Sold to the Man I Hate

Enemy Territory

“You brought her here?”

The voice cut across the restaurant before Ava even saw the woman it belonged to — tall, polished, venom wrapped in a designer dress, storming toward their table like she owned the room.

Julian didn’t stand. “Camille. I didn’t realize you’d be joining us.”

“I wasn’t invited. I heard.” Camille’s eyes raked over Ava like she was something scraped off a shoe. “The Bellamy girl. Really, Julian? After everything her father did to your family?”

“That’s between her father and me. Ava has nothing to do with it.”

“Doesn’t she?” Camille’s smile was all teeth. “She’s wearing your ring. That makes her exactly as much a part of it as you are.”

Ava’s hand curled into a fist under the table. “I can speak for myself.”

“Can you?” Camille turned that same razor smile on her. “Then tell me, sweetheart — do you actually believe he wants you? Or did someone forget to mention that Julian Cross doesn’t fall in love. He acquires.”

“Camille.” Julian’s voice had gone low, dangerous in a way Ava hadn’t heard yet. “That’s enough.”

“Is it?” Camille leaned in, and for one unguarded second, Ava saw something under the venom — hurt, old and unhealed. “You didn’t used to defend people this fast, Julian. Not even me.”

The silence that followed told Ava everything she needed to know, and none of it made her feel better.

“We’re done here,” Julian said, standing now, voice flat. “Ava, we’re leaving.”

Ava didn’t move right away. “Who is she?”

Camille answered before Julian could. “Ask him.” Her eyes stayed locked on Ava’s, sharp and glittering. “Ask him what happened three years ago. Ask him why he really hates the Bellamy name so much. It’s not just business, sweetheart. It was never just business.”The car ride home was silent for eleven minutes.

Ava counted them.

“Who was she,” she finally asked, “and what does she have to do with my father?”

Julian’s jaw was tight, eyes fixed on the road even though a driver was handling it. “Camille and I were together. Three years ago. Before all of this.”

“And?”

“And your father’s company funded a deal that collapsed her family’s business while we were engaged.” His voice was carefully even, the way it got when he was working hard to keep it that way. “She left. Not because she stopped loving me. Because staying with me meant staying connected to the family that ruined hers.”

Ava’s stomach dropped. “So this — me, this marriage — it’s not just revenge on my father. It’s revenge for her.”

“It started that way.” He finally looked at her, and something in his face had cracked open, raw in a way she’d never seen from him. “I won’t lie to you, Ava. When your father came to me for help, some part of me wanted exactly this. Wanted to take something from the Bellamy name the way it took something from me.”

“And now?”

“Now I don’t know what I want anymore.” His voice dropped, rough. “That should terrify me more than it does.”

Ava turned to look out the window, heart pounding, unsure whether the ache in her chest was anger or something far more dangerous.

“You should have told me,” she said quietly. “Before the contract. Before any of this.”

“Would it have changed your answer?”

“No.” She hated how true it was. “My father’s company still would have collapsed. Three hundred people would still have lost everything. But I would have known what I was walking into.”

“You’re right.” He said it simply, no defense behind it. “I’m sorry.”

The car pulled up to the estate gates, and neither of them moved to get out.

“There’s something else,” Julian said finally, voice low. “Something you should know before Camille finds another way to tell you first.”

Ava’s pulse spiked. “What?”

“She’s not finished with this. With us.” His eyes held hers, dead serious. “Camille doesn’t lose gracefully. And now that she knows I’m marrying you, she’s going to make sure everyone in this city knows exactly why — the old story, the real one, dressed up however ugly she wants to make it.”

“Let her.”

“Ava — “

“I mean it.” Something steady settled into her chest, surprising her. “I’ve spent my whole life letting other people write the story about who I am. My father. The company. Now you. I’m done being a headline someone else gets to control.”

Something shifted in Julian’s expression — not quite pride, but close enough to it that her breath caught.

“That,” he said quietly, “is the first thing you’ve said to me that sounded like you actually wanted to be here.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Ava said again, echoing herself, though this time the words felt less like armor and more like something else entirely.

Neither of them moved to break the moment. Outside, the gates opened slowly, and somewhere beyond them, in a city that hadn’t yet decided what to make of the woman marrying Julian Cross, Camille was already making her first move.