chapter 4
1069 Words
I should’ve left.
The moment I heard the words “no love, no attachments”, I should’ve walked away, erased myself from that hallway, forgotten everything.
But I couldn’t move.
It was like my entire body had frozen — because for the first time in so long, I’d heard something that didn’t sound like a warning.
It sounded like an invitation.
A lifeline.
A way out.
And just when I reached to steady myself against the small glass table beside me—
Crash.
The noise tore the silence as a gunshot.
I looked with horror at the shattered vase on the floor at my feet - slivers of blue glass, lying like a broken secret on the marble floor.
It woke me with a jerk as my heart knocked hard on my chest.
Footsteps.
Quick. Sharp. Unforgiving.
And then—
He stepped out.
The man with the voice like velvet ice.
The man with the offer I wasn’t supposed to hear.
His presence swallowed the space. Cold and calculated. A shadow dressed in sleek black. Hair neatly swept back. Eyes that looked through people instead of at them.
He stopped when he saw me, crouched over the mess, bare fingers trying to gather shards like I could fix what I’d broken.
Blood welled on my thumb.
He raised a brow.
“Did you hear anything?” he asked, voice even, unreadable.
I looked up at him and lied.
“No.”
A beat.
No blink. No nod.
Just stillness.
Then he turned, ready to walk away.
And I don’t know what came over me.
Desperation, maybe.
Stupidity, definitely.
But I opened my mouth and said—
“I did.”
He paused. Slowly turned back to me.
My legs trembled as I stood.
“I heard everything,” I said, voice soft but clear. “About the contract. The marriage. The no-strings thing.”
His gaze narrowed slightly. But he didn’t speak.
“I want it,” I said, my hands still sticky with blood and nerves. “I want to be that wife. The one who doesn’t ask questions. Who doesn’t love you. Who signs the papers and plays the part.”
Silence.
He stared at me like I’d just confessed to murder.
“You want to marry me?” he asked, almost amused.
“Yes.”
“For business?”
“Yes.”
“No love?”
“I don’t need it.”
His lips curled faintly into something that might have been a smirk — but it wasn’t kind.
Then he laughed.
Low. Disbelieving. Dry.
“You?”
I flinched.
“You want to be my wife?” he repeated. “You?”
“You?” he said, eyeing me with something between amusement and insult. “How old are you?”
The question caught me off guard.
“Twenty-six.”
He raised a single brow, his smirk deepening. “You look sixteen. Maybe seventeen. And dressed like you let your great-aunt style you in the dark.”
My cheeks flamed. I instinctively looked down.
The black satin dress Helen said made me look powerful clung wrong in all the right places. The neckline dipped too low, the hem too awkward. My curls had fallen into a frizzed mess, and my lipstick had faded at the edges. I hadn’t looked bold — I looked scared.
“I was going to say brave,” he muttered, scanning me again. “But I’ll settle for unprepared.”
He stepped closer. I could feel his presence — sharp, inescapable.
“Why’d you wear that?” he asked. “You dressing up for a contract negotiation… or a high school prom?”
I swallowed hard. “It’s what I had.”
“You should’ve stayed home.”
He tilted his head.
“I like classic women,” he said. “Elegance. Poise. Not… charity cases who trip into VIP lounges and bleed on my floor.”
I shrank inside.
But then he surprised me.
“If you’d carried yourself differently,” he said, more to himself than to me. “If you’d walked in like you knew what you wanted, maybe…”
He stopped.
“Maybe?” I echoed, barely breathing.
He looked straight at me.
“Maybe I would’ve picked you.”
“ You know, You’re not the first woman to offer herself like a deal,” he said, brushing a look down my body that felt far more calculated than curious. “But at least the others knew how to fake confidence.”
I flinched.
“You look like a trembling little girl,” he said, taking a step closer. “Are you always this brave… or just this desperate?”
I forced my chin up. “Maybe both.”
He let out a low chuckle — dark and quiet.
“Careful,” he said. “That’s almost attractive.”
And then, just as quickly, his expression shifted.
Gone was the teasing smirk.
What replaced it was sharp, cruel.
“I’m Damien Knight,” he said, stepping even closer. His cologne hit my nose — something sharp, clean, expensive. “CEO of Knight Global. I don’t do charity. I don’t do pity. And I don’t marry little girls playing dress-up in desperation.”
The tears came before I could stop them.
Hot. Silent. Shaking.
I turned my head away, swallowing the ache in my throat.
“I thought…” I whispered.
“You thought wrong,” he said flatly.
I blinked hard, trying to see through the blur in my eyes. My hands clenched. I wanted to disappear. To vanish so completely that even the shame couldn’t find me.
“I could’ve been useful,” I said softly.
“You’re bleeding on my floor,” he replied. “That’s not useful. That’s inconvenient.”
And just like that, whatever pieces of courage I had left — shattered.
I turned and walked out without another word.
The hallway blurred, the lights smearing into one another, the noise from the club returning like a wave crashing over my chest.
People moved around me. Laughed. Danced. Lived.
And I?
I just wanted to stop existing for a moment.
Tears streamed freely now, streaking the makeup Helen had carefully applied.
I didn’t belong in his world.
I never had.
But for one stupid, reckless second — I thought I could.
And he made sure I’d never forget how wrong I was.
- Writer
