One year,no love

Chapter two : the first night

Aria’s POV

The contract was signed at 9:03 PM.

By 10:47 PM, I was standing in a penthouse that cost more per month than my brother’s treatment had cost in a year. Floor-to-ceiling windows stretched across the entire wall, and the city spread out below like a sea of restless light. Every illuminated window was a reminder of how small my life had been before tonight.

Damien didn’t walk me here. He didn’t offer a car. His assistant, Ms. Reyes, handled it with the efficiency of someone who had done this a hundred times before. She didn’t ask if I was okay. She didn’t ask anything. She simply handed me a keycard and said, “Your suite is on the east wing. Mr. Blackwood’s is west. Do not cross the line unless you are summoned.”

There was a line—a thin strip of brass inlaid into the marble floor at the center of the apartment. Stepping over it felt like crossing into another world. A world where people didn’t worry about hospital bills, and silence cost more than my monthly rent.

My suite had a king-size bed, a walk-in closet already stocked with clothes in my size, and a bathroom larger than my old apartment. None of it felt like mine. It felt like a stage set. And I was supposed to play the part convincingly.

I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the phone on the nightstand. Damien’s number was already saved under “Husband.” I hadn’t saved it. Someone else had. The thought made my stomach turn.

My hands still shook. Not from fear this time, but from the weight of what I’d agreed to. One year. No love. No intimacy. Just a performance, every day, in front of the world.

And if I messed up, Liam dies.

I called the hospital. My voice was steadier than I felt.

“Room 412,” I said. “How’s he doing?”

“Stable,” Nurse Patel replied. “His fever broke about an hour ago. Did the funds go through?”

“Yes,” I whispered. “It’s paid.”

There was a pause. Then, “Aria, that’s the fastest I’ve ever seen a bill like that cleared. Did you win the lottery?”

I almost laughed. It would have sounded hysterical.

“Something like that.”

“Get some sleep,” she said. “He’ll want to hear your voice in the morning.”

I hung up and stared at the ceiling. The chandelier above me had a hundred crystals. I counted them until my eyes burned and my vision blurred.

Sleep didn’t come.

At 2:14 AM, I heard footsteps outside my door. Slow. Deliberate. They stopped at the brass line.

“Can’t sleep?” Damien’s voice came through the door, low and quiet, as if he hadn’t meant to speak aloud.

“No,” I said. I hadn’t meant to answer either.

The door didn’t open. “The contract says no intimacy. It doesn’t say we can’t talk.”

I stood up. My legs felt weak, but I moved anyway. “What do you want to talk about?”

“You,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“Out of forty-seven emails, why did you send yours at three in the morning on a Tuesday? Why did you sign without reading the fine print? Why did you agree to marry a man you’ve never met?”

I hated him. That part was true. The way he looked at me like I was a transaction, not a person.

“Because my brother is dying,” I said. “And you were the only one who answered.”

Silence followed. It stretched long enough that I thought he’d left.

“Go to sleep, Aria,” he said finally. “We have a press conference at nine in the morning.”

“Right,” I said bitterly. “The performance starts.”

“Don’t call it that,” he said. “Not where people can hear you.”

The footsteps moved away.

I didn’t sleep. I stood in front of the full-length mirror and practiced smiling—the practiced smile, the one that didn’t reach my eyes. I repeated it until my cheeks ached and the expression felt mechanical. If I was going to lie to the world, I needed to be good at it.

Morning came too fast. Ms. Reyes knocked at seven sharp with a garment bag and a cup of black coffee.

“Press conference in two hours,” she said. “Hair and makeup will be here at seven-thirty. Don’t be late.”

She left before I could ask a question.

At eight-thirty, I sat in a chair while two stylists worked on my hair and face. They didn’t talk to me. They talked around me, discussing products, angles, and how to make me look “approachable but elegant.” I stared at myself in the mirror and barely recognized the woman looking back.

At nine, we stood in front of a wall of cameras.

Reporters shouted questions the moment Damien stepped forward.

“Mr. Blackwood, is this a merger tactic?”

“Miss Vale, how long have you two been dating?”

“Is it true you signed an NDA?”

Damien’s hand settled on the small of my back. It wasn’t intimate. It was positioning—a statement for the cameras.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, his voice cutting through the noise like a knife. “Thank you for coming. I’m here to announce my marriage to Aria Vale.”

The room erupted with noise.

I smiled—the practiced one, the one I’d rehearsed at two in the morning.

“We met six months ago at a charity gala,” I said. The lie felt like ash in my mouth. “We’ve kept it private out of respect for our families.”

Damien squeezed my back once. Approval, or warning. I couldn’t tell which.

Afterward, there was lunch. Just the two of us, in a private dining room that overlooked the entire city. The table was too large for two people. The silence between us was larger.

“You did well,” he said, cutting into his steak as if it had offended him.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ve had practice lying to debt collectors.”

His fork paused mid-air.

“You don’t have to be hostile.”

“I don’t have to like you either.”

“No,” he agreed. “You don’t.”

He pushed a folder across the table. Inside were photos—me, Liam, the hospital. Photos from years ago that I didn’t remember being taken.

“How did you—”

“I don’t make deals blindly,” Damien said. “I know who I’m marrying. Liam Vale, fourteen years old. Leukemia. The prognosis was poor six months ago. Now it’s improved.”

Improved. Because I’d sold myself.

“You’re using him,” I said.

“I’m saving him,” he replied. “There’s a difference.”

“Not to me.”

He leaned back, studying me with those gray eyes that never missed anything.

“You’re angry,” he said. “Good. Anger keeps you sharp. The contract has a clause: if you break character in public, the deal is void.”

“So I have to keep smiling while you play puppet master.”

“Yes.”

I stood up. The chair scraped against the floor.

“I need air.”

“Don’t leave the floor,” he said.

I didn’t. I went to the balcony instead. The wind was cold, and it felt real against my skin. Below, people moved like ants, living lives that weren’t contracts, clauses, or fake smiles.

My phone buzzed. Liam.

“Hey, sis,” he said, his voice weak but trying to sound strong. “Nurse said you paid everything. Did you win the lottery?”

I swallowed hard.

“Something like that.”

“Don’t lie to me, Aria. I know when you’re lying.”

I closed my eyes.

“I made a deal, Liam. I’m okay.”

“With who?”

“Someone who can help.”

There was a long pause.

“Don’t let them hurt you.”

“They won’t,” I lied again.

When I hung up, Damien was standing in the doorway. He hadn’t followed me. He’d waited.

“You’re good at lying,” he said.

“So are you.”

He stepped closer, but not over the brass line.

“Tomorrow, we move in together publicly. The penthouse. The papers will call it a ‘romantic gesture.’”

“We’re already living here.”

“Not in the same wing. The public needs to see us together—shared meals, shared events. No touching. No affection. Just proximity.”

“Why?”

“Because people believe what they see,” he said. “And I need them to believe.”

“Believe what?”

“That Blackwood Corp is stable. That I’m stable. That I have something to lose.”

I looked at him then. Really looked. Behind the cold exterior, there was something else—something he didn’t want me to see.

“Who are you trying to convince, Damien?”

His jaw tightened.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me,” I said. “If I’m going to spend a year playing your wife, I deserve to know what I’m walking into.”

He didn’t answer. He just turned and walked away.

That night, I dreamed of Liam. He was running through a field, laughing, his cheeks flushed and healthy. In the dream, he wasn’t sick. In the dream, I didn’t have to choose between him and myself.

I woke up at 4 AM with my pillow damp.

The first night in the penthouse ended the same way it began: in silence, with a contract hanging over both of us, and a line of brass on the floor that neither of us dared to cross.