Poison and Promises

Poison still tastes the same

I wake up choking on champagne that isn’t there.

The dream is always the same: crystal flute in my hand, gala lights glittering like broken teeth, Victor Hale smiling as he tips the glass to my lips. “To new beginnings,” he says, and then fire races down my throat, my lungs seize, and across the ballroom Damon Blackwood turns too late—always too late—his face the last thing I see before the lights go out.

I bolt upright in my shitty one-bedroom, sheets soaked, heart trying to punch through my ribs. It’s been eighteen months since I opened my eyes in this new body, same face, same name, different life. Eighteen months of remembering everything. Eighteen months of planning.

Today is the day I stop planning.

I dress like I’m going to war: black pencil skirt, white blouse crisp enough to cut, heels that click like gunshots on the marble lobby of Blackwood Enterprises. Security doesn’t stop me. They never do. I’m just the quiet clerk from accounts who brings coffee and disappears.

Not today.

The executive floor is silent at 7:03 a.m. Damon’s door is ajar. I push it open without knocking.

He’s already there, sleeves rolled to the elbows, staring at a tablet like it personally offended him. Dark hair messy from running his hands through it. Jaw tight. Beautiful in the way a storm is beautiful—destructive if you get too close.

He doesn’t look up. “You’re early. The termination meeting isn’t until nine.”

My laugh is short, ugly. “You’re firing me because I found the Lucas fund. The one you buried under three shell companies so the board can’t touch your nephew. Cute. Sloppy.”

Now he looks up. Slowly. Those gray eyes lock on mine and something inside me twists—memory, hate, want, all at once.

“Miss Kane,” he says, voice dangerously soft, “you have thirty seconds to explain why I shouldn’t have security drag you out.”

I step closer, drop a flash drive on his desk. It skids across the polished wood like a challenge. “Because thirty seconds from now you’re going to offer me a deal instead. And if you don’t, this drive hits every financial blog, every regulator, every tabloid that still prints. Your perfect CEO mask cracks. Lucas ends up in foster care or worse—with Victor Hale, who’s already circling like a shark.”

Damon doesn’t blink. He picks up the drive, turns it over in his fingers. “You’ve been paying attention.”

“I’ve been obsessed,” I say, and the truth tastes like blood. “You think I don’t know what you’re hiding? The will. The custody clause. The ticking clock. You need a wife by Friday or Hale’s lawyers get to argue you’re unfit. Single. Unstable. Easy pickings.”

His gaze flicks to my mouth, then back to my eyes. “And you think you’re wife material?”

“I think I’m the only person in this building who knows you read romance novels at 3 a.m. when you can’t sleep. The ones where the broken billionaire saves the girl who sees through him. I think I’m the only one who knows you keep Lucas’s drawings in the bottom drawer of this desk. I think—” I lean in until our faces are inches apart “—I’m the only one who remembers what your face looked like when I died in front of you last time.”

The room goes dead quiet.

He doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t call me crazy. He just stares, like he’s seeing me for the first time.

Then he stands. Towers. “Prove it.”

I pull my phone, open the manuscript I never published. Chapter 22 of the book I wrote in secret after I woke up reborn. The scene where the heroine confronts the hero about the poison at the gala. Word for word what happened to me.

I turn the screen to him.

He reads. Color drains from his face.

When he looks up again his voice is rough. “How?”

“Doesn’t matter. What matters is Victor Hale knows I’m back. He texted me this morning.” I show him the message: Welcome back, Aria. Let’s not waste this second chance.

Damon’s hand closes around my wrist—not hard, but firm. Possessive. “You’re not going anywhere near him.”

“Good. Because I’m not asking for protection.” I twist my wrist free, but I don’t step back. “I’m asking to be your wife. Contract. Six months. Public perfect couple. You keep Lucas. I get close enough to Hale to finish what he started last time. We both win.”

He studies me like I’m a bomb he’s deciding whether to defuse or detonate.

Then he smiles. Slow. Lethal. “You want revenge.”

“I want him to choke on the same poison he fed me.”

Damon rounds the desk, crowds me against it until my hips hit the edge. “And what do I get out of this besides a pretty liar on my arm?”

“You get someone who sees you. Really sees you. Not the CEO. The man who’s terrified of losing the only family he has left.” I touch the paperback on his desk—my book, dog-eared. “You get someone who already knows how this story ends if you don’t say yes.”

He looks down at my mouth again. Longer this time.

“Marry me,” he says, voice like gravel. “And I’ll give you Hale on a platter.”

I smile. Sharp. “Deal.”

He doesn’t kiss me. Not yet.

But the air between us crackles like it’s waiting for the match.