MARRIED TO MY ENEMY'S GHOST

CHAPTER 1: TILL DEATH DO US PART I married my enemy at noon, and by midnight he was dead. By 12:10, he was asking me to pass him a drink. "I'd do it myself," said the voice at my ear, dry and annoyingly calm, "but I seem to have lost the use of my hands." I didn't scream. I wish I could say that was bravery. It wasn't. I was frozen in the middle of the Blackwood penthouse, still wearing a wedding dress that cost more than my mother's hospital bills, staring at the body of Damien Blackwood on the marble floor. Five hours earlier, he had slid a ring onto my finger in front of three hundred guests and the press. His hand had been warm. His eyes had been unreadable. "Smile, Eleanor," he'd murmured. "Let them think you won." I had hated him for that. I had hated him since I was twelve, when his family's company swallowed my father's, and my father never recovered. Hart Industries was gone. My father was gone. All I had left was a sick mother and a debt the Blackwoods owned. So when Damien Blackwood offered a marriage contract, one year, no questions, I signed it. Now the man I'd signed it with lay still, one hand outstretched, a shattered champagne glass beside him. "Eleanor," the voice said again. "Look up." Slowly, I lifted my eyes. He was standing by the window. Tall. Dark-haired. Tuxedo perfectly pressed, bow tie loosened the way he always wore it, as if the world could wait. Moonlight went straight through him. "You're dead," I whispered. "Apparently." He glanced at his own body with mild irritation. "Though I'd hoped for a more dignified exit." My knees gave out. I grabbed a chair that didn't feel real beneath my hands. "This isn't happening." "It's happening." He crossed the room, and I felt the temperature drop with every step. Then he stopped, close enough that I could see the faint shimmer at the edges of him. "Listen to me carefully. In about ninety seconds, my security team will find us. They'll call it a heart attack." "Wasn't it?" His expression hardened into something I had never seen on the living Damien. "I'm thirty-four and I run five marathons a year. Someone put something in my glass." My blood went cold. "Who?" "I don't know." His gaze dropped to the ring on my finger, then lifted to meet mine. "But you're the only person in this world who can hear me, Eleanor. Which means you're now the only person who can find out." Behind us, the penthouse doors burst open. "Don't tell them I'm here," Damien said quickly. "Don't trust anyone. Not even my family." Then, softer, almost to himself: "And try not to look so happy about being a widow."