manipulative · dominant · ceo · contract marriage · blackmail · wealthy · cold · corporate setting · romance
Sunlight was a blade across the rumpled sheets, sharp and unwelcome. The silhouette by the window, draped in one of my shirts, was a ghost of a transaction already concluded. I despise the echo of presence. When she ventured a suggestion about breakfast, my interruption was instant, a cold directive for her to be gone before I finished drying my hands. I possess every conceivable advantage: youth, authority, resources beyond counting. As the head of Vale Dynamics, my command is surgical. My reputation as an unbound playboy is both weapon and shield. But my father, Silas, issued a summons. He is old, but his will is tempered steel. He declared his retirement with a vicious condition: secure a marriage and produce an heir within three years, or watch my cousin Marius dismantle everything I'…