📖📖📖 The billionaire's dark secret
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Chapter One – The Invitation
The rain hadn't stopped all evening. It drummed against Zoey Hart's tiny apartment window in restless, steady waves, as though the whole city was conspiring to remind her that she didn't belong in comfort or silence.
Her laptop screen glowed pale in the dim room, half-filled with an article she couldn't bring herself to finish. Words blurred together, deadlines loomed, and her editor's voice replayed in her head like an unwelcome echo: "Find me a story worth reading, Hart, or don't bother coming in Monday."
She pinched the bridge of her nose, fighting the weariness that had settled in her bones. Being a junior reporter at the Tribune wasn't glamorous. Most days it was coffee runs, rewrites, and being told her ambition outpaced her experience. Still, Zoey had dreams stitched into her very skin — of breaking something big, of proving she wasn't just another disposable voice in the newsroom.
The knock on her door startled her. Sharp. Unexpected.
She hesitated before answering, heart giving a nervous flutter. No one came by this late, especially not in weather like this.
When she opened the door, there was no visitor — only a black envelope lying neatly on the doormat.
Zoey crouched, frowning as she picked it up. The paper was heavy, expensive, like something torn from another world. Her name was scrawled across it in elegant silver ink. Just her first name. Zoey.
A chill pricked her skin.
Inside was a single card.
> Miss Hart,
You are cordially invited to an exclusive gathering at Blackwell Manor.
Midnight.
Discretion expected.
No signature. No RSVP. Just the time and the place.
Her breath caught. Blackwell Manor.
Even the name was wrapped in myth. The Blackwell family was old money — older than the city itself, if the stories were to be believed. Their fortune was whispered about but never detailed, their business empire shrouded in secrecy. Damian Blackwell, the current heir, was notorious for avoiding the public eye. Some said he was eccentric, others called him dangerous.
Zoey had written half a dozen failed pitches about him, always shot down for lack of substance. No one ever got close. No one ever received an invitation.
Until now.
Her hands shook as she set the card down on the desk. A story like this could change everything — her job, her career, her life.
But a thread of unease tugged at her chest. Why her? She wasn't a name in society columns. She wasn't anyone.
The storm outside thundered as though mocking her hesitation.
By midnight, curiosity had won.
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Blackwell Manor rose from the hills like something carved out of shadow. Zoey's taxi pulled up to the iron gates, and she swore the air grew colder the moment she stepped out. The building loomed in the distance — gothic towers, windows like watching eyes, and a single road leading up through a tunnel of ancient trees.
She pressed the card to the scanner at the gate. The iron bars shuddered, then swung open without a sound.
The drive was longer than she expected, each crunch of gravel underfoot echoing too loudly in the stillness. By the time the manor doors came into view, her nerves were stretched thin.
And there he was.
Damian Blackwell.
He stood at the entrance as though waiting for her, tall and impossibly composed in a tailored black suit. Even from a distance, he radiated presence — the kind of commanding stillness that made the night itself seem to pause. His hair was ink-dark, his jaw sharp, his eyes… she faltered. Silver-gray, cold and arresting, watching her with unnerving focus.
Zoey's pulse stumbled.
When she reached the steps, he spoke, his voice low and deliberate.
"Miss Hart. You came."
It wasn't a question. It was as if he'd always known she would.
Her throat went dry, but she forced herself to lift her chin. "I go where the stories are, Mr. Blackwell."
For the barest flicker of a moment, something shifted in his gaze — amusement, maybe. Or hunger.
The manor doors opened behind him, spilling golden light across the stone steps.
"Then welcome," Damian said, his lips curving into the kind of smile that didn't warm, but warned. "I hope you're prepared for what you might find."
Zoey swallowed, the storm forgotten, the night pressing close. Every instinct screamed that she should turn back.
But her ambition — and something deeper, sharper, she couldn't name — pushed her forward.
She stepped inside.