Chapter 1

The night the flower shop closed for good, I signed a contract.

By the end of it, I had a new identity.

Ethan Gray's wife.

He was waiting for me in a wheelchair, deep inside the Gray estate.

Rain hammered against the roof of the black Maybach, dull and relentless, like war drums.

I wore a white dress. The fabric was cheap, damp against my skin, and thin enough to make me shiver. It wasn't a wedding dress. It looked more like something you buried people in. The air conditioner blasted cold through the car. My fingertips were numb, but the chill inside me cut deeper.

Three hours ago, I was still wondering how I was going to make next month's rent.

Now my parents had stuffed me into this car and sent me to the Gray estate.

"Ava Blake, don't blame us for being cruel." Before I got in, my mother, Susan Blake, forced a few tears into her eyes. Her voice sounded staged. "Blake Holdings is out of cash. Mrs. Gray made it clear. If we send someone with the right background to marry Ethan Gray and keep the family image intact, she'll inject five million dollars into the company."

My father, Richard Blake, stood beside her with a dark face. "Your sister Isabella is supposed to marry into real power. Her future can't be ruined by a dying man. You've done nothing with your life. You've eaten off this family for years. It's time you paid the Blakes back."

Everyone in the city knew Ethan Gray's name. He had once run Gray Group. Two weeks ago, he had been in a brutal car crash. The rumor was that his spine and brain had both been badly injured. That he was lying in intensive care, alive only because machines kept him breathing. Mrs. Gray, desperate and terrified of another scandal, had even listened to a private family adviser who claimed the estate needed a proper marriage to steady the Gray name.

That woman was me.

They put a price on my life.

Five million dollars. Paid in full.

The car rolled through the gates of the Gray estate. Behind me, the iron gates closed with a harsh metallic groan, like the last escape route locking shut.

A middle-aged butler with no expression held a black umbrella and led me through a dim hallway. It seemed endless. At last, he stopped in front of a heavy redwood door.

"Mrs. Gray. Mr. Gray is waiting inside."

The title sounded almost mocking.

He stepped away. His footsteps faded into the dark.

I took a breath. My palms were slick with sweat. I had already prepared myself for the worst. The stench of disinfectant. The beeping of monitors. A shriveled half-dead man.

I pushed the door open.

And froze.

There was no glaring white light. No medical equipment.

The room smelled faintly of cedar and bitter medicine.

The main lights were off. Lightning flashed beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, briefly illuminating the wide bedroom.

In that sickly white light, I saw a man.

He wasn't in bed.

He sat in a wheelchair with his back to me, facing the storm outside.

"Do people from the Blake family not know how to knock?"

The voice was low and cold, edged with absolute authority.

There was no weakness in it.

It sounded like a blade at my throat.

My whole body went rigid.

A vegetable?

Dying?

The rumors. My parents' certainty.

In that instant, they turned into a joke.

The wheelchair slowly turned.

Another flash of lightning cut across the sky, and I finally saw his face.

He was devastatingly handsome, and just as terrifying. A sharp jaw. A high nose. But what you couldn't ignore were his eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses. Dark. Deep. Cruel. Amused. He looked at me as if he had already seen every desperate thought in my head.

Ethan Gray.

He wasn't just awake.

He was terrifyingly alert.

"You were forced to come here. I can tell." He leaned back in the wheelchair and folded his long fingers over his knee. His tone was calm, almost casual.

I stood three yards away, cold from head to toe, unable to speak.

"Did the Blakes send you here to test whether I'm dead yet? Or do they really think offering up a woman will get them five million from the Gray family?" His mouth curved in a merciless smile. "Either way, you're a discarded piece now."

He said it too clearly. Too brutally. Like he had ripped the last shred of dignity off me with one hand.

Humiliation. Fear. Rage.

They slammed into my chest at once.

"If you want to run, the door is behind you." He watched me, almost lazily. "I'll have someone take you out. We can pretend the Blakes never sent anyone tonight."

Run?

To where?

Back to the house that sold me like trash? Back to my parents' fury when they realized they weren't getting paid? Or onto the street, broke and alone, to freeze in the middle of a storm?

I stared at my soaked canvas sneakers.

All the despair I had swallowed down all day hit bottom at once and came back up as something meaner.

To hell with the Blakes.

I looked up and met his eyes.

I gritted out the most ridiculous question I had ever asked in my life.

"If I don't run. If I stay..." My voice shook with the force it took to say it. "How much will you pay me?"

The room went still.

Even the thunder seemed to pause.

My heart pounded so hard it hurt. I was done for. He would think I was insane. A gold-digger. He'd have the butler drag me out like garbage.

One second.

Two.

Three.

Then he laughed. Low and real, from deep in his chest.

He leaned forward slightly, and something dangerous lit up behind his glasses.

"Interesting."

For the first time, there was a trace of amusement in his voice.

"If you dare stay, name your price."