Chapter 1 The Arranged Marriage
# Chapter 1: The Arranged Marriage
The day I married the man I thought I killed was the day my life changed forever.
Rain drummed against the stained glass windows of the cathedral, casting kaleidoscope shadows across my ivory gown. I stood in the antechamber, my fingers trembling as they clutched the bouquet of white roses and baby's breath. My father, Richard Kensington, adjusted his tie beside me, his face a mask of practiced indifference that couldn't quite hide the desperation in his eyes.
"You understand what's at stake, Lila," he said, not a question but a reminder. "The merger with Blackwood Industries is the only thing that will keep Kensington Holdings from bankruptcy."
I nodded, the weight of family obligation heavy on my shoulders. "I know, Dad."
"It's just business," he continued, as if trying to convince himself. "A contract. Nothing more."
Nothing more than selling his only daughter to save a failing empire. I bit back the words, knowing they would change nothing. The Kensington name had meant something once—power, prestige, old money. Now it meant debt, scandal, and desperation. And I was the last bargaining chip.
"Have you met him yet?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.
My father's silence was confirmation enough. None of us had met Dorian Blackwood. The reclusive heir to the Blackwood fortune was notorious for his privacy, appearing in public only behind the partial mask he'd worn since some unspecified accident years ago. The tabloids speculated endlessly—a fire, a car crash, a jealous lover's revenge—but the truth remained locked behind the Blackwood family's impenetrable wall of lawyers and NDAs.
The organ music swelled, my cue to walk down the aisle toward a stranger who had purchased me with the stroke of a pen on a contract.
"It's time," my father said, offering his arm.
As the doors opened and the assembled guests rose, I saw him for the first time. Standing at the altar, tall and imposing in a perfectly tailored black suit, was Dorian Blackwood. Even from a distance, I could see the right side of his face was covered by an elegant silver half-mask that curved around his eye and cheekbone before disappearing into his dark hair.
With each step down the aisle, my heart pounded harder. There was something about his posture, the set of his shoulders, the way he held his head, that struck a chord of familiarity deep within me. Impossible, I told myself. We've never met.
When I reached the altar and my father placed my hand in his, I finally looked up into the visible half of my future husband's face. One startlingly blue eye regarded me with an intensity that made my breath catch. His visible features were striking—strong jawline, high cheekbone, lips pressed into a firm line.
"Dearly beloved," the priest began, but his words faded to background noise as Dorian's hand shifted in mine.
That's when I saw it—a distinctive scar running across his ring finger, shaped like a crescent moon with a small notch at one end. My blood turned to ice.
I knew that scar. I'd seen it before, illuminated by headlights on a rain-slicked road five years ago. The same night I'd hit a man with my car and fled the scene, convinced I'd killed him.
The memory rushed back with such force I nearly staggered. The torrential downpour. The figure that appeared suddenly in my headlights. The sickening thud. My nineteen-year-old self, panicked and terrified, had checked his pulse with trembling fingers—nothing—before fleeing into the night. The newspapers reported an unidentified injured man found on the road, but I'd been certain he was dead when I left him.
Yet here he was, alive and becoming my husband.
The priest's voice cut through my spiraling thoughts: "Do you, Lila Kensington, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?"
I stared at the scar, unable to tear my eyes away. Did he know? Was this marriage a carefully orchestrated revenge? Had the Blackwoods engineered my family's financial ruin to force this very moment?
"Miss Kensington?" the priest prompted.
Dorian's hand tightened around mine, and I finally looked up into his face. His visible eye revealed nothing—no recognition, no malice, no triumph. Just cool assessment, as if he was evaluating a business acquisition.
"I do," I whispered, sealing my fate.
As he slipped the ring onto my finger, Dorian leaned forward and murmured words meant only for me, his breath warm against my ear: "Welcome to the family, Mrs. Blackwood. I've been waiting a long time for this day."
A chill ran down my spine at the double meaning only I could understand. When he straightened, the corner of his visible lip curled into the slightest smile, and I knew with certainty: Dorian Blackwood remembered exactly who I was and what I had done.
The priest pronounced us husband and wife. Dorian's lips pressed against mine in a brief, cold kiss that felt more like a seal on a contract than a promise of love. Applause erupted around us, celebrating a union built on lies, guilt, and possibly revenge.
As we turned to face the crowd, his hand pressed firmly against the small of my back, both supporting and possessive. I plastered a smile on my face, but inside, my mind raced with one terrifying thought: I just married the man I thought I killed, and he knows exactly who I am.
When we stepped into the limousine after the ceremony, I finally found my voice. "Why?" I demanded, the moment the door closed behind us.
Dorian removed a flask from his jacket pocket, took a measured sip, and offered it to me without a word. I accepted it with shaking hands and took a burning swallow of what turned out to be expensive scotch.
"Why what, exactly?" he finally asked, his voice deep and smooth. "Why did I marry you? Why did your father sell you to save his company? Or why did I survive that night on Blackwater Road?"
The direct reference to the accident made me gasp. "So you do remember."
"Did you think I wouldn't recognize the woman who left me for dead?" His tone remained conversational, almost pleasant, making his words all the more chilling.
"I thought you were dead," I whispered. "I checked for a pulse—"
"Amateur mistake," he interrupted. "You should have checked better."
The limousine glided through the rain-slicked streets as I stared at the man beside me, trying to reconcile the broken body I remembered with this powerful, controlled figure.
"Is this about revenge?" I finally asked. "Did you destroy my family's company just to force me into this marriage? To punish me?"
Dorian turned to face me fully, the masked side of his face catching the passing streetlights in flashes of silver. "You think quite highly of yourself if you believe I would orchestrate a multi-million dollar corporate takeover just to punish one frightened girl."
"Then why?"
"Business, of course." His smile didn't reach his eyes. "The fact that you happen to be the daughter was... an interesting coincidence. One might even call it fate."
I didn't believe in coincidences, especially not ones this perfectly cruel. "What happens now?"
"Now?" He reached across the space between us, his fingers gently tucking a strand of hair behind my ear in a gesture that made me flinch. "Now you become Mrs. Blackwood in every way. You'll live in my home, attend functions on my arm, and play the role of devoted wife to perfection."
"And if I refuse?"
His laugh was soft and without humor. "Your father's remaining assets, his freedom, your mother's comfortable lifestyle—all contingent on our marriage lasting at least one year. It's in the contract you signed."
The limousine pulled up to the reception venue, where hundreds of guests waited to toast our perfect union. Dorian's hand found mine, his thumb brushing over my knuckles in a caress that felt more like a threat.
"One year of your life in exchange for the ones you almost took from me," he said quietly. "Doesn't seem unreasonable, does it?"
As the door opened and cameras flashed, Dorian's public smile appeared, perfect and practiced. He helped me from the car with gentlemanly precision, his hand firm around mine, the scar on his finger pressed against my palm like a brand.
"Smile, wife," he whispered. "Your penance begins now."
I lifted my chin and faced the crowd, wondering if this was merely the beginning of my punishment or if Dorian Blackwood had something far worse planned for the woman who had left him to die on a rain-soaked road five years ago.
