Chapter Five The First Lie #2
“Genuine wives occasionally enjoy pleasing their husbands.”
“You’ve been my fiancé for less than twelve hours,” Aria countered, “and you have pleased me exactly once.”
His gray eyes narrowed slightly. “When?”
“When you walked out of my bedroom.”
Lucien quietly looked up at the ceiling. Damien stared at her for a long beat before his gaze dropped back to the suit jacket.
“The jacket requires an adjustment.”
“It fits just fine.”
He reached out for the top button and waited. Aria could have backed away, but she stood her ground.
Damien unfastened the top button, revealing the silk camisole beneath. His knuckles brushed against her collarbone—a touch so brief it could have been accidental. It wasn’t. Heat rippled across her skin.
“Better,” he said softly.
“Controlling.”
“Necessary.”
“Why?”
His eyes lingered on the exposed skin at her throat. “Because now no one will mistake you for an employee.”
Aria refastened the button herself. “Let them.”
She brushed past him directly into the waiting elevator. For a second, Lucien’s mouth twitched with the ghost of a smile as he followed her into the elevator—though it vanished the moment Damien stepped inside.
The lobby doors opened into absolute chaos.
Camera flashes erupted instantly behind metal barricades. Reporters yelled over one another, their voices clashing into a wall of sound.
“Mr. Blackthorne, when did you meet?”
“Aria, how long have you been dating?”
“Is she pregnant?”
“Is there a prenuptial agreement?”
“Does this affect the succession vote at noon?”
Aria froze just inside the entrance. The sudden noise and blinding light felt physical. Her instinct screamed at her to retreat, but Damien’s palm settled firmly against her lower back. Not pushing—just grounding her. It felt better than she wanted to admit.
She looked up at him.
“Smile,” he instructed without moving his lips.
“I hate you.”
“Smile like you’re going to enjoy proving it later.”
His hand pressed slightly firmer against her spine. Aria smiled for the cameras.
The crowd surged forward. Damien guided her toward the sleek black sedan, keeping his body positioned between her and the barricades. Every few steps, he paused for the photographers. His hand remained warm through the fabric of her suit.
“Look at me,” he murmured.
She turned her eyes to his. The flashes went wild.
To the outside world, Damien Blackthorne looked like a devoted groom. But looking into his gray eyes, Aria saw something else entirely: possession. Raw, unyielding, and frighteningly real.
A reporter lunged past a security barrier, thrusting a heavy microphone forward until it struck Aria hard on the shoulder.
Damien caught the reporter’s wrist mid-air.
Everything stopped.
Damien didn’t look angry, which made the moment infinitely worse. “Touch her again,” he said in a low, even tone, “and your hand will become professionally unnecessary.”
The reporter went pale.
Lucien moved in and cleared the man away as Damien opened the car door for Aria as if nothing had happened.
Once inside the tinted rear cabin, she rounded on him. “Was that really necessary?”
“Yes.”
“You threatened to break a journalist’s arm!” She cried, exasperated.
“I allowed him to consider several probable outcomes.”
“That isn’t better!”
Damien reached across the leather seat and caught her chin between his fingers. The grip was firm, not painful, as he turned her head to examine the faint red mark near her shoulder.
“He touched you,” Damien said simply.
“A microphone bumped me!”
“Because he was holding it.”
“You can’t destroy everyone who stumbles into me!”
“Watch me.”
Aria yanked her chin from his grip.
The sedan sped toward the city courthouse, flanked by three armored SUVs and a swarm of press motorcycles.
“Where is your family?” she asked, breaking the tense silence.
“Waiting inside.”
“Who knows this marriage is a contract?”
“You. Me. Lucien. My primary counsel.”
“Not Helena?”
“Helena knows what she needs to know.”
“Your grandfather?”
“He suspects everything and proves nothing.”
“Your uncle Victor?”
“He would kill for proof.”
Aria turned to him. “Literally?”
Damien’s silence was answer enough.
The courthouse’s secure rear entrance was guarded by armed security. Damien led Aria through a private marble corridor toward double mahogany doors. Faint classical music echoed from inside.
“You said a judge,” Aria whispered.
“There is a judge.”
“Why is there music?”
“Appearances.”
“How many people are in there?”
“Thirty-two.”
“You invited thirty-two people without telling me?” She hissed angrily.
“You would have objected.”
“Of course I would have!”
“Which would have changed nothing.”
Aria stopped outside the doors. “I need a minute.”
“You have forty seconds.”
“Damien—”
“Thirty-five.”
Aria turned on her heel and walked into the adjacent women’s lounge before she said something the security microphones might capture. Inside, she locked herself in a stall and pressed her hands to her stomach, breathing through the nausea.
This was happening. In moments, she would marry a man who had watched her for over a year, engineered her financial collapse, and threatened a reporter for his microphone accidentally touching her.
Her mother was alive because of him. That was the lock; her signature had merely turned the key.
Aria stepped out to the sinks and splashed cold water over her wrists.
“The first one wore white.”
Aria spun around.
A woman stood near the far mirror. She was tall, striking, perhaps in her early fifties, wearing a dark emerald dress and a diamond necklace. Aria hadn’t heard her enter.
“Excuse me?”
The woman opened a gold compact, touching powder beneath her eye. “The first woman Damien intended to marry. She wore white to the announcement dinner.”
Aria’s pulse slowed into a heavy rhythm. “Who are you?”
“Someone who has survived the Blackthorne family far longer than most.”
“What happened to her?”
The woman snapped the compact shut. “Three days before the wedding, she vanished.”
“What was her name?”
Footsteps echoed outside the lounge door.
The woman moved toward a service door disguised beside the mirrors. “Ask your husband.”
“I don’t have one yet.”
The woman paused, looking back over her shoulder. “Then you still have time to run.”
She slipped through the door just as Damien entered. His gaze swept the empty lounge before settling on Aria.
“Who were you speaking to?”
She dried her hands on a paper towel. “No one.”
His eyes dropped to her left wrist. She was rubbing it nervously—a subconscious habit that betrayed her.
“That,” he murmured, “is your first lie as my wife.”
Aria met his gray eyes in the mirror. “Not yet.”
Damien extended his hand toward her. “Then let’s correct that.”