Arrogant CEO's Fall : Divorced on Wedding Night

The Contract Begins

The silence in the car was suffocating.

Adrian Blackwood sat in the backseat, his jaw clenched, eyes fixed on the city lights flashing past. His tailored suit was still slightly wrinkled from the chaos of the wedding that never happened. Beside him, I sat stiffly, my wedding dress now feeling like a prison.

"Say something," he finally broke the silence, his voice cold and low.

I turned to him, my hands trembling in my lap. "What do you want me to say, Mr. Blackwood? That I’m sorry your plan to humiliate me didn’t work?"

His eyes narrowed. "Don’t pretend you’re innocent, Aria. You knew exactly what you were doing when you agreed to this marriage. You needed my company’s investment to save your father’s business. Don’t act like you’re the victim here."

I swallowed hard. He wasn’t wrong. Dad’s company was drowning in debt. The merger with Blackwood Enterprises was our only way out. And I was the price.

"And you needed my father’s shipping routes to expand into Asia," I shot back. "So don’t act like you’re doing me a favor."

For a moment, his expression flickered. Annoyance. Respect. Maybe both.

"Fine," he said. "Since the wedding is off, we’ll do it the legal way. A contract marriage. One year. No feelings. No intimacy. You play the role of my wife in public, and I keep your father’s company afloat."

I stared at him. "You can’t be serious."

"I’m always serious when it comes to business." He pulled out a folder from the seat beside him and shoved it toward me. "Sign this. We announce the ‘wedding’ went ahead as planned. No one needs to know it was a farce. In a year, we divorce quietly. No scandal. No losses."

I opened the folder. The words blurred in front of me. Contract Marriage Agreement. Clause after clause of restrictions. No dating. No public disputes. No sharing private information. And at the bottom, a penalty clause that made my stomach drop.

If I breached the contract, I’d owe him 50 million dollars.

"This is insane," I whispered.

"It’s business, Aria." He leaned closer, his cologne sharp and overwhelming. "You want to save your father? Sign it. Or walk away and watch everything he built crumble."

Tears burned my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I wasn’t that weak girl anymore.

"Fine," I said, grabbing the pen. "One year. Then we’re done. Forever."

He smirked, a dangerous, slow smile that didn’t reach his eyes. "We’ll see about that."

---

Two weeks later, I stood in the Blackwood penthouse, staring at my reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror. The contract was signed. The public announcement had gone out. #BlackwoodWedding was trending again.

But this time, it was real to the world.

A knock on the door made me turn. Adrian walked in, still in his office suit, tie loosened.

"Press conference tomorrow," he said. "Be ready. Smile. Act in love."

I crossed my arms. "I hate you, you know that?"

"Good," he replied. "Hate makes things easier. No one falls for their enemy."

But as he walked past me, his hand brushed mine. Just for a second. And my heart, stupid traitor that it was, skipped a beat.

This was going to be a long year.