Chaptwo
1488 Words
Chapter Two: The Wife Clause
I didn’t sleep that night.
How could I?
Damien’s words echoed like static through my skull—“I bought it to protect you.”
What did that even mean? Why would he protect me? After everything he’d done?
I wanted answers.
But I knew Damien Voss didn’t give answers.
He gave puzzles.
The next morning, I woke to find a sealed envelope on my nightstand. My name scrawled in precise ink: Mrs. Voss.
I rolled my eyes.
Inside was an itinerary, handwritten in perfect block letters:
Today
9:00am – Breakfast with Damien
10:00am – Meeting with stylist (outfit fitting for Voss Foundation Gala)
1:00pm – Etiquette training with Ms. Kensington
6:00pm – Event briefing with Damien
9:00pm – Attend Voss Foundation Gala (smile and stand still)
I crumpled the paper and tossed it across the room. I wasn’t a doll. I wasn’t a pet.
I was a weapon.
And I would play along—until it was time to strike.
Breakfast was on the rooftop terrace.
Damien sat at the head of a glass table, wearing a crisp charcoal suit and sipping black coffee like he didn’t burn down dreams for a living.
He barely looked up when I joined him.
“You’re late,” he said, cutting into a croissant.
“It’s adorable that you think I care.”
His lip twitched in what might’ve been the ghost of a smirk.
I took the seat opposite him and poured myself tea. “Let’s make something clear. I’ll wear your dresses. I’ll smile for your investors. But the moment this contract is over, I’m gone. And I’m taking my name with me.”
He sipped his coffee calmly. “That’s fine. As long as you remember the terms.”
“I remember,” I said coldly. “No affection in private. No scandals in public. And no falling in love.”
He set his cup down and met my gaze. “That last one is non-negotiable.”
I leaned forward, fire in my veins. “Don’t worry. You’d have to be human for that to be a risk.”
His eyes darkened.
For a beat, neither of us spoke.
Then he rose. “The stylist is waiting for you downstairs. Be on time. The Voss Foundation Gala is the most important event of the quarter.”
“Don’t worry,” I said with sugar-sweet venom. “I know how to pretend.”
His eyes flicked to mine one last time—an unreadable storm behind them—before he turned and walked away.
The stylist was polite. Efficient. British.
She measured, poked, pinned, and primped me like I was a mannequin.
“You’re very lucky,” she said absently while adjusting the fit of the gown. “Mr. Voss doesn’t usually… engage romantically.”
I stiffened. “This isn’t romantic.”
“Oh,” she said, lifting a brow. “My mistake.”
The gown was deep emerald silk with a slit so high it bordered indecent. Paired with black stilettos and a diamond choker, I looked like a woman who’d chosen power over shame.
Good.
Let them look. Let them whisper.
Because I was going to burn the ballroom down with my smile.
The etiquette coach was a monster in pearls.
“Chin higher. Shoulders back. No visible disgust when you speak to donors. Laugh like you’re amused, not like you’re choking.”
I made it halfway through the hour before I “accidentally” knocked a glass of wine off the table onto her $2000 shoes.
Oops.
Damien was waiting when I returned to the penthouse.
He looked me over, head to toe, with that detached CEO expression that made me feel like a résumé being reviewed.
“You clean up well.”
I bared my teeth in a smile. “And you still look like a villain in a perfume ad.”
To my surprise, he laughed—a low, quiet thing that almost felt real.
Almost.
“I need to brief you on tonight,” he said, handing me a folder. “The donors have expectations. The press will be watching. You’ll stay by my side the entire evening.”
“Sure,” I said, flipping through the papers. “Just one question.”
He looked up.
“If this is all fake,” I asked, “why did you add a no-touch clause to the contract?”
His expression flickered. Just barely.
“You read that part?”
“I read everything.”
He was quiet for a beat too long.
Then: “Because it complicates things when people start pretending the lie is real.”
I folded the file shut and met his gaze.
“Are you afraid of me, Damien?”
He didn’t smile. “No. I’m afraid of what I do to people like you.”
That night…
The Voss Foundation Gala was held in the Grand Royal Hotel—a palace of chandeliers, velvet staircases, and old money ghosts.
Damien and I entered hand in hand.
He was elegance incarnate. And I—well, I looked like every enemy’s fantasy: dangerous, dazzling, and deliberately untouchable.
I felt eyes on me from every direction.
Whispers.
Is that Damien Voss’s wife?
She’s younger than I expected.
What’s her story?
Let them wonder.
Let them choke on it.
We made rounds, shaking hands with CEOs, politicians, socialites with forced smiles and sharper knives behind their backs.
“You’re playing your part well,” Damien murmured against my temple.
“Fake it until you break it,” I whispered back.
He chuckled. “I’m beginning to think I made the right choice.”
“You didn’t,” I said. “But I’ll make it look like you did.”
It happened during the toast.
Damien was mid-speech—standing tall under the chandelier, raising his glass when a man approached me from the crowd.
“I didn’t expect to see you here, Raya.”
I turned slowly.
My blood went cold.
No.
It couldn’t be him.
But it was.
Adam Wells.
My ex. The one who left me stranded, bankrupt, and humiliated after stealing my prototype and selling it to a competitor.
“I heard you married Damien Voss,” he said, swirling his drink. “You always did like dangerous men.”
My nails dug into my palm.
“What do you want, Adam?”
“To talk.” His eyes flicked to Damien. “And maybe warn your new husband what kind of woman you really are.”
The lights dimmed. The music swelled. Damien returned to my side just in time to catch the tension between us.
“Everything alright?” he asked smoothly.
Adam smiled. “Just old friends catching up.”
Damien’s eyes didn’t leave mine. “You’re shaking.”
I forced a smile. “I’m fine.”
He didn’t believe me.
But he played along.
The rest of the night was a blur.
Photos. Applause. Another speech.
And Adam’s stare, watching me like a secret waiting to be spilled.
We returned home in silence.
Damien poured whiskey at the bar.
I stood by the window, staring out at the city like it held answers.
“You know him,” he finally said.
“Yes.”
“Ex?”
I nodded once.
His jaw flexed. “What did he do to you?”
I turned to face him. “Why do you care?”
“Because my name is attached to yours now. If you have enemies, they become mine.”
I stepped closer. “Then maybe you should ask yourself why so many of your enemies used to be allies.”
He didn’t flinch.
“I warned you,” he said quietly. “You’re in my world now. That means blood. Secrets. Consequences.”
“Then maybe you should’ve married someone who can’t fight back.”
“I didn’t want someone who couldn’t fight,” he said. “I wanted someone who could survive the war.”
Later that night, I couldn’t sleep again.
So I did what I always did when I needed answers.
I snooped.
Damien’s study door wasn’t locked.
His laptop was.
But the photo frame on his desk caught my eye. It was turned backward, almost deliberately hidden.
I picked it up.
The woman in the photo was young. Beautiful. Fierce eyes and a soft smile.
She looked familiar.
But it wasn’t until I flipped it over that my breath caught.
A date.
A name.
Cecily Voss.
And beneath it, a handwritten note:
“She knew the cost of loving a Voss. And she paid it.”
I stared at the name, chills skating down my spine.
Cecily.
My father used to say that name in his sleep.
The woman in Damien’s photo—
She wasn’t just anyone.
She was connected to my family.
And possibly, the real reason Damien had chosen me in the first place.
- Writer
