POV: Emily Carson
"This is a mistake."
The words tumbled out before I could stop them, my voice a quiet tremor lost in the expanse of the cold, sterile office. The lawyer, seated across the table, barely raised an eyebrow as he slid the marriage contract toward me, his hand steady, his eyes indifferent. He had probably seen hundreds of these contracts made out of convenience, not love. But this… this was a new law, even for me.
"Just sign it, Emily," Jake Anderson muttered beside me, his voice a cold command that grated against my nerves.
I didn't look at him. I couldn't. Not after everything he'd done. Not after all the nights I'd spent plotting his downfall, every fiber of my being fueled by nothing but raw hatred. And yet here we were, a ballpoint pen inches away from chaining me to the man who had destroyed everything I'd worked for.
This wasn't a marriage. This was a transaction. A means to an end.
"You're shaking." His voice was a low rumble, amused. I could feel his eyes on me, dark and unreadable, like he was relishing my discomfort.
"I'm fine." My voice was steel, but my hand betrayed me, trembling as I took the pen in my grasp. My signature was the last one needed to finalize this farce a marriage of corporate necessity. A decision neither of us had wanted, but both had been forced into.
I glanced at the contract, the words blurring together as the enormity of what I was about to do hit me.
Emily Carson. CEO. Self-made.
The woman who never needed anyone. The woman who had clawed her way to the top of the corporate ladder, stepping over the bodies of men like Jake Anderson.
And now I was about to sign away my independence to the devil himself. My fiercest competitor. The man who had sabotaged my company's biggest deal just to see me fall.
I hated him.
"Do it," he said again, softer this time, a low hum that sent an involuntary shiver down my spine. I could hear the satisfaction in his voice, the twisted triumph. He was enjoying this. Watching me suffer. Watching me bend.
I gritted my teeth, finally meeting his gaze. Dark eyes locked onto mine, and for a brief moment, something flickered between us. It wasn't attraction. No, it was something darker, something far more dangerous.
I'll destroy you, I swore silently, the words a vow I would never speak aloud. But Jake Anderson would pay for this. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But eventually, I would make him regret every single choice that led us to this moment.
His lips quirked into the smallest of smirks, like he could hear my thoughts. "We don't have all day, sweetheart."
Sweetheart.
My grip tightened on the pen until my knuckles turned white. He had called me that once before years ago, when I was nothing more than a junior exec, barely scraping by. I had been naïve back then, eager to prove myself in a world that didn't care about a woman's ambition.
Jake had crushed that ambition once. And now, he was poised to do it again.
Except this time, I wasn't naïve.
I pressed the pen to paper, scrawling my name in bold, defiant strokes.
Emily Carson.
The silence that followed was suffocating, thick with unresolved tension. My heart pounded in my chest as the reality of what I had done settled in. I had married my enemy.
I shoved the contract back toward the lawyer, standing abruptly and pulling my blazer tighter around me. "Is that all?" I asked, my voice as cold as the frostbite in my veins.
The lawyer nodded, collecting the papers. "Congratulations, Mrs. Anderson."
Mrs. Anderson. The words sliced through me like a blade. I didn't even bother to correct him. This wasn't a real marriage. It never would be.
Jake stood then, towering over me with an effortless confidence that only made me despise him more. "You're officially mine now," he said, the words laced with arrogance.
" In your dreams," I shot back, stepping past him. But even as I stormed out of the office, my body tense and my mind reeling, I knew there was no escape. Not from this. Not from him.
The door clicked shut behind me, and with it, the last shred of my freedom.
Outside, the city buzzed with life, oblivious to the war that had just begun. My phone buzzed in my hand, the screen lighting up with a notification,a message from my assistant.
"Meeting with the board in thirty. Are you ready?"
Ready.
That was a joke. I was barely holding it together.
But I couldn't afford to fall apart. Not now. Not when every move mattered, not when Jake Anderson would be waiting for the first sign of weakness.
I started walking, heels clicking against the pavement, head held high. The city skyline loomed above me, a battlefield of glass and steel, the same one I'd fought my way through for years.
Jake Anderson might think he had won. That signing my name on that contract meant I was his to control.
But he had no idea what he'd unleashed.
This was just the beginning.
Jake Anderson.
His name was a curse in my mouth, bitter and corrosive. But as I walked, as the adrenaline surged through my veins, I couldn't shake the memory of the way his eyes had looked at me dark, calculating, almost… curious.
A dangerous curiosity.
Whatever game he thought he was playing, he wasn't ready for the rules I would break. He'd learn that soon enough.