The CEO's Forbidden Contract: 30 Days To Seduce Me

Chapter 6: The Envelope

"Emma Hartley?"

The man in the grey suit held out the manila envelope like it was a bomb.

Adrian's hand crushed mine. "Don't touch it."

But his mother was smiling—that cold, perfect smile.

"Oh, let her, Adrian. If she's going to be sleeping in your bed, she should know who she's sleeping with."

The entire ballroom was watching now. The board members, the socialites, the waiters pretending not to listen. The string quartet had stopped playing.

I took the envelope. My fingers were numb. The satin dress suddenly felt too tight, the diamond necklace too cold.

Adrian grabbed my wrist. "Emma, outside. Now."

"No," I said, and my voice didn't shake this time. "If I'm going to be yours for thirty days, I want to know what I'm agreeing to."

His eyes searched mine, desperate. "You don't."

"I do."

I opened it.

Inside were two photos and a newspaper clipping, yellowed at the edges.

The first photo: The Plaza, this same ballroom, three years ago. Adrian, younger, actually smiling in the same tuxedo. Next to him, a girl in the exact cream satin dress I was wearing. Same shoes. Same diamond necklace. She had dark hair like mine. Hazel eyes like mine. She was laughing up at him like he hung the moon.

My stomach dropped to the floor.

The clipping: BLACKWOOD HEIR PRESUMED DEAD IN HUDSON CRASH - FIANCÉE STILL MISSING

Adrian Blackwood, 28, CEO of Blackwood Holdings, and his fiancée Claire Hart — wait.

Hart.

I looked up at Adrian. His face was white.

"Claire Hart," I whispered. "Her last name is Hart. Like mine."

"Claire was—" His voice broke. "Claire Hartley. Your sister."

The second photo slipped from my fingers and fluttered to the marble floor.

It was my sister. Claire. My older sister who disappeared three years ago after she told me she was dating some rich guy who was "too good to be true." Who stopped answering my calls. Who my mom said ran away to Europe.

She didn't run away. She was engaged to Adrian Blackwood. And she died wearing my dress.

The ballroom spun.

"Emma," Adrian said, reaching for me.

"Don't." I stepped back, and his hand fell. "Don't you dare 'Just Emma' me right now."

His mother picked up the photo of Claire, almost tenderly.

"Claire was lovely. Ambitious. Just like you. She wanted the same things you want, Ms. Hartley: money for your mother, tuition paid, a life that wasn't in Queens. Adrian offered her a contract too."

"A contract?" I stared at Adrian. "You had a contract with my sister?"

"It wasn't like this," he said quickly, too quickly. "It was different. Claire and I— we were—"

"You were in love?" My voice cracked. "You were in love with my sister, and she died in your car,r and you replaced her with me? Is that it? Is that why you picked me? Because I look like her?"

"No!" The word ripped out of him, raw and loud enough that two security guards stepped forward. He waved them off, his chest heaving. "Claire didn't die in my car. She left me. She left me the night of that gala. She took the money and left because she said I was a ghost. Because I couldn't love her back the way she needed. The crash was after. I was alone in the car. I was looking for her. They called me the Ghost CEO because I disappeared for two years after she left. Because I became exactly what she said I was — empty."

Tears were running down my face now, ruining my makeup, ruining the perfect billionaire girlfriend illusion.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I whispered. "Why did you let me put on her dress? Her necklace?"

"Because when I saw your application, your writing sample, your name — Emma Hartley, I thought it was fate. I thought." He ran a hand through his hair, destroying its perfect styling. "That dress wasn't hers. I had it made after I read your book. I had the necklace made for you. Claire's was different. Claire's was—" He swallowed. "Claire never wore cream. She hated cream. She said it made her look washed out. You— you glow in it."

It was such a small detail, but it broke me completely.

My sister. My sister who taught me how to steal lipstick from CVS, who told me to never trust rich men, who disappeared and left my mom and me drowning in bills. My sister had been here, in this room, with him.

And he had picked me anyway. Or because of it. I didn't know which was worse.

Eleanor Blackwood slipped the envelope from my frozen hands.

"Well, now you know why I locked the guest wing, dear. Adrian has a habit of keeping girls who look like ghosts in his bedroom. Claire lasted twenty-two days before she realized rule four would kill her."

She turned to leave, then paused.

"Oh, and Emma? Your mother called the penthouse today. She sounded worried. I told her you were settling in nicely. With my son. In his bed."

My mother. She told my mother.

Adrian moved before I could even process it. He grabbed his mother's arm, not hard, but firm enough that she gasped.

"You called her mother?"

"I protect my family," she said, yanking away. "Something you never learned how to do."

She walked away, leaving me standing in a puddle of my own life, in a dress that wasn't my sister's but felt like it was.

Adrian knelt and picked up the photo of Claire. His hands were shaking.

"Emma, I didn't know how to tell you. I saw your last name, and I hired someone to look into you. I know your mom is sick. I know about the loans. I know Claire left you both. I thought if I could help you, maybe I could"

"Maybe you could bring her back by replacing her with me?" I finished.

He looked up at me, his perfect CEO mask finally, completely shattered. His eyes were wet.

"No. Maybe I could finally save one Hartley sister when I failed the other."

Silence. The ballroom had gone back to pretending to drink champagne, but everyone was still listening.

I looked down at the man kneeling at my feet in a tuxedo, holding a photo of my dead no, not dead- vanished sister, begging me with his eyes.

And I did the only thing I could think of.

I took his hand and pulled him up.

"Take me home," I whispered. "Not to The Plaza. Home. To the penthouse. To the bed with one bed."

His eyes flared. "Emma—"

"You said rule four is I sleep there. So I'm sleeping there. But tonight, Adrian Blackwood, you're going to tell me everything. About Claire. About the crash. About why you really became a ghost. No more contracts. No more lies."

He stared at me like I was insane. Like I was the first real thing he'd seen in three years.

Then he leaned down, right there in the middle of The Plaza, with his mother watching and the board watching and my sister's ghost between us, and he whispered against my ear so only I could hear—

"Just Emma."

And this time, it wasn't a line. It was a plea.

He scooped me up satin, diamonds, broken suitcase life and all and carried me out of that ballroom while everyone stared, bridal style, like I was his and he was finally, finally done pretending he wasn't obsessed.

The limo door closed. The city blurred outside. His hand found mine in the dark and didn't let go.

"You still have the envelope," he said quietly.

I looked down. I was clutching the second photo I'd dropped. Not Claire. Me.

A photo of me at The Daily Grind, making coffee yesterday morning, taken through the window by someone I didn't know.

Someone had been watching me before Adrian ever sent that contract.

Someone knew I was coming to that penthouse.

And they wanted me to find that envelope tonight.