"Pregnant?" Lena repeated, her voice a brittle whisper.

She hadn’t even signed the damn contract, and already she was being dragged into a billionaire soap opera.

"She’s lying," Damien said flatly. He didn’t flinch, didn’t look rattled. But Lena saw the tightness around his eyes—the muscle in his jaw ticking.

His assistant—Donovan, she learned—handed Damien a sleek tablet. The screen showed a gossip blog headline in bold red font:

Ex-Fiancé of Billionaire Damien Blackwood Claims Pregnancy—Says Breakup Was 'Cold, Calculated, and Heartless'

Beneath it, there was a photo of a stunning brunette in a designer coat, holding her stomach for the paparazzi like she was already in her second trimester.

Lena gaped. "And you expect me to marry you into this?"

Damien glanced at her. "That’s precisely why I need you."

"Oh, good," she snapped. "I was afraid you were about to say something insane."

"You’re a nobody," he said, not unkindly. "No scandals. No history. No leaks. You’re the perfect counter-narrative. The quiet, loyal wife I’ve supposedly loved all along while she was running to the tabloids."

"So, I’m your image rehab."

"No," he said. "You’re my weapon."

The air stilled between them.

He turned to Donovan. "Call Trish. Get Lena into hair, wardrobe, media training—everything. If we’re doing this, she has forty-eight hours to become someone who looks like she belongs in a Blackwood press release."

Lena folded her arms. "You’re assuming I’ve said yes."

Damien stepped forward, eyes locked on hers. "You haven’t said no."

Before she could respond, another assistant—this one younger, flustered—rushed in.

"Mr. Blackwood, the media’s already here. They’re downstairs. Someone leaked the engagement rumor. They’re asking who the new fiancé is."

Lena’s mouth dropped open. "Are you kidding me?!"

Damien turned back to her and held out his hand. "If you want out, walk away now. But if you want your mother to live—and your name never to be connected to this scandal again—come with me. Now."

Every instinct in her screamed to run.

But her body moved forward.

Her fingers slipped into his.

And she let the most powerful man she’d ever met pull her into the elevator—into the storm.

The penthouse suite upstairs had already been turned into a war room.

Fashion racks lined the walls. A glam squad was waiting. A woman with a headset was barking into her phone about press windows and lighting angles.

"Sit," Damien said. "Let them work."

She hesitated—then dropped into the velvet chair in front of the mirror. Within seconds, a brush was tugging through her curls, and a stylist was pulling fabrics across her body like she was a doll.

Damien watched from the corner, arms folded. Silent. Calculating.

He had already had this entire set up ready, as if he knew she wouldn't say no. Or maybe he did, and the bastard already had some other poor, helpless girl already lined up to take her place in case she said no. He did say he would find someone else if she said no, after all.

She was just a pawn in all this, a means to an end, and it would do her well to remember that. This was business to him, plain and simple. And she had to keep reminding herself of that throughout the year she was going to spend with him. She couldn't lose her head, or worse yet, her heart to someone like him— someone who wouldn't think twice before crushing it into a million little pieces.

"Do you enjoy this?" Lena asked him, looking up at him sharply, suddenly bitter. "Turning people into puppets?"

"No," he said. "But I enjoy control."

"And what happens if I lose it?"

He stepped closer, kneeling beside the chair so she had no choice but to face him.

"If you lose control," he said quietly, "you become like everyone else in this city. Powerless."

Lena’s chest tightened.

Not from fear.

From something deeper. Hotter. Something that made her pulse tick faster every time his voice dropped.

And then—he touched her.

Just the barest brush of his fingers against her jaw. Testing. Calculated.

His steel grey eyes followed the movement of his lithe fingers as he ran them softly along her jaw, down the column of her throat to where the neck line of her blouse started. He gently fingered the material, her skin heating up at his touch.

"Get me something red for her," he murmured, though somehow his voice was loud enough to carry over to the frenzy of assistants and stylists surrounding them.

Soon, the red fabric of a dress was being pulled against her front.

She looked at herself in the mirror in front of her, just as Damien pulled himself away from her, and she let out a breath she didn't realise she had been holding until now.

Her pale complexion had been painted on just enough to give her face a happy, healthy glow. Her eyes were rimmed with a black eyeliner that made the green flecks in them pop. Her usually wayward curls which were still being styled fell in a neat curtain down her back, and the red dress draped over her front completed the look, making her look more polished, more youthful than she'd ever felt in her twenty five years of existence.

Between studying and working two jobs afterwards, the only time she had ever played dress up had been years ago at a wedding her mother had dragged her to. And even then, she hadn't looked anywhere near as beautiful as she looked right then.

Had her mother been able to see her now, she probably would've started crying, emotional woman that she was. The thought of her mother only strengthened her resolve to go through with this, any and all thoughts of backing off going away from her mind completely.

"You clean up well," Damien said, pulling her away from her thoughts, and into the here and now. "They’ll believe you’re mine."

She shook her head, looking away as heat rose to her cheeks. "You’re unbelievable."

Damien just smiled faintly. "You haven’t seen anything yet."