Chapter 2

The car drove for what felt like an hour but couldn't have been more than twenty minutes.

We stopped in front of a penthouse tower I recognized instantly—The Alastair, the most expensive residential building in Ashford City. The kind of place where a single floor cost more than most people earned in a lifetime.

The man stepped out first. Under the entrance lights, I finally saw him clearly, and my brain short-circuited.

He was devastating.

Over six-two, with black hair pushed back from a face that didn't belong in the real world. High cheekbones, a sculpted jaw, and those eyes—dark brown now, not gold. Maybe I'd imagined the glow.

He wore a black suit with no tie, the top two buttons undone, revealing a silver chain that disappeared beneath his shirt. Everything about him screamed money and danger in equal measure.

He extended his hand to help me out. His fingers were warm, almost hot, as if he were running a fever.

"I'm Lucian Voss," he said. "Your husband. Try to remember that."

"I didn't agree to marry you. I agreed to a contract."

"Same thing." He placed his hand on the small of my back and guided me inside. "In my family, contracts are marriages. Marriages are contracts. The distinction is irrelevant."

The lobby was empty—no doorman, no receptionist. The elevator opened the moment we approached, as if the building itself recognized him.

We rode to the top floor in silence. The doors opened directly into a penthouse that looked like it had been designed by someone who hated warmth. Everything was black marble, dark wood, and glass. Beautiful, cold, and enormous.

"Your room is the second door on the left," Lucian said, walking toward the bar and pouring himself a drink. "Staff will bring your meals. A stylist will come in the morning to prepare your wardrobe. You'll need to look the part."

"The part of what?"

"My wife." He took a slow sip, watching me over the glass. "My family has certain… expectations."

"What kind of family requires a contract wife?"

Something flickered across his face. Not anger—something sadder.

"The kind that devours weakness," he said quietly. "And right now, an unmated heir is weakness."

Unmated.

That word again. Normal people said "single." Normal people said "unmarried."

He said unmated, the same way a nature documentary described wolves.

I should have asked more. Instead, exhaustion hit me like a wall. I'd buried my mother that morning. I'd been betrayed, dumped, made homeless, and apparently married all in the same day.

I was too tired to be afraid.

"I'm going to bed," I announced. "We can discuss the terms of this insanity tomorrow."

I turned and walked toward the hallway. Behind me, I heard him set his glass down.

"Vivian."

I stopped.

"Lock your door tonight."

His voice was strangely tight, as if he were giving me the advice against his own wishes.

"Why?"

A pause. Then, very quietly:

"I sleepwalk."

There was something in the way he said it—a warning buried inside an excuse—that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

I locked the door.

At 2 a.m., I woke to the sound of someone standing right outside my room.

I could hear breathing—slow, heavy, deliberate. And then a hand tried the doorknob.

It turned once. Twice. Held.

The lock stopped it.

Then I heard something that made my blood freeze.

A low growl. Not human. Not animal. Something in between.

And then Lucian's voice, barely a rasp, like he was fighting to speak through clenched teeth:

"Good girl. Keep it locked."

The footsteps retreated.

I didn't sleep for the rest of the night.