### CHAPTER 1: NINE DAYS
804 Words
The heavy scent of expensive sandalwood and old blood clung to the walls of Caspian Sterling's study.
It was a scent no amount of money could wash away. A silent testament to the empire he had built on the ruins of his father's broken legacy.
To the outside world, he was a king of shadows. A man whose name commanded silence in the most crowded rooms.
But inside the high-walled fortress of his estate, the silence was much heavier.
It was the kind of silence that reminded him of the day the gold disappeared from the safe and the woman who had held his hand vanished with the man who had destroyed his father.
Caspian traced the rim of a crystal glass, his eyes cold and fixed on the flickering embers in the fireplace.
He had spent a lifetime perfecting the art of the strike. Ensuring that no one could ever get close enough to see the cracks in his armor.
Every woman who crossed his path was merely a piece on a chessboard. A temporary distraction to be used and discarded.
He had turned his heart into a fortress of ice, convinced that affection was nothing more than a weapon used by the weak to manipulate the strong.
He dumped every damn woman he slept with and treated them like trash.
Because if you leave first, you can never be left again.
A loud, aggressive bang on the main door shattered the morning quiet.
Caspian's jaw tightened.
No one banged on his door. No one dared.
He pressed the intercom on his desk. "Who the hell is trying to break my door at 7 a.m. on a Sunday?"
"Sir, it's... it's your father," Marcus, his head of security, answered, his voice tense. "Mr. Rowen Sterling."
Caspian froze.
His father never came here. Not in ten years.
"Check him," Caspian ordered, standing up. "I'm coming down."
He pulled on a black shirt and went downstairs, his bare feet silent against the cold marble.
Rowen Sterling stood in the grand foyer as if he owned it.
At seventy, he was still imposing. His silver hair was perfectly combed, his tailored suit sharp enough to cut. But his eyes held that same familiar look.
Disgust.
"Father," Caspian said, his voice deliberately lazy. "What brought you out here this early? Who got you upset this time?"
Rowen didn't smile. He looked at his son from head to toe like he was looking at a failed investment.
"Where are my grandchildren, Caspian?"
The question landed like a slap.
Caspian blinked. "What?"
"I'm getting old," Rowen continued, his voice hard as steel. "I'm tired of waiting for you to stop acting like a spoiled boy who hates women because his mother left. You have an empire to inherit. An empire needs an heir. Bring them to me. Bring me a wife and the promise of grandchildren. Within nine days."
Caspian let out a short, disbelieving laugh.
"You're joking. You woke me up on a Sunday to tell me you want grandchildren?"
"I am not joking," Rowen snapped. "My lawyer has the papers ready. The trust clause your grandfather left — if you are not married with an heir on the way by your thirtieth birthday, everything goes to the foundation. You will have nothing. This house, the company, all of it — gone. You have nine days until you turn thirty."
Nine days.
The room tilted slightly.
"Okay, Father," Caspian said after a long pause, and a slow, dangerous smile spread across his face. It was the smile that made board members tremble. "I shall fulfill your request. Please, have breakfast before leaving."
"I've lost my appetite just looking at you," Rowen said. He placed a thick, old envelope on the console table. "Don't disappoint me again."
He walked out, leaving his cologne and a heavy silence behind.
Caspian stared at the envelope. He picked it up and opened it.
It wasn't a legal document.
It was a photograph.
A faded photograph of a woman holding a little boy's hand in front of this very house. His mother. She was laughing. The boy — him — was looking up at her like she was his entire world.
On the back, in Rowen's sharp handwriting, were words that made Caspian's blood run cold:
_You think you became cold on your own. You learned it from her. Prove me wrong in nine days._
Caspian crushed the photograph in his fist.
He pressed the intercom again, his voice like ice.
"Marcus, get me a list. Not the usual list. I need a wife. One who can stand in front of Rowen Sterling and not flinch. I need her by tomorrow."
For the first time in twenty years, his perfect fortress had a deadline.
Nine days to find a bride. Or lose everything.
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