The car slid through wrought-iron gates that towered like the entrance to a kingdom. Beyond them, Damian's mansion rose against the night sky, stone and glass layered like armour, sharp-edged, sprawling, perched on the cliffside as though daring the sea below to rise and strike.
Ava's breath caught as the sheroached the house; she hadn't been calm since she accepted his proposal, which wasn't just a house. It was a statement. It felt like she was going into a trap, one that she wasn't sure if she would be able to get out of.
The driver stopped at the base of the steps. Damian was out first, his hand extended again, always extending, always commanding. Ava placed her fingers in his, because what else could she do? Cameras had been left behind, but his grip never loosened.
Inside, the mansion was colder than the hotel, colder than any ballroom. Marble floors gleamed beneath chandeliers that looked like cages of light. Portraits, black-and-white, faceless in their seriousness lined the walls.
It didn't feel like a home. It felt like a fortress designed to keep secrets buried inside.
Damian dismissed the staff with a glance. Their footsteps retreated until silence pressed heavily.
And then it was just them.
Husband and Wife.
Strangers bound by rings and lies.
Ava's heels clicked too loudly as she followed him deeper into the house. Her throat was dry, her pulse uneven.
"Do you bring all your wives here?" she asked, her tone sharper than she intended.
He didn't turn. "You're the first."
Her stomach twisted. The way he said it, flat, factual, as though it weren't an intimacy but an execution, made her chest tighten.
At the end of a corridor, he pushed open a door. The bedroom.
Ava froze.
It wasn't lavish in the way she expected. No gold, no silk drowning the bed. The room was stark, with steel-grey walls, a single king-sized bed, and windows that opened to the black sea. Minimal, cold, masculine. The kind of place where nothing soft survived.
"This will be your room," Damian said.
Relief surged too quickly. "Mine?"
He glanced at her, his eyes unreadable. "Ours."
Her breath stuttered immediately.
He stepped inside, motioning for her to follow. She hesitated on the threshold, but his gaze pulled her across.
"You're pale," he murmured.
"I just married a man I barely know."
"You'll know me soon enough."
The way he said it made her stomach drop.
He moved past her, shrugged out of his jacket, and loosened his cufflinks. Every motion is precise, deliberate. A predator uncoiling.
Ava's heart thundered. She forced her voice steady. "You made it clear, this is a performance. Appearances. That doesn't mean..."
Damian cut her off with a look. "Appearances don't end when the doors close."
She swallowed hard. "So what happens now? Do I play the doting bride in bed, too?"
He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he stepped close, so close she felt the heat radiating off him. His hand rose, not touching, just hovering near her cheek. The air between them charged, crackling like a storm on the edge of breaking.
Then his fingers brushed her jaw.
Not rough. Not cruel. But firm. Unyielding.
"You'll do what's required," he said softly. "When it's required."
Her pulse tripped.
"And if I don't?"
His gaze darkened. "Then you'll learn quickly that I don't tolerate defiance."
Ava's breath shivered. Fear knotted low in her belly, tangled with something she refused to name.
She stepped back, breaking the contact, finding her voice. "You think you own me because of a ring. But this...this is still my body. My choice."
Damian's eyes held hers, it was unreadable. For a heartbeat, silence stretched between them, a thick and suffocating type of silence that made the knot that had formed in her stomach tighter.
Then he smiled, that slow and deliberate smile that seemed to get on her nerves. "Good."
Confusion flickered through her. "Good?"
"You have a spine. That makes you useful." He turned away, unbuttoning his shirt. "But don't mistake usefulness for immunity."
Ava's cheeks burned, her fists curling. She hated the way relief tangled with unease, hated that he could twist her fear into something sharper.
When he finally looked back, his shirt hung loose, his chest a hard plane of muscle, scarred in lines she didn't have time to trace.
He tilted his head. "You'll sleep here. Beside me. That much isn't negotiable."
Her throat tightened. "And if I refuse?"
His voice was quiet, lethal. "Then I'll find a way to make you stay."
The room tilted. Ava turned, striding toward the bed, if only to keep her knees from betraying her. She sat, the mattress firm beneath her, her gown pooling silver around her legs.
Damian crossed the room, unhurried, pulling the shirt from his shoulders.
Her eyes betrayed her. They followed the lines of his body, the breadth of his shoulders, the shadows cut along his torso.
She tore her gaze away when he caught her staring and she didn't miss the smirk on his face.
"You'll get used to it," he said, almost lightly, as though reading her thoughts.
"I'll never get used to you."
His smile was a slash in the dark. "We'll see."
Later, when the lights dimmed, Ava lay on her side, her back to him. Her wedding ring gleamed faintly in the dark, a circle of steel that felt more like a shackle than a promise.
She listened to his breathing, steady, controlled, every rise and fall of his chest, a reminder that she wasn't alone. Not anymore.
Every instinct screamed to stay awake to guard herself. But exhaustion pressed heavily.
Her last thought before sleep claimed her was not of Damian's touch, or his words, or the fortress that now held her.
It was of Lily.
And the vow Ava whispered to herself in the dark.
I'll find you. Whatever it costs.
Even if the cost was her soul.