CHAPTER THREE
DAMIEN
“I would say Brielle moves into your place this weekend,” Thomas said smoothly, swirling his wine like this was a casual dinner and not the signing of someone’s life. “Since the wedding is taking place in four months, it’ll help reduce speculation. People talk less when the optics are tidy.”
He smiled as he said and every last shred of restraint in me threatened to snap.
But I kept my expression neutral. Polished. Controlled.
I’d played this game longer than he knew.
“Yes,” I replied coolly, lifting my own glass. “Four months it is. She can move in this weekend.”
Beside me, Brielle went still.
Barely perceptible, but I felt it. A flicker of tension in her posture, like her spine had turned to steel beneath that soft, silk dress.
She hadn’t known.
Of course she hadn’t. Thomas wouldn’t bother telling her something like that in advance. Not when he could drop it at the table like a power play.
I didn’t look at her.
Didn’t have to.
I already knew what I’d see—wide blue eyes brimming with unspoken fury, a clenched jaw behind a carefully polite expression. She was good at pretending. But not good enough to fool me.
Brielle Lancaster.
The girl I was supposed to marry.
She was beautiful, yes—but not in that carefully sculpted, sterile way so many women in our circle were trained to be. No. Her beauty was lived-in. Real. Messy, even, beneath the polish her parents had forced on her tonight.
She didn’t want this.
She didn’t want me.
Good. Because the feeling was mutual.
I wasn’t here to fall in love. I wasn’t here to play house or romance the broken doll in the corner.
I leaned back slightly in my chair, eyes drifting toward the woman seated across the table—his wife. Picture-perfect in her black evening dress, pearls at her throat, expression frozen like a painting.
Thomas turned his gaze back to me, smile tightening at the corners like a noose.
“I assume your family won’t object to the arrangement?” he asked, voice light, but there was something sharper beneath it. “Your mother’s been rather… traditional in her expectations, hasn’t she?”
There it was.
The threat, paper-thin but unmistakable.
Play nice, or I’ll stir trouble where it hurts.
I set my glass down with a soft clink, meeting his gaze dead-on. “My mother trusts my judgment.”
His brow lifted, just slightly. “Thomas leaned back slightly, steepling his fingers. “Good. Because I’d hate for this alliance to fall through. Especially when I’ve been so… generous with what I’ve kept to myself.”
There it was.
The real smile.
The real reason I was sitting at this table.
That unspoken threat just beneath his words. A blade dressed in velvet.
Because Thomas Lancaster didn’t just want this marriage.
He had leverage.
The kind of leverage that could burn everything my family built to the ground. One file. One whisper in the right boardroom. One leak, and the Moretti name would unravel.
So yes, I agreed to the engagement.
I agreed because I had no other option.
He knew something.
Something dangerous.
And until I found a way to rip it out of his hands, I’d play the role. I'd wear the suit. Smile for the press. Walk his daughter down the aisle.
And then?
I’d bury him.
Brielle didn’t speak. She didn’t need to. I could feel her watching me from the corner of her eye, waiting to see what kind of monster her father had arranged for her.
Sorry, sweetheart. You weren’t getting a hero.
Thomas and his wife excused themselves with polished smiles and a few mumbled lines about “privacy” and “conversation.”
Translation?
Let the pawns mingle.
As the doors clicked shut, I stood from the table and poured myself another drink.
Brielle rose slowly, graceful and furious. The sound of her heels against the marble was sharp. Final.
“Well,” She said, arms crossed tightly under her chest, “that was... a lovely surprise.”
I said nothing.
She took a step closer, her eyes icy and bright.
“ So, we’re just announcing life decisions like product launches now?” she snapped. “You could’ve at least warned me before agreeing to the move-in plan. Or is basic communication beneath the great Damian Moretti?”
I swirled the whiskey in my glass. “I didn’t realize I needed your permission.”
Her laugh was sharp and humorless. “You needed basic decency. Or do they not teach that in billionaire prep school?”
I turned, finally, and let a smirk tug at the corner of my mouth. “You’re cute when you’re outraged.”
“Oh, I’m past outraged,” she said, voice low, biting. “I’m being auctioned off like a damn thoroughbred, and you’re treating it like a business lunch.”
“Isn’t it?”
She blinked. Just once. Then let out a scoff and took a step closer. “God, you’re exactly how I pictured.”
“Handsome and emotionally unavailable?”
“No,” she shot back. “Arrogant. Emotionally constipated. Probably allergic to the word compromise.”
I leaned back in my chair, watching her. “You really think I want this?”
“Don’t you?” she fired back. “You agreed to it fast enough.”
“Didn’t hear you storming out either.”
Her jaw tightened, just slightly. “I didn’t agree. I was ambushed. But for you, Why?” she demanded. “You have everything. Money, power, a jawline that could cut glass—why?”
I turned fully to face her then, voice cold and laced with irony.
“You’re beautiful. Polished. Who wouldn’t want to marry you?”
Her eyes narrowed, lips twitching in anger. “Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m not. I’m admiring the packaging,” I said. “That’s the whole point, isn’t it? You show up dressed like an ornament, sit pretty beside me, and we both smile for the cameras. That’s what this marriage is.”
She laughed — a bitter, incredulous sound. “You think you’ve got me all figured out?”
“No,” I said coolly. “But I know girls like you. Pretty. Privileged. Bored. You think being unhappy makes you deep.”
“And you think being emotionally bankrupt makes you powerful.”
I let out a quiet chuckle. “Touché.”
She stepped closer, the air between us buzzing with tension. “You don’t know me.”
“I don’t need to.”
“You don’t want this marriage any more than I do,” she said. “So what are we doing here?”
I took a step forward too, matching her fire with steel. “We’re making your father happy.”
“God, you’re so full of it.”
“Maybe,” I murmured. “But at least I’m not pretending this is about love.”
She flinched, just slightly.
Then drew back, spine straightening, eyes sharp. “Don’t worry, Moretti. I wouldn’t fall for you if you were the last egotistical, morally gray heir on earth.”
She rolled her eyes and turned toward the fireplace, her voice quieter now, but no less sharp. “I don’t know what your deal is. Maybe you’re too emotionally stunted to care. Maybe you’re just that desperate to please my father.”
I stiffened. “You think that’s why I’m here?”
“I think,” she said, facing me again, “you’ve already proven you’re just another man who sees me as part of a transaction.”
My jaw locked.
If only she knew.
If only she knew that the real reason I was sitting here had nothing to do with her — and everything to do with the threat hanging over my family’s name.
But she didn’t.
And she couldn’t.
So I gave her the only thing I had left.
A lie wrapped in ice.
“Like I said,don’t take it personally.”
“I don’t like you,” she said bluntly.
I tilted my head. “That’s mutual.”
“I’m not going to be your doll. Or your PR shield. I’m not going to play the perfect fiancée while you go around pretending this is anything but a corporate trade.”
A slow smirk curved my mouth. “Then don’t. But if we’re doing this, you’d better learn to play the part.”
Her eyes flashed. “You don’t get to tell me how to play anything.”
“Then figure it out yourself. But let’s be clear about something—” I leaned in, voice low, every word clipped and deliberate “—you might hate this marriage, but I’m not the enemy you need to worry about.”
She went still.
I didn’t blink.
Then I stood and smoothed down my suit jacket, tone cool again. “I’ll send a car for you on Saturday. Pack light.”
“Don’t bother,” she said, standing too. “I’ll Uber. Wouldn’t want to owe you anything.”
I smiled again, all teeth this time. “Oh, Brielle. You already do.”
She stared after me, lips parted like she wanted to say more — scream, maybe — but I didn’t wait.
I left her standing there in that perfect room with its curated flowers and silverware polished like pride.
Let her hate me.
It would make this easier when I finally turned all of this to ash