CONTRACTED: His Dangerous Obsession

Contracted

Eighteen Months Later...

Phoebe sat in the civil registry with her hands folded tightly in her lap, and told herself, for the fourth time that morning, that this was simple.

Six months.

Nothing more.

Six months as Damon Ross's wife, and then she would walk away. She repeated that to herself again, even though she had already done it so many times that morning.

It hadn't been her life's plan to sign papers that would make a stranger her husband for six months. But her father had run out of options.

She knew that that was the only way out because she had spent the last twelve months watching her father grow thinner. Lawyers had told her the same thing each time — the debts were real, the interest had multiplied past anything he could pay, and no amount of legal manoeuvring was going to make it disappear in time. Fighting it would take more money and time than they had.

Someone had given her father a name three weeks ago. Damon Ross. The man powerful enough to make it disappear. But his price was a contract marriage.

Her father had come home that evening and told her immediately that he wasn't considering it. He would rather go to prison than hand his daughter over to a man to fix a mess of his own making.

Phoebe had been the one to say yes. It was just for six months. As long as she kept to the rules of the contract, she'd walk away at the end of six months, his name and finances clean, and none of this would have to be spoken of again.

The door opened, and a man walked into the room.

She looked up and everything she had rehearsed, the unaffected version of herself she had planned to wear for the next six months, went silent in her head.

She knew that jaw. That mouth. That face. Those eyes moved across the room with the same confidence she remembered.

Her lungs forgot how to work for a second.

It couldn't be him. She had spent eighteen months trying to forget him, trying to convince herself that that night hadn't happened the way she remembered it. She had spent eighteen months convincing herself that the man who had stood in front of her with wet hair and a towel around his waist was just her imagination.

But he was real. He was standing eight feet away from her in a tailored dark suit, the same dark hair she had run her fingers through, styled neatly.

"I apologise for the delay," he said, his voice pulling her back into the room.

The registrar looked toward him. "Mr Ross, please take your seat."

Damon Ross.

The man she was about to marry.

She didn't trust herself to speak yet. She glanced at her father instead. He was staring down at his hands, his fingers tightly clasped together. He looked guilty, and he still couldn't bring himself to meet her eyes.

This is for him. She told herself before looking back at Damon, who was taking his seat close to her.

Up close, there was nothing in his face that suggested that he had met her before. He looked at her like they were meeting for the first time.

If she hadn't spent eighteen months replaying his face, she'd have believed him a stranger completely.

Maybe he really didn't remember. Maybe one night with one woman wasn't worth remembering, for a man like him.

"Damon Ross," he said. He held her gaze for half a second, longer than the introduction required.

"Phoebe Quinn." Her voice came out steadier than she felt.

His jaw ticked briefly, and before she could wonder what it meant, the registrar cleared her throat and began reading through the legal statements.

Phoebe listened without really hearing the words. She answered when she was supposed to answer and repeated the vows when asked.

Phoebe signed her name where she was told to.

The registrar checked the documents, stamped them and smiled. “Congratulations. You are now legally married.”

Phoebe stared at the signature beside hers.

Married.

That was it.

She had just married the man from that night. The same man she had spent eighteen months trying to forget.

...

Outside, the sun cast a golden glow on the courthouse steps, far too bright for the kind of morning Phoebe was having. Her father pulled her into his arms, his chin resting on the top of her head. She let herself be held and said nothing.

"You didn't have to do this," he said quietly.

"I know, Dad." She pulled back enough to see his face. "But it's the only way out of this now. So it's okay."

He studied her for a long moment, checking whether "okay" was true. She gave him the most convincing smile she had.

Her father reached up and touched the side of her face. “You look so much like your mother today.”

Her throat tightened. She hated talking about her mother and had avoided bringing it up with her father.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry you're the one fixing this."

"Dad." She let out a slow breath. "It's not your fault. Let's not talk about it, please."

He nodded, though his eyes slid past her for a second before returning. "I looked into him."

"Dad—"

"He's the Damon Ross." He held her gaze like the name should mean something more than it already did.

She understood what her father meant. Who didn't know the name Damon Ross and the effect of his name in a room? She exhaled deeply. "It's just for six months, Dad. Then it's done."

He nodded again, still not convinced, just as Damon appeared beside them.

"Please take care of her," her father said to Damon. "She's my little princess."

Phoebe kept her eyes on the ground.

"I will," Damon said, holding her father's gaze.

Her father stepped back. Damon turned to her. "Shall we?"

She hugged her father once more, longer than she meant to. Then she withdrew, promised to visit often and followed Damon to the car.

The driver opened the door. She got in first. Damon slid in from the other side, and the door shut.

The car pulled away from the registry, into the traffic. Phoebe watched the city slide past, then looked down at her phone instead of at him.

"Are you always this quiet?" Damon's deep voice broke the silence.

She looked at him. "No," she said. "Not really."

"Mhm." He studied her for a moment before turning back to the window, unconvinced.

Guessing that she was not going to get much conversation out of him, she turned back to her phone, and the silence between them continued.

"Are you hungry?" he asked, casual, like an afterthought.

"No, I'm fine."

Her stomach chose that exact second to growl loudly. She froze, and her cheeks quickly turned red as she glanced at him, mortified. “I... sorry,” she muttered.

He was already looking at her, the corner of his lips lifted. "Next time you want to lie, make sure your whole body agrees first."

She pressed her lips together, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a reaction, and lost.

"The Kingsbridge," he told the driver.

"Yes, boss." The car took the next turn.

Phoebe turned back to the window, and for a moment, she almost let herself relax.

Then his phone rang.

Her head snapped toward it. He glanced at the screen and didn't move to answer until it ended.

A few seconds later, it rang again. His jaw tightened as he ended the call.

"Are you not going to answer it?" She asked, looking between him and the phone.

"No."

A message came through a second later. He looked at the screen, locked the phone and set it back into his suit pocket.

She stared at him for a moment, noticing his reaction, and then she turned back toward the window, not knowing yet how much it would come to matter to her.