Married To His Enemy

What's Next?

At seven that evening, the private elevator opened with a soft chime at the top of Damien's tower.

The penthouse was huge and cold.

Floor-to-ceiling windows showed the whole city glittering below. Everything else was gray stone, white walls, and black leather.

It looked like a room designed by someone who was afraid of softness.

Damien dropped his keys on a glass table. "Your room is down the hall on the left. Ethan sent clothes. The maid ran you a bath. Two of my men are downstairs. You don't leave this building without one of them."

I turned around slowly. "I'm not your prisoner."

He unbuttoned his cuffs and didn't even look at me. "No. You're my wife. My enemies are your enemies now."

'And you might be the worst of them,' I thought coldly.

I walked down the hall and reached behind me for the zipper of my wedding dress. It was stuck. I twisted and pulled until my bruised ribs screamed.

I gave up and walked back to the living room, my face hot. "The zipper. I can't reach it."

Damien looked at me for a long moment from the sofa. "Ask nicely."

My jaw tightened. "Forget it. I'll sleep in the dress."

"You'll sleep in a dress you bought for Julian, just to win one fight with me?" He stood. "Turn around. Hold still."

I lifted my hair away from my neck. I felt him step closer and felt the warmth of him at my back, though he didn't touch me.

His fingers found the top of the zipper. They brushed the bare skin of my neck, and I forgot how to breathe.

He moved slowly. One inch. Two. The cool air touched my spine, and his knuckles grazed my skin all the way down to my shoulder blades. Then he stopped.

"You can do the rest," he said, his voice low and rough.

When I turned around, he was already at the window, his back to me. One hand pressed flat against the cold glass, as if he needed something cold.

'It’s just a zipper,' I told myself, my heart racing.

I walked down the hall and opened the bathroom door. When I came out, my hair still damp, I wore a soft gray sweater that fell past my hands and black pants rolled up three times.

In the kitchen, I saw two bowls of hot noodles steamed on the long gray counter.

Damien looked up. His eyes stayed on me a second too long before he slid one bowl toward me. "Eat,” he ordered.

I didn't sit. "I'm not hungry."

"You're no use to me if you faint,” he said flatly.

I took one bite slowly. Then another, faster. Then I couldn't stop.

When my bowl was empty, he pushed his own across the counter without a word.

“You're not hungry?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I ate."

I pointed my chopsticks at him. "You lie badly."

"Only about food," he said, and the corner of his mouth moved.

His eyes moved to the stitches above my eyebrow. "Does it hurt?"

"Only when I smile," I said, touching them without thinking.

He looked at me for a long moment. "Then don't smile for me. Not unless you mean it."

My fake smile slipped. For one second, I forgot to put it back.

Then I caught it and made my voice cold. "Then I'll never smile for you."

He didn't even blink. "Noted."

Forty minutes later, when I finished the second bowl, I folded my hands on the counter. I could feel the pearl against my leg like a heartbeat.

'Set the rules before he does,' I told myself firmly.

I picked up a napkin and a pen. "Let’s set rules. Rule one. Separate rooms."

Damien leaned back. "Agreed."

'He thinks he'll catch me easily,' I thought coldly. ‘Let him try.'

I wrote it down. "Rule two. No touching in private. In public, only what we need to make people believe it."

His eyes flicked to my hand, the one he had held at city hall. "Agreed."

I pressed the pen hard into the napkin. "Rule three. No falling in love."

The kitchen went quiet. He looked at the words for a long moment. "For you, or for me?"

"For both of us," I said, without looking up.

"Agreed," he said evenly.

I wrote the last line. "Rule four. One year only. When it's over, we walk away. No tears. No drama."

He nodded once. "Agreed."

He nodded once. "Agreed."

I put down the pen, surprised. "That's it? No rules of your own?"

"I gave you mine in the car." He leaned forward and rested his arms on the counter, and the kitchen suddenly felt very small.

His gaze dropped, slow and heavy, to my mouth. Then lower, to the loose neck of my borrowed sweater.

My skin burned everywhere his eyes touched.

'He's trying to scare me,' I told myself, my heart pounding. 'Don't let him see it working.'

I folded the napkin with steady hands. "You'll never find that proof."

His eyes came back up to mine. "Then sleep well in your separate room, Mrs. Cross."

He said my new name like a warning. And I hated how it sounded in his voice.

I hated more that I didn't hate it enough.

"Now," he said, as if we had been talking about the weather. "Monday."

I blinked. "What about Monday?"

"You go back to Ward Group." He tapped the counter once.

I stared at him. "Julian runs Ward Group. He's been acting manager since my father died. He'll be in every meeting."

"Good. Let him see you." His eyes narrowed. "Whatever you whispered to him at the altar, let him think that's all you know. That you left him because he lied to you about his debts. Nothing more."

My fingers went still on the napkin."And if Julian believes that," I said slowly, "he won't look for anything else."

"Exactly," he said. "A man who thinks he knows your secret stops looking for the rest."

I lifted my chin. "And everyone else? Three hundred people watched me leave Julian at the altar. What do I tell them?"

"The only story they'll believe." His voice was flat, as if he were reading a report. "You fell in love with me. You couldn't marry one man while you loved another."

I almost laughed. "No one will believe that."

His gray eyes held mine, steady and dark. "Then make them."

“Fine,” I thought, my cheeks hot. “And what do you do?"

"I walk into your board meeting with your vote in my pocket," he said calmly, "and I sit in your father's chair."

Heat rushed to my face. "In front of everyone? In my father's chair?"

"With your vote, Mrs. Cross," he said, "I can sit wherever I want."

I wanted to throw the napkin at him. Instead, I made my voice cold and clear. "Then here's my plan. The board votes in thirty days. If I win enough shareholders, Julian is out as acting manager. I want him out of my father's office before winter ends."

Something like respect moved across his face. Then it was gone. "Good plan."

I tilted my head. "And yours? What do you really want with my company, Mr. Cross?"

He held my gaze. "I won't answer that."

'Of course you won't,' I thought, my eyes narrowing.

'Thirty days,' I thought, my fingers closing around the pearl in my pocket. 'One vote, and Julian loses everything he stole. And while I fight him, I'll find out what you were doing at the river, Damien Cross.'