Chapter 1 Signing the Contract
The soil beneath my fingers had always been my comfort. Crumbling, dark, and rich with promise—unlike the numbers in the ledger before me, which promised nothing but ruin. The late Tuscan sun filtered through the ancient stone walls of our wine cellar, casting long shadows across generations of Rossi family legacy, bottled and labeled and waiting for a future that was rapidly evaporating.
"Signorina Elena, you've been down here for hours." Matteo's weathered face appeared at the cellar door, his expression a mixture of concern and something worse—pity.
"I'm fine," I lied, closing the ledger with trembling fingers. Eight hundred thousand euros. The number danced before my eyes even in darkness. "Just checking inventory."
"There's a call from London. A Mr. Blackwood."
The name meant nothing to me, but the timing couldn't have been worse. I brushed the cellar dust from my linen dress—another day, another stain that wouldn't come out—and followed Matteo up the worn stone steps into the main house. My home. My prison. My responsibility.
The call was brief, the voice on the other end cold and clipped with a British accent so refined it could cut glass. Damien Blackwood. CEO of Blackwood Financial Group. A man who wanted to meet. A man who had a proposition.
Three days later, I found myself in London, in a steel and glass tower that seemed designed specifically to make people like me—people with dirt under their fingernails and wine stains on their cuffs—feel hopelessly out of place.
"Miss Rossi." The receptionist's voice carried the practiced warmth of someone paid to simulate human emotion. "Mr. Blackwood will see you now."
The office was exactly what I expected: minimalist, expensive, with a view of London that made the city look like a toy model rather than a living, breathing metropolis. What I hadn't expected was him.
Damien Blackwood stood with his back to me, a silhouette against the floor-to-ceiling windows. When he turned, I felt something unexpected—a jolt of recognition, though we'd never met. Perhaps it was the way he carried himself, like a man who had never questioned his place in the world. His suit was the color of storm clouds, his eyes the shade of a winter sky. Cold. Calculating. Beautiful, in the way that dangerous things often are.
"Elena Rossi." My name in his mouth sounded like a business transaction already completed. "Thank you for coming on such short notice."
"Your invitation was... intriguing." I remained standing though he gestured to a chair. "A business proposition that could solve all my problems, you said."
A smile touched his lips but never reached his eyes. "I believe in efficiency, Miss Rossi. You need money—eight hundred thousand euros, to be precise. I need a wife."
I laughed, the sound sharp and hollow in the sterile room. "I think you've confused me with someone from another century, Mr. Blackwood."
"On the contrary." He moved to his desk, lifting a folder with elegant fingers. His left pinky bore a heavy signet ring that caught the light as he moved. "I've researched you thoroughly. Elena Rossi. Twenty-eight. Sole heir to Rossi Estates, a vineyard that has been in your family for over a century. A vineyard currently facing bankruptcy due to... shall we say, your uncle's poor business decisions?"
My blood ran cold. "How do you—"
"I make it my business to know things, Miss Rossi. Just as I know that Middle Eastern investors are prepared to sign a billion-euro contract with my firm, provided I project a more... stable image. Marriage suggests stability."
"And you thought of me? I'm flattered," I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm.
"You're from an old family. You understand tradition. You're beautiful, educated, and desperate. It's an ideal combination." He placed the folder on the desk between us. "A contract marriage. One year. After which, we quietly divorce. You receive eight hundred thousand euros upon signing, another million upon completion of the contract. Your family's financial problems disappear. My investors see a respectable family man. Everyone wins."
My fingers itched to open the folder, to see if salvation really could be packaged so neatly. Instead, I crossed my arms. "And what would be required of me during this... arrangement?"
"Public appearances. A shared residence when necessary. Nothing more." His eyes flickered briefly down my body, then back to my face with clinical detachment. "I have no interest in complicating this with physical entanglements."
"How romantic," I muttered.
He slid the folder toward me. "Page three outlines the specific terms. Separate bedrooms. No physical contact beyond what's necessary for public appearances. Complete confidentiality."
I flipped through the pages, my heart racing despite my determination to appear unmoved. It was all there in black and white: my family's salvation, my freedom. All I had to do was sell myself.
"Why me?" I asked finally, looking up from the contract. "Surely there are women in your social circle who would jump at this chance."
Something shifted in his expression—a momentary crack in the perfect mask. "They would want more than I'm willing to give. You, on the other hand, need something very specific that I can provide. It's a clean transaction."
"Is that all marriage is to you? A transaction?"
"Isn't that all it ever is?" He picked up a pen and held it out to me. "We just have the honesty to admit it."
I stared at the pen, at his immaculate hands, at the prenuptial agreement that would save everything I loved and cost me only a year of my life. A fair trade, by any measure. And yet...
"I'm not an asset for you to acquire, Mr. Blackwood," I said, reaching for the glass of water on his desk. In a fluid motion that surprised even me, I poured the rich red wine I'd brought as a gift—a Rossi Estate reserve—directly onto his pristine white shirt.
He didn't flinch, didn't jump back. The wine spread across his chest like a wound, and still his expression remained unchanged. "Childish," he remarked, dabbing at the stain with a handkerchief. "And wasteful of a decent vintage."
"That was a seventy-euro bottle," I snapped.
"And this was a thousand-euro shirt." He smiled, cold and confident. "But you need my money more than I need this shirt. Don't you, Miss Rossi?"
The truth of it stung more than any insult. I looked down at the contract again, at the numbers that could save my family's legacy, my home, everything I'd worked for. Everything my parents had died believing would be secure.
"Fine," I said, snatching the pen from his hand. "One year. Not a day more."
As I signed my name beside his, I could have sworn I saw something like triumph flash in his icy eyes. Not satisfaction—triumph. As if he'd won something more than just a convenient business arrangement.
"Welcome to the family, Mrs. Blackwood," he said, and the name felt like a collar around my throat.
