The inside of the Maybach smelled like new leather and aggressive silence.
Aria sat rigidly against the door, pressing her shoulder into the cool upholstery as if trying to merge with the frame. She needed to put as much distance as possible between herself and Ethan Vance. Outside the tinted, bulletproof windows, the lights of New York City blurred into streaks of gold and bleeding red, a dizzying timeline of a life she was violently leaving behind.
Ethan hadn't spoken a word since the heavy door slammed shut. He was typing on his tablet again, his fingers moving with fluid precision. The blue light from the screen cast skeletal shadows across the sharp planes of his face, illuminating the hollow beneath his cheekbone and the cruel set of his jaw.
He looked calm. Detached. As if he hadn't just purchased a human being for a quarter of a million dollars.
Aria's phone buzzed against her hip, a violent jolt in the stillness. She slipped it out, her hands trembling so badly she nearly dropped it. It was the text from Mount Sinai Hospital.
Payment received in full. Julian is being prepped for surgery at 08:00 AM.
A sob caught in her throat. She bit down hard on her inner cheek until she tasted the copper tang of blood, swallowing the noise. She wouldn't cry. Not here. Not in front of him. She slowly lifted her gaze to the man who was now, technically, the owner of her debt and her future.
"Where are we going?" she asked. Her voice sounded rusty, scraped raw by the sleepless nights spent in hospital waiting rooms.
Ethan didn't look up. "Home."
"My home is a fourth-floor walk-up in Queens with a broken radiator and a fire escape that rattles in the wind."
"Not anymore." He swiped a finger across the screen, a dismissal of her entire reality. "Your lease has been terminated. I had my assistant pay the breakage fee five minutes ago. Your belongings are being packed and placed in storage as we speak."
Aria whipped her head around, shock momentarily overriding her fear. "You evicted me?"
"I relocated you," he corrected, finally locking the tablet with a sharp click and sliding it into the interior breast pocket of his jacket. He turned his head slowly, his dark eyes catching the passing streetlights. "My fiancée cannot live in a building where the front door is propped open with a brick, Aria. The press would eat me alive. 'Billionaire Ethan Vance's Future Wife Lives in Squalor' isn't the headline I'm paying a premium for."
"You have no right to touch my life," she hissed, her fingernails digging into her palms.
"I just paid two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for your life," he replied, his tone terrifyingly conversational. "I have every right. In fact, until this contract expires, I am the only right you have left."
The car slowed, turning smoothly away from the chaotic traffic and descending into the private underground entrance of a glass spire in Midtown. The Vance Tower.
It pierced the sky like a needle. Aria knew this building intimately. Her father had spent three years bidding on the land it stood on. He had lost to Ethan.
The driver opened the door. Ethan stepped out into the sterile, fluorescent glare of the garage, buttoning his suit jacket with effortless grace.
He didn't wait for her. He walked toward a private elevator bank, expecting her to follow. Like a well-trained dog.
Aria's fists clenched at her sides. Every instinct screamed at her to run, to scramble back up the ramp and disappear into the dark. But Julian was in pre-op. The money was wired. The trap was sprung. The steel jaws had closed around her ankle the moment she accepted the transfer.
She stepped out of the car, her catering shoes clicking hollowly on the concrete, and followed him.
The elevator ride was an ear-popping ascent to the 90th floor, the numbers on the display climbing faster than her heart rate.
When the doors slid open with a soft pneumatic hiss, Aria stepped directly into a living room that was larger than her entire apartment building.
It was breathtakingly cold. The climate control was set to a temperature that felt more like a morgue than a home. Floor-to-ceiling windows offered a 360-degree panoramic view of Manhattan, making the city look like a sprawling circuit board of jewels and electricity. The furniture was modern, Italian, and stark white.
There were no photos. No plants. No books. No sign that a human being with a pulse actually lived here. It was a showroom for a life, not a life itself.
Ethan walked to a sleek bar made of black marble in the corner. The clinking of crystal was the only sound in the cavernous space as he poured two glasses of amber liquid.
"Scotch?" he offered, holding a tumbler out.
"I don't drink with the enemy," Aria said, her voice echoing slightly. She stood awkwardly near a white leather sofa, afraid to touch it. She felt filthy in her catering uniform—black trousers stained with kitchen grease and a white button-down that smelled of stale champagne.
"Suit yourself." Ethan took a sip, savored the burn, and then placed a thick, leather-bound folder on the coffee table.
"Sit," he commanded.
Aria didn't move. She locked her knees. "I prefer to stand."
Ethan sighed, a sound of profound impatience. He unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled them up to his forearms, revealing the corded muscle beneath the silk. It was a casual gesture that made him look dangerously human.
"Aria, it's 2:15 AM. I have a board meeting regarding the Tokyo merger at 7:00. Sit down and read the damn contract."
Aria walked over, her legs feeling like lead, and sat on the very edge of the sofa. She opened the folder.
AGREEMENT OF COHABITATION AND FICTITIOUS ENGAGEMENT
The legal jargon swam before her tired eyes, a sea of "herewiths" and "party of the first parts."
"Clause 1," Ethan recited from memory, leaning his hip against the bar, swirling his drink. "Residency. You will live here. You will have the East Wing. I have the West. We do not cross into each other's private quarters unless there is a fire, a medical emergency, or a catastrophic PR crisis."
Aria scanned the page, her finger trembling as it traced the lines. "Clause 3... Public Displays of Affection?"
"Strictly regulated," Ethan said. "Hand-holding, arm-linking, and the occasional cheek kiss at galas or charity balls. No mouth. I don't know where you've been, and I don't care to find out."
Aria looked up, offended heat flushing her cheeks. "I haven't been anywhere. I've been working three jobs just to survive the mess you made of my family."
Ethan ignored the jab, his face impassive. "Clause 5. Duration. Six months. After that, we stage a 'mutual breakup' citing 'irreconcilable schedule conflicts.' You get to keep the engagement ring—it's a four-carat Harry Winston—and I give you a severance package of five million dollars."
Aria froze. The air left her lungs. Five million.
It was enough to pay off the rest of the medical bills. Enough to buy a house. Enough to restart Sterling Tech. Enough to build a weapon to destroy him.
"Why?" she asked, looking up at him, searching for the crack in the armor. "Why me? You could hire an actress. You could hire a supermodel. They would kill for this arrangement."
Ethan set his glass down on a coaster. He walked over to the window, staring out at the empire he ruled. His reflection in the glass looked ghostly.
"Because actresses want fame," he said quietly, his back to her. "And models want my black card. They would fall in love with the lifestyle, the jets, the access. Or worse, they would try to fall in love with me."
He turned to face her. The shadows under his eyes looked deep, purple bruises against his pale skin.
"You, Aria, have seen the worst of me. You think I'm a monster. You think I killed your father."
"You did kill him," she whispered, the accusation hanging in the cold air. "The hostile takeover... the forensic audit you falsified... the stress caused his stroke. You held the gun, Ethan. The stroke just pulled the trigger."
"Exactly," Ethan said, his voice void of emotion, accepting the blame like a jagged trophy. "That hate makes you safe. You will never look at me with stars in your eyes. You will never try to stay past the expiration date. You are the only woman in New York I can trust to leave me the second this contract is done."
Aria looked down at the paper. It was airtight. It was clinical. It was perfect.
But she wasn't just a caterer. She was Aria Sterling. She had been top of her class in Negotiation Strategies at Stanford before the money ran out and she had to drop out. She knew that in a negotiation, the person who cares the least wins. Ethan thought he held all the cards, but he was desperate for stability.
"I have conditions," she said, her voice gaining strength.
Ethan raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. "You're in no position to negotiate."
"I am if you want me to be convincing," she countered, crossing her arms. "If I look miserable, the press will know it's fake. If I look trapped, the board will think you're coercing me. If we do this, we do it right."
Ethan considered this, tilting his head. He walked over to the sofa and sat in the armchair opposite her, leaning forward, elbows on knees. "Name them."
"One," Aria said, holding up a finger. "I can visit Julian whenever I want. No questions asked. No chaperones. No using him as leverage."
"Granted."
"Two. I don't just sit around this mausoleum all day waiting for you to come home. I need a job."
Ethan laughed, a short, dry sound that lacked any humor. "A job? You're marrying a billionaire. It looks bad if you're waiting tables or scrubbing floors."
"I don't want to wait tables," Aria said, her eyes flashing with a spark of her father's brilliance. "I want a position at Vance Industries."
Ethan stopped laughing. The air in the room shifted, thickening with tension. He looked at her, really looked at her, assessing her intelligence for the first time rather than just her utility.
"Where?"
"Strategic Planning," she said, keeping her face neutral. "Assistant Manager level. I want to earn my keep."
And I want access to your internal servers, she thought. I want to find the biometric data you stole from my father.
Ethan studied her face, his eyes narrowing. He knew she was up to something. But his arrogance was his blind spot, thinking he could control it.
"Executive Assistant," he countered smoothly. "To me. That way I can keep an eye on you. You'll manage my calendar, not my company strategy."
"Fine," Aria agreed too quickly, then masked it with a frown. Being his assistant gave her access to his physical office, his passwords, his trash. It was better than she had hoped.
"And three," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "We find out the truth."
"The truth about what?"
"About the 'Black Box' leak," Aria lied smoothly, though her heart hammered against her ribs. "My father always said there was a leak in his company before you took over. Someone on the inside sold the proprietary algorithms to you. I want to know who the traitor was."
Ethan's expression didn't change, but his index finger tapped once against the leather armrest. A tell.
"I acted alone, Aria. It was business."
"Liar," she threw his own word back at him. "You're good, Ethan, but you're not a god. You had help from the inside to bypass the encryption. Give me the name, or I don't sign. You can find another fiancée by morning, sure, but the rumors of your instability will tank the Tokyo merger before you can say 'I do.'"
Ethan stared at her for a long, agonizing minute. The tension in the room was electric. Finally, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a heavy Montblanc fountain pen.
"Sign the paper, Aria," he said softly, his voice dropping an octave. "And maybe, if you're very, very good... I'll let you look through the archives."
It wasn't a yes. But it wasn't a no.
Aria took the pen. The weight of it felt significant in her hand. She looked at the signature line.
This is it, she told herself. The belly of the beast.
She pressed the nib to the paper and signed her name in sharp, angular script.
Ethan took the folder back immediately, snapping it shut. He stood up, the business concluded.
"The guest room is down the hall to the right. There are clothes in the closet; my stylist sent over a wardrobe an hour ago. Get some sleep. We have a press conference at 9:00 AM, and you need to look like you're in love, not in mourning."
He turned and walked toward the West Wing, dismissing her.
"Ethan?"
He stopped, his back to her, rigid.
"Why do you keep a picture of my father?"
Ethan stiffened visibly. He didn't turn around. "What?"
"In the car," Aria said, standing up. "When you opened your tablet. Your background wallpaper. It's a photo of the original Sterling Tech groundbreaking ceremony from ten years ago. My father is in the center holding the shovel. You're standing behind him."
She had seen it for a split second before he swiped to the bank transfer.
Ethan stood motionless in the center of the vast, empty room. The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating.
"He was a mentor to me once," Ethan said, his voice barely a whisper. "Before he lost his mind."
"He didn't lose his mind," Aria defended automatically. "He was framed."
"Go to sleep, Aria," Ethan cut her off, his voice turning ice cold again. "Tomorrow, you belong to the public. Tonight, you just belong to the contract."
He walked away, his footsteps echoing on the marble floor until he disappeared into the shadows of the West Wing, leaving her alone in the cold.
Aria sat back down on the white sofa, the signed contract gone, the silence returning with a vengeance. She looked out the window at the city below. She was ninety floors above the world now, protected by reinforced glass and billions of dollars. But as she wrapped her arms around herself she realized something terrifying.
She wasn't protected. She was trapped in a cage with a man who was arguably the most dangerous predator in the city.
And she had just challenged him to a game she wasn't sure she could win.
Aria stood up, her jaw setting in determination. She walked to the window and placed her hand against the cold glass.
"I'm coming for you, Ethan," she whispered to the reflection of the city. "And I'm going to take it all back."