She Signed His Marriage Contract Then His Enemies Came novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The First Photograph

Opening inside the key hitting the contract, Ava demands it back; Damien stops Gareth from taking it but cannot prevent him from publicly naming Ava his wife. Outside, a photographer catches Ava leaving beside Damien in her nurse scrubs.

The key sits on my signature, still warm from his pocket.

I snatch for it.

Gareth's hand is faster. He sets two fingers on the brass and slides it toward himself across the glass.

"Evidence," he says. "Of surrender."

"That's my sister's."

"That's my property, Mrs. Kastar."

I hear Damien's chair scrape.

He steps around the head of the table in three strides and lays his palm flat over the key.

Over Gareth's fingers.

"Take your hand off it."

Gareth looks down at the two hands, then up.

"Or what?"

"Or I walk you to the elevator myself. In front of everyone you wanted to impress."

The assistant by the window stops breathing.

Gareth smiles, slow, and lifts his fingers away one at a time.

Damien picks up the key.

He doesn't hand it to me.

He holds it a moment, jaw tight, as if it weighs more than brass should.

Then he drops it into my palm.

It is the first time he has touched me.

His fingers are dry and hot, and gone before I can decide what I feel.

"Thank you," I say, because my mother raised me to.

"Don't thank me. I couldn't stop the seizure."

"I know."

"Charming," Gareth says.

He turns to the staff and spreads his arms.

"Let me be the first to congratulate you all. Damien Kastar has taken a wife."

A murmur runs along the wall.

"This woman, in her hospital pajamas, is the new Mrs. Kastar. Remember her face."

"Gareth," Damien says.

"What? It's good news. A man his age. Alone in that big house."

The woman with the tablet lifts her phone.

I see it come up.

"Put that down," Damien says.

She doesn't.

She looks at Gareth, not at him.

That's when I understand who signs her checks in this building.

"Ms. Sinclair," Damien says, quiet. "We're leaving."

"I'm not done with him."

"Yes, you are. He wants a scene. Don't hand him one."

My nails bite into the key.

Gareth blows me a little kiss.

"Go home, Mrs. Kastar. Get some sleep. You'll need it."

I walk to the elevator with my back straight and my scrubs creased and my sister's key cutting into my hand.

Damien walks beside me.

Not touching.

The doors close on Gareth's smile.

Neither of us speaks for thirty-eight floors.

I watch the numbers drop and count my breaths.

"Where is the clinic?" he asks.

"Jackson Heights. Why?"

"My driver will take you."

"I'll take the subway."

"Ava."

"You said no feelings. You didn't say I stop deciding things."

A muscle jumps in his jaw.

"The driver is waiting anyway," he says. "Use him or don't."

The doors open on the lobby.

Marble. Glass. Morning light flooding in off Park Avenue.

I take two steps toward the revolving door.

His hand comes to the small of my back.

I stiffen.

"Camera," he says, barely moving his lips.

I look.

Across the street, a man in a gray vest crouches by a planter with a lens as long as my forearm.

He is aiming at us.

Not at the building.

At us.

"He wasn't here when I came in," I whisper.

"No."

"Gareth called him."

"Yes."

The shutter chatters.

I feel it in my teeth.

Damien's hand stays where it is, steady, warm through the thin cotton.

I could step away.

I don't.

If I flinch now, it's the picture.

So I lift my chin and let a stranger photograph me in wrinkled navy scrubs, with blood on the cuff and no makeup, beside a billionaire in a three-piece suit.

"Smile," Damien murmurs.

"I can't."

"Then look at me."

I look up.

His eyes are dark brown and give me nothing, and the shutter fires and fires.

The door of a black car swings open at the curb.

I slide in. The key is still in my fist.

Damien shuts the door and says something to the driver I don't hear.

Through the glass, I watch him cross the sidewalk to the photographer.

He says four words.

The man laughs and keeps shooting.

My phone buzzes in my pocket before we reach the corner.

Then again.

Then it doesn't stop.

Claire. Three missed calls. Then a number I don't know.

Then a news alert, banner bright across the screen, my own face under it.

My hair is flat. My mouth is open.

Damien's hand is at my back, like he owns it.

The headline is eight words long.

DAMIEN KASTAR'S SECRET MISTRESS, CAUGHT LEAVING AT DAWN.

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