiling light. Mark looked at the box, then at me. For a second, guilt flashed across his face. "Elena, it's not what it looks like, okay? Jessica and I... we were just talking and it just happened. You have been so stressed about the wedding—" "Talking?" I whispered. My voice sounded like a stranger's. "You were talking without clothes in my bed? On my birthday?" I had spent three years loving this man. Three years paying his law school loans when his parents cut him off. Three years cooking his favorite meals, washing his clothes, listening to him complain about his professors, believing every single promise that one day, when he became a successful lawyer, he would give me the family I lost when my parents died in that car accident at sixteen. I had nothing. No parents. No siblings. He was supposed to be my family. "Get out," I said. "Elena, listen to me—" Mark reached for his pants, reaching for me. "I SAID GET OUT!" I screamed. It tore out of my throat, raw and broken. Years of trying to be good, to be quiet, to be grateful, all exploded. "BOTH OF YOU! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! GET OUT!" My neighbors must have heard me. I didn't care. Jessica finally stood up, wrapping the sheet around her body like she owned it. She walked past me, and deliberately bumped my shoulder. "You'll thank us one day. You were never his level anyway, Elena. Know your place." They left. They took their clothes, their laughter, and left behind the stench of betrayal and cheap perfume in my apartment. I collapsed onto the cold floor, right where I had dropped Mark's birthday gift. Around me were the wedding invitations I had printed last week. Cream-colored, with gold letters: "Elena Rossi & Mark Stevenson request the pleasure of your company..." I had spent $150 on those invitations. Money I borrowed from my boss. I cried until my eyes had no tears left. Until my throat was sore. Until the sun started to set and my tiny studio apartment became dark. That's when my phone buzzed. I thought it was Mark apologizing. Or Jessica with another cruel joke. It was an unknown number. No name. Just a message. [Ms. Elena Rossi. You have been chosen. I know what happened tonight. I know you have nothing left. If you want a life where no one can ever step on you again, come to The Black Tower, 58th Floor. 10:00 PM. Come alone. You will be compensated beyond your imagination. - D] I stared at the message. It should have felt like a scam. Like a creepy prank from some rich pervert. I should have deleted it. But something in me — the part of me that was tired of being invisible, tired of being the orphan girl people pitied, tired of being stepped on — made me stand up. Black Tower. Everyone in New York knew that building. It was black glass, fifty-eight floors, owned by the Black family. The most powerful, most feared, most secretive family in Manhattan. They owned banks, hotels, tech companies. And at the top of that empire sat Damien Black. I had seen his picture once in Forbes. 28 years old. Billionaire CEO since he was 22. They called him The Devil in a Suit. Cold. Ruthless. He never smiled. He destroyed companies with a single phone call and never did interviews. They said his heart was as black as his tower. What could a man like that possibly want with a broken junior designer in a cheap birthday dress? At 9:55 PM, with my face still stained with tears, with my cheap dress wrinkled, with nothing but my dead phone and a broken heart, I stood in front of The Black Tower. The doorman looked at me like I was lost. "I have... an appointment. 58th floor. D." His expression changed instantly. Fear and respect. "The elevator is waiting for you, Ms. Rossi." The elevator had no buttons. It shot up automatically, so fast my ears popped. When the doors opened, I gasped. It wasn't an office. It was a penthouse in the sky. Floor-to-ceiling windows showing all of New York glittering below. Everything was black, white, and grey. Minimalist. Cold. Expensive. It smelled like expensive cologne and power. And standing by the window, with his back to me, was him. Tall. So tall. Broad shoulders in a perfectly tailored black suit that must have cost more than my yearly salary. Dark hair, slightly messy. He held a glass of whiskey in one large hand, looking out at the city like he owned every light. He didn't turn around. "You're late. By two minutes. I hate late." His voice was deep, low, and cold enough to freeze fire. It sent a shiver straight down my spine. "I... I got your message. Are you D?" "Damien Black," he said, and finally turned. And I forgot how to breathe. Photos did not do him justice. In photos he was handsome. In person, he was devastating. A sharp, cruel jawline that looked like it was carved from stone. High cheekbones. Full lips pressed into a hard, unsmiling line. And his eyes — grey, like a winter storm, like steel, looking at me not with pity, but with cold calculation, as if I was a contract to be read. "Elena Rossi," he said, walking towards me. Each step was slow, deliberate, predatory. "Twenty-four years old. Orphaned at sixteen. No relatives. Graduate of NYU Design, student debt $28,000. Works as junior designer at Hart & Co. Salary $3,200 a month. Boyfriend — ex-boyfriend as of three hours ago — Mark Stevenson, third-year law student, cheating on you with your best friend Jessica Miller in your apartment." My blood ran cold. "How do you know all that? Have you been spying on me?" "I know everything in this city that matters," he said, stopping inches from me. I had to tilt my head up to look at him. He smelled intoxicating — sandalwood, whiskey, and danger. "And tonight, you matter." He placed a thick, black folder on the glass table between us. The words on it made my knees weak. CONTRACT MARRIAGE AGREEMENT "Marry me," he said. I thought I had misheard him through my tears. "Excuse me?" "Marry me, Elena Rossi. For one year. 365 days. My grandfather is dying. His last wish is to see me married and settled. If I am not married before the end of this month, I lose controlling interest in Black Enterprises to my cousin, Richard. He will destroy what my family built for a hundred years. I need a wife. A quiet, obedient, presentable wife who will play the role." He looked me up and down. His grey eyes lingered on my tear-stained face, my cheap dress, my shaking hands. "You need everything. Money. A home. Power. And..." his lips curled into a dark, knowing smile, "revenge." Revenge. That single word made my heart slam against my ribs. "What... what do you mean?" I whispered. He pulled out his phone and swiped. He showed me i********:. It was Jessica. Posted 43 minutes ago. A photo of her and Mark in a restaurant, kissing, her hand showing off a ring — MY ring, the cheap promise ring Mark gave me last year that I returned to him tonight when I threw him out. Her caption: "Finally with my REAL love. Some girls are just placeholders until a real woman comes along. Sorry not sorry, E! #Upgrade #Winning #LawyerWifeComingSoon" The comments were full of laughing emojis. People from college. People who knew me. Something inside me, something that had been trying to be nice and forgiving my whole life, snapped like a dry branch. "I'll do it," I said, my voice suddenly clear. No shaking. "I'll marry you." Damien raised one perfect eyebrow, surprised by my speed. "You haven't read the terms. You haven't heard the compensation." "I don't care," I said, looking straight into his storm-grey eyes. I was no longer crying. "I want them to see me. I want them to choke on their happiness when they see who I became. I want them to regret ever knowing the old Elena." For a long moment, he just stared at me. Then, slowly, dangerously, he smiled. It was not a nice smile. It was dark, possessive, and it made my stomach flip. "Good girl," he whispered, his voice dropping lower. "I knew I chose correctly. Then let's make them regret they were ever born, Mrs. Black." He held out his large, warm hand. On the table behind him was the contract and a black Montblanc pen. And I, Elena Rossi, the girl who had nothing left to lose at 10 PM on her 24th birthday, took the devil's hand and sold my next year to him.