Married to My Enemy's Son

Sign Here, Hate Me Later

There is one thing they don’t teach in any business law program: what it feels like to sign a contract that effectively sells your own life.

Technically, I knew. Clause review, negotiation of articles, risk analysis—I’d done all of that on paper hundreds of times. But no professor in London had ever prepared me to sit in a conference room with cold hands and a pen poised over a document that decided where the next two years of my life would go.

Two years. That was what I managed to negotiate.

Nathan wanted five. I offered one. We met in the middle in a way that satisfied no one—which, I suppose, is the definition of a fair negotiation.

Damian didn’t participate in that back-and-forth. He sat at the right side of his desk during the last three meetings with the expression of a man attending something he hadn't chosen to attend, not once offering an opinion on the duration.

I didn’t know if that was because he didn’t care, or because his opinion wasn’t asked for.

Today—the official signing—he was there again in a dark navy suit and a tie that seemed deliberately chosen to avoid attracting attention. Same chair. Same posture. Same expression.

I was beginning to think that expression wasn't innate. Rather, it was something he had practiced very diligently.

"Article twelve has been revised according to your request yesterday," said Nathan’s lawyer—a bespectacled man with a voice that always sounded like he was reading an obituary. "The clause regarding public appearances now explicitly states a limit: a maximum of four times per month for formal events, outside of urgent requirements agreed upon by both parties."

"Good." I flipped the page. "And article eighteen?"

"Rights to personal property of each party remain separate during the term of the agreement, except for assets explicitly merged upon written consent of both parties."

I read the clause twice. Then nodded.

Across from me, Nathan observed the process with an unchanging expression. But there was something in his eyes—not impatience, more along the lines of *amused*—that said he wasn't accustomed to someone who read every line before signing.

"You are very meticulous," he said.

"I learned from people who weren't meticulous enough," I said, flipping to the next page without looking up. "The results were unpleasant."

A thin silence.

Then, from the end of the table: "There’s a typo on the last page in the third paragraph."

Everyone turned to look at Damian.

He wasn't looking at anyone. His eyes were on the copy of the document in front of him. "The company name is written as *Ashford Holding* without an 's'. Legally, that could be an issue if there’s a nomenclature dispute down the line."

A different kind of silence this time. Longer.

Nathan’s lawyer quickly opened the page, checked, and his face turned a shade not far from the gray of the carpet beneath his feet. "I apologize, I will—"

"Fix it before signing," Damian said, his tone as flat as it had been before. Then he turned the page of his own document and said nothing more.

I stared at him for a moment.

He didn't look back.

The corrected document returned to the table twenty minutes later.

Nathan signed first—a neat, controlled signature, like everything he did. Then his lawyer. Then a representative from the Ashford side, a man sent by my father because my father himself couldn't bring himself to attend today. Or rather, couldn't force himself to be here.

I didn't blame him. Just noted it.

Then the pen moved to my hand.

The room felt quieter than it should have been. Or perhaps it was just my head, which had suddenly decided to dramatize everything.

I placed the pen on the signature line. Ink touched paper.

*Elara Ashford.*

Two words. Six seconds. And two years of my life officially bound to a decision made by someone else twelve years before I was old enough to choose for myself.

I placed the pen back on the table with a very calm movement.

Then the pen moved to Damian.

He took it without his expression changing. Opened the last page. And stopped.

One second.

Two.

"Damian." Nathan’s voice sounded like a warning wrapped in patience.

Damian signed. A quick, efficient movement, without the dramatics I had given it. Then he closed his document and pushed it to the center of the table.

Done.

Nathan proposed lunch to "celebrate," a word that felt very wrong for this situation but no one felt the need to correct it. I declined with the excuse of a schedule that didn't actually exist, and Nathan accepted it with a smile that said he knew I was lying and chose not to make an issue of it.

I was waiting for the elevator in the corridor when footsteps sounded behind me.

I knew it wasn't Nathan—his step was too light for a man who always entered a room as if he wanted the room to realize his presence. And too slow for the office staff who always moved with visible purpose.

"You're waiting for the same elevator," Damian said.

"There's only one elevator," I replied without turning.

He stood to my right. A polite distance—half a meter, maybe a little less. Far enough not to feel intimate, close enough to feel intentional.

We waited in silence for what was likely the longest twenty seconds of my life.

The elevator door opened. We entered. The door closed.

The forty-second floor to the lobby was a journey that was too long if you were trapped inside with someone who hadn't decided if he was going to open his mouth or not.

As it turned out, he decided yes.

"Two years," he said. Staring at the elevator door, not at me. "You negotiated from five to two."

"Smaller numbers are usually better in a context you didn't choose."

"My father doesn't like being reduced."

"I know." I watched the floor numbers going down. Thirty-eight. Thirty-seven. "He accepted it anyway."

"Because you gave him something in return."

I turned to Damian.

He was still looking at the door. But the corners of his lips moved slightly—not a smile, more like an acknowledgment. "Article twenty-one. You allowed the Ashford name to be used in one Voss Group branding campaign during the term of the agreement. That's what made him drop from five years."

I stared at him for a moment.

"You read the entire document," I said finally.

"Of course."

"Before today's meeting?"

"A week ago."

Thirty-one. Thirty. Twenty-nine.

"If so, you knew that typo on the last page had been there since the third draft," I said.

This time Damian turned. And I saw something in his eyes that wasn't there before—something thin and almost invisible but present enough to make me unable to ignore it.

"Yes," he said. "I knew."

"But you didn't say it until today."

"No."

"Why?"

The elevator stopped at the twentieth floor. Two people entered—office staff, talking quietly about something I didn't understand. They stood in front of us, back to us, unaware or uncaring.

Damian didn't answer my question until they got off on the twelfth floor.

"Because I wanted to see if you would find it first."

I processed that.

"Sort of a test," I said.

"Sort of an assessment."

"Difference?"

"A test has a correct answer." He stared back at the door. "An assessment only gathers data."

The eighth floor. Seven. Six.

"And the result?" I asked.

The elevator door opened at the lobby.

Damian stepped out first, paused for a moment, and answered without looking back.

"Not enough data yet."

I stood in the lobby for what was likely three seconds after he left, staring at his back as he walked toward the main entrance with a pace that was unhurried and never turned back.

Then I moved in the opposite direction, out through the side door, and sat on a small park bench in the corner of the building that was shielded from cameras and prying eyes.

I took out my phone. Opened the chat with the name saved as *Father*.

Typed: *It’s done.*

Deleted it.

Typed again: *Contract signed. Everything is going according to plan.*

Sent it.

Stared at the screen that didn't reply immediately.

*Whose plan*, I thought. My own plan still felt like something I was trying to piece together from fragments that didn't all fit together. I had two years. I had clauses that adequately protected me. I had a family name that no one could take away from me.

What I didn't have was the answer to the question that had been echoing louder in my head since Damian said those seven words in the elevator.

*Not enough data yet.*

He was gathering data on me. Since when? Since the first meeting at Voss Tower two weeks ago? Or earlier—since Nathan first mentioned my name to him?

And if he was gathering data, it meant he cared about the result.

And if he cared about the result, it meant this marriage wasn't just an obligation he would go through with his eyes closed.

It meant there was something he wanted from all of this.

The question: what?

My phone buzzed.

Not a reply from my father. A number not saved—but the area code was Jakarta, and the format felt familiar in a way I couldn't immediately explain.

I answered.

"Ms. Ashford." A voice I recognized immediately. Deep, flat, wasting no time on pleasantries. "There is one thing you need to know before you move into that house."

I straightened my back. "How did you get my number?"

"The agreement document. Article thirty, emergency contact."

I recalled. He was right.

"You read until article thirty," I said.

"Until Appendix C."

Three seconds of silence.

"What do I need to know?" I asked finally.

Damian was silent for a moment—not hesitation, more like choosing words. Something, I began to realize, he always did before saying something important.

"My father didn't tell you everything," he said. "Not to you. Not to me. This marriage isn't about debt."

My heart hammered once, hard.

"Then what is it about?" I whispered.

But the phone was already dead.

*I stared at my dark phone screen in my hand.*

*Outside, Jakarta moved with its rhythm that never stopped—horns, footsteps, hot wind carrying the smell of asphalt and an uncertain season.*

*And for the first time since the night my father mentioned the name Voss at our dining table, I felt something more dangerous than anger.*

*I felt curious.*