The cuffs clicked around Aria Hale's wrists before she even understood what was happening.
Flashing lights painted the night in red and blue as two uniformed officers dragged her down the marble steps of the gala venue. Her satin gown, once the color of midnight and elegance, now clung to her like a shroud, ruined by rain and scandal. Paparazzi bulbs burst like tiny explosions as people gasped and pointed, some with their phones already streaming.
"Aria Hale, you are under arrest for fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy to embezzle federal funds."
Her blood turned to ice.
"This is a mistake," she choked out. "I didn't—this is a mistake!"
But the officer shoved her into the back of the cruiser with practiced indifference. The door slammed shut. Metal. Cold. Final.
Her hands trembled behind her back, the cuffs biting into her skin. She couldn't hear anything except her own breathing. Shallow. Panicked. The life she'd built—her nonprofit, her reputation, her late mother's legacy—it was all unraveling with a single, brutal pull of the thread.
And somewhere, someone was watching it all fall apart.
Someone who had been waiting.
—
They held her in a stark interrogation room for nine hours. No phone call. No lawyer. Just coffee she didn't drink and questions she didn't understand.
"Where did the money go, Ms. Hale?"
"Who wired the offshore accounts?"
"Why is your signature on these transfers?"
She kept repeating the same truth: "I didn't do it. I don't know. I didn't touch any money."
But the evidence said otherwise. Her foundation's bank records. Her digital signature. Even surveillance footage of her at her office—timed perfectly with the illegal transactions.
Except she hadn't been there. She had an alibi. She—
The door opened, interrupting the dizzy spiral of her thoughts.
A man stepped in. Not a detective. Not a lawyer.
He was taller than she remembered. Broader. Wearing a charcoal suit so sharp it looked carved. His dark hair was slicked back, his jaw lined with that same unrelenting arrogance she hadn't seen in years.
Julian Devereux.
The room shifted. Her pulse stuttered.
"What the hell are you doing here?" she whispered.
His eyes were silver and unreadable. "I'm here to offer you a choice."
She stood slowly, fury rising through the fear. "You think this is some opportunity to gloat?"
He leaned against the table with unsettling calm. "If I were here to gloat, you'd already be in prison."
She froze.
He studied her with the kind of detachment that made her stomach twist. "Your board has already turned on you. The media is circling. Your staff has scattered like rats. And the prosecution thinks they have everything they need."
Her voice shook. "I didn't do anything, Julian."
"I know," he said simply.
She blinked.
"But that won't save you."
He slid a folder across the table. Thick. Legal. Heavy.
"What is this?" she asked, not touching it.
"Your salvation," he replied. "Or your sentence. Depends how you read it."
She opened it with numb fingers. The first page was a nondisclosure agreement. The next, a contract. Her name. His name. Terms. Clauses.
"You want me to… what?" Her breath caught. "Be yours?"
"For sixty days."
"Sixty days of what, exactly?"
His lips curled slightly. "Of doing exactly what I say. No arguments. No resistance."
She stepped back. "You can't be serious."
"You want a lawyer? This is your best one." He tapped the folder. "Sign it, and I make the charges disappear. I fix the records. I bring the real culprit to light."
She stared at him, jaw tight. "Why?"
He looked at her like the answer was obvious. "Because I've waited three years to own you."
Aria swallowed hard.
Julian Devereux had always been dangerous. Cold. Calculating. A man who could dismantle someone with a look and rebuild them however he pleased. She'd known him once, when she was a different woman. When she thought she could walk away.
But no one walked away from Julian.
She closed the folder.
"You expect me to just give you control over my life because you decided to play hero now?"
"I'm not your hero," he said. "I'm your only option."
The weight of that truth was unbearable.
She looked down at her cuffed wrists, then at the contract again. There were no guarantees. Just consequences. If she signed, she was his. If she didn't, she was ruined.
Tears burned behind her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.
Julian stepped closer. Close enough to feel the heat of his presence. "You hate me. Good. It'll make this easier."
She wanted to slap him. Scream. Tell him he was sick.
But what came out instead was a whisper. "And when the sixty days are over?"
"You walk away. No strings. No records. Your name cleared. Your foundation intact."
"And until then?"
He looked down at her with eyes like winter steel. "Until then, you're mine."
—
The pen felt heavy in her hand. Her signature looked foreign as it curved across the final page. The cuffs were gone now—replaced by something far more dangerous.
Invisible chains.
Julian picked up the folder with a satisfied nod. "Good girl."
She flinched at the words. He knew she would.
Outside the room, his assistant waited with a change of clothes. Black dress. No tags. No questions.
Aria didn't speak as she changed. She didn't speak as Julian led her out of the precinct and into the waiting black car.
But when the doors shut and the engine purred to life, she turned to him.
"I'll find a way out of this."
His gaze met hers. Calm. Dangerous. Almost amused.
"You can try," he said, voice low. "But every time you do, I'll tighten the cuffs."
And he meant it.
Because Aria wasn't just cuffed by steel anymore.
She was cuffed to him.
And Julian Devereux didn't let go.