Chapter 9: Looming Threat

The ride home from the gala was suffocatingly quiet.

Evelyn sat beside Damien in the backseat of the limousine, poised as ever, her expression unreadable. The only light came from the passing glow of streetlamps, casting flickers over the diamond bracelet around her wrist—one he had picked himself. The cool fire of it mirrored the strange chill that had begun to settle in his chest the moment he had seen her on that balcony.

With Alexander Reed.

Damien’s jaw clenched slightly as he stared at her from the corner of his vision. He didn’t speak. Couldn’t. He didn’t trust himself to say anything that wouldn’t come out too sharp, too personal. Emotions were foreign currency in his world—costly, unreliable, best avoided.

But there had been something about the way she had smiled at Reed. Easy. Warm. Uncomplicated.

Things she never gave him.

“Are you going to say something, or do you plan on glaring at me the entire ride?” Evelyn’s voice cut through the silence, clear and level.

Damien leaned back, exhaling through his nose. A smirk curved his lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I wasn’t aware you and Reed were so close.”

She turned to him, her hazel eyes narrowing. “I was your secretary for three years. Alexander was one of the few people who treated me like a person instead of a piece of your empire.”

That hit harder than he expected.

Did she really think he never saw her?

He had watched her—from across boardrooms, through glass walls, at late hours when the office was quiet and she still worked like she had something to prove. He had noticed her. The way she tucked her hair behind her ear when frustrated. The way she took her coffee black and her silence seriously. He had seen all of it.

And still, somehow, she thought he had never looked at her at all.

His voice came out more clipped than he intended. “And you think I don’t?”

Evelyn gave a bitter laugh. “This is a contract marriage, Damien. I don’t expect anything from you, least of all friendship.”

Damien stared ahead, eyes dark. The city blurred outside, but the only image that stuck in his mind was her—standing beside Reed, smiling in a way that twisted something unfamiliar in his chest.

“You expect nothing, yet you looked... comfortable with him.”

“Are you jealous?”

The words snapped through him.

No. He wasn’t. He couldn’t be.

Jealousy was for men who felt things they weren’t supposed to. For men who cared. For men who didn’t build their lives on strategy and detachment.

“I don’t get jealous,” he lied.

The car slowed in front of Lancaster Estate, glowing warm and imposing in the night. Like him—powerful on the outside, hollow within.

He stepped out first, offering his hand. She hesitated, just a second too long. But she took it.

Inside, the quiet of the house was heavy. He loosened his tie, watching her carefully. She was still too beautiful. Still too unreadable. And still not his in the way that mattered.

“Go to bed, Evelyn,” he said, his voice lower now, the anger fading into something uncertain. “Tomorrow, we act like none of this happened.”

She nodded. “Good night, Damien.”

But as she turned, he spoke before he could stop himself.

“You looked beautiful tonight.”

It slipped out—quiet, raw, wrong.

And she froze.

She didn’t turn. Didn’t respond. Just walked away, her back straight, her footsteps soft on the marble stairs.

Damien stood there alone, something coiling tight in his chest. Something unnameable. Something dangerous.

What the hell is wrong with me?

He had no right to feel the way he did. No right to want more than what they had agreed on.

And yet, as she disappeared behind her bedroom door, he didn’t move for a long time.

Elsewhere, in the city—

The gala may have ended, but the whispers hadn’t. If anything, they had grown.

In the Sterling penthouse, Cassandra stood by her floor-length mirror, still wearing that emerald gown. Her hand clutched a glass of wine, red as fury, as she watched Evelyn’s face flash across a social media news post.

“Evelyn Lancaster… how quaint.”

She had warned Damien’s father years ago. The Lancaster legacy wasn’t something to be diluted by convenience.

That girl—whoever she was—would learn what it meant to step into a world where sharks wore diamonds and women didn’t just envy, they eliminated.

Cassandra’s lips curled. She had waited too long for Damien. She would not lose him to some secretary in designer heels.

And she wouldn’t be the only one coming for Evelyn.

In her room, later that night, Evelyn sat alone in the quiet.

She had changed out of the gown, washed away the makeup, unpinned the sparkling hair. But the feeling hadn’t left her.

It lingered under her skin like heat that wouldn’t fade.

Her fingers traced the bracelet again.

Why had his compliment shaken her? Why had it meant something?

It was a contract marriage. That’s all it had ever been. She had agreed to this—protection, a new name, security—and in return, she would play the role of his wife in public, lend credibility to the image of a powerful man finally “settling down.”

But tonight… something had shifted.

And she hated how much it unsettled her.

Damien Lancaster had always been an enigma—distant, sharp, brilliant. But tonight, he had looked at her not like a pawn or a secretary or a contract-bound bride—but like a man who wanted to possess something. Protect something.

And that terrified her more than the whispers of jealous women.

Because at the gala, she had seen them.

The gazes. The carefully veiled smiles. The calculated glances from the elite women who had long considered themselves contenders for Damien Lancaster’s hand.

They wouldn’t take this marriage as a defeat.

No.

They would see it as provocation.

She had already seen it in Cassandra Sterling’s eyes—that simmering rage masked in elegance. And where there was Cassandra, there were others. Powerful. Entitled. Vicious in ways Evelyn had never needed to be.

They wouldn't wait for her to stumble.

They would create the cracks.

And what frightened her most wasn't the idea of being attacked by high-society wolves.

It was that she might start to care—about Damien. About the marriage. About her place in this new, dangerous world.

Because the moment she started caring, she'd be vulnerable.

And she knew too well what happened to vulnerable women in Damien Lancaster’s world.

They got destroyed.

Evelyn sat on the edge of the bed, her hands curled in her lap, her eyes fixed on her reflection across the room.

"This isn’t me," she whispered into the quiet.

The soft golden light from the hallway spilled through the doorway, but the room still felt cold. Too grand. Too unfamiliar. Like she’d been dropped into someone else’s life and asked to survive.

"I used to have a plan," she said, her voice firmer now. "I was supposed to keep my head down. Be invisible. Get through this without losing myself."

But now?

"I feel like I’m already slipping."

Her hand lifted to the bracelet Damien had fastened around her wrist earlier—gentle, almost reverent in the way he’d done it.

"Why did that matter to me?" she asked the dark. "Why does he matter?"

Her eyes burned, though no tears fell. She wouldn’t cry for a man like him. She had made peace with this being a performance. With playing the role. But now that she was in the thick of it, the line between truth and illusion was beginning to blur.

"You agreed to this, Evelyn," she reminded herself, bitterness creeping into her tone. "You knew what marrying him meant. You’re a name on a contract. A headline. A distraction."

And yet…

"He said I looked beautiful."

The words haunted her. Simple. Unexpected. Too real. Too dangerous.

"Why did that feel more honest than everything else he’s ever said?"

She stood and began pacing, arms folded tightly across her chest. The image of Cassandra’s cold, furious glare flashed in her mind—the unspoken threat behind her smile.

"They’ll come for me. Her. All of them. I’m not from their world, and they’ll never let me forget it."

Her voice dropped, trembling despite herself.

"I thought I could do this. I thought I could wear the dress, smile at the cameras, pretend I belonged."

She paused, staring at the glittering bracelet again.

"But now… I’m not sure I’m pretending anymore."

Silence fell heavy over the room.

A beat passed.

Then another.

She sank slowly back onto the bed, her voice barely a whisper

"If I start to care… I won’t survive this."