Elara's POV
I wake up in Damien's bed wearing a paper marriage certificate and yesterday's pajamas.
For a second, I think it was all a dream. The phone call from the Ashfords. The midnight wedding. Saying "I do" to a man I barely know.
Then I see the certificate on the nightstand: Elara Cross.
Not Sinclair anymore. Cross.
I'm married.
To my boss.
Who's also the father of my baby.
Who I had a one-night stand with three weeks ago.
"Oh my God," I whisper to the empty room. "What did I do?"
There's a soft knock on the door. "Elara? You awake?"
Damien's voice. My husband's voice. That's going to take getting used to.
"Come in," I say, sitting up and trying to look like I didn't just have a complete panic attack.
He opens the door carefully, holding two coffee mugs. He's wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, his dark hair messy from sleep. He looks younger like this. Less like a scary CEO and more like... a person.
"I made you tea," he says, handing me a mug. "You shouldn't have caffeine. Because of the baby."
My heart does something weird. He remembered. He cares.
"Thank you," I say softly.
He sits on the edge of the bed, keeping a respectful distance. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I married a stranger in the middle of the night to avoid going to prison. So... confused? Terrified? Also kind of hungry."
He laughs—a real laugh that transforms his whole face. "I can fix the hungry part. Marcus is bringing breakfast. He's also bringing our PR team. We need to announce the marriage before the Ashfords make their move."
Reality crashes back. Right. This isn't a romantic fairy tale. This is a strategic business decision.
"When do we tell people?" I ask.
"Today. We're holding a press conference at noon. You'll stand next to me, we'll announce we've been secretly dating for months, and we just got married. We'll make it a love story."
"But it's not a love story. It's a legal strategy."
Damien looks at me for a long moment. "Does it have to be just one thing?"
Before I can answer, his phone rings. He glances at it and his face goes dark. "It's Trevor."
My stomach drops. "Don't answer it."
"I have to. We need to know what he's planning." He answers and puts it on speaker. "Ashford. What do you want?"
Trevor's voice fills the room, smooth and poisonous. "Good morning, Cross. Sleep well with my leftovers?"
"Elara is my wife," Damien says coldly. "Not your anything."
"Right, your wife. Congratulations on that shotgun wedding, by the way. Very classy. Does she know why you really married her?"
I look at Damien. His jaw is tight. "What are you talking about?"
"Oh, this is delicious. She doesn't know." Trevor laughs. "Damien, are you going to tell her, or should I?"
"Tell me what?" I ask, my voice shaking.
Damien closes his eyes. "Trevor, don't—"
"Your new husband bought Sinclair Hotels specifically to destroy my family's merger," Trevor interrupts, his voice dripping with fake sympathy. "He's been planning it for months. You were just a convenient bonus, Elara. A Sinclair insider who could give him information. And now that you're pregnant and legally tied to him? Even better. He gets revenge on both our families at once."
The room spins. I look at Damien, waiting for him to deny it.
He doesn't.
"Is that true?" I whisper.
"Elara, let me explain—"
"IS IT TRUE?" I'm yelling now, standing up, my hands shaking. "Did you buy my family's company to get revenge on Trevor?"
"Yes," Damien says quietly. "But—"
"Oh my God." I back away from him. "This was all a game. The airport. The hotel. Everything. You used me."
"No! I didn't know who you were that night! I swear, Elara, when we met at the airport, I had no idea you were connected to the Sinclairs or the Ashfords. That was real. That was—"
"Then why didn't you tell me?" Tears stream down my face. "When I walked into your office, when you offered me a job, when you found out I was pregnant—why didn't you tell me you were planning to destroy my family's company?"
"Because I was trying to protect you!"
"By LYING to me? By marrying me under false pretenses?"
Trevor's laughter echoes through the phone. "This is better than I imagined. Cross, you really screwed this up. Elara, sweetheart, when you're ready to file for annulment and testify against him, give me a call. I'll make the charges against you disappear."
"Go to hell," I snap, and Damien hangs up.
We stare at each other across the bedroom. My husband. My liar. The father of my baby.
"I need you to listen to me," Damien says carefully, like I'm a bomb about to explode. "Everything Trevor said about why I bought Sinclair Hotels is true. But everything between us—the airport, the baby, the marriage—that's real. I wasn't using you, Elara. I was falling for you and trying to figure out how to tell you the truth without losing you."
"Well, congratulations. You lost me anyway."
"Don't say that. Please." He steps toward me. "Yes, I bought your father's company for revenge. The Ashfords destroyed my family seventeen years ago. They used fake evidence to steal my parents' hotel, and my father died from the stress. My mother killed herself six months later. I was fifteen years old and suddenly alone in the world. So yes, I spent seventeen years building an empire specifically to destroy them. That's who I am. That's what I do."
His voice breaks on the last word. I've never seen him this vulnerable. This raw.
"But then I met you," he continues. "And you looked at me like I was a person, not a weapon. You told me your pain and listened to mine. You made me laugh. You made me feel something other than rage for the first time since I was a kid. So when I found out you were a Sinclair, I panicked. Because suddenly my revenge plan was hurting someone I cared about."
"You should have told me," I say, but my voice is softer now.
"I know. I was a coward. I thought if I could just fix everything—protect you from the Ashfords, save the company, get my revenge—then I could tell you the truth and you'd understand. But Trevor's right. I screwed up. I lied to you. And I'm so, so sorry."
I want to stay angry. I should stay angry. But I keep thinking about his parents. About a fifteen-year-old boy losing everything. About seventeen years of pain and loneliness.
"The Ashfords really killed your parents?" I ask quietly.
"As good as. They used the same tactics they're using on you now—fake evidence, legal manipulation, destroying people who can't fight back. My father had a heart attack in court when the judge ruled against us. My mother never recovered." He looks at me with those dark, haunted eyes. "I don't expect you to forgive me. But I need you to know—hurting you was never part of the plan. Caring about you was never part of the plan. But I do. I care about you so much it scares me."
Before I can respond, the doorbell rings. Damien goes to answer it, and I hear Marcus's voice in the living room.
"PR team is downstairs. Press conference starts in three hours. Are we still doing this?"
I walk out of the bedroom. Marcus takes one look at my face and says, "Oh. Trevor called, didn't he?"
"How did you know?" I ask.
"Because that's exactly what I would do if I wanted to blow up your marriage before it could protect you." He looks at Damien. "What did he say?"
"Everything," Damien says heavily. "About the revenge plan. About why I bought Sinclair Hotels. She knows it all now."
Marcus turns to me. "And?"
"And I don't know what to think." I collapse onto the couch. "My husband—" the word still feels weird "—has been planning to destroy my father's company for months. But Trevor and my father are also trying to send me to prison for crimes I didn't commit. And I'm pregnant with Damien's baby. So basically, my entire life is a disaster."
"Okay, yes, it's a disaster," Marcus agrees. "But here's what I know: Damien Cross is a lot of things. He's ruthless, calculating, and yes, he holds grudges. But he doesn't lie about his feelings. If he says he cares about you, he means it. If he says marrying you wasn't part of the revenge plan, it wasn't."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because I've known him for seventeen years, and I've never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you. Like you're the first good thing that's happened to him since his parents died."
I glance at Damien. He's standing by the window, his back to us, his shoulders tense.
"Damien," I say softly.
He turns. His eyes are red. "Yeah?"
"If we do this press conference. If we tell the world we're married. If we fight the Ashfords together—I need you to promise me something."
"Anything."
"No more lies. No more secrets. From now on, we're honest with each other. Even when it's hard. Even when it hurts. Because I can survive a lot of things, but I can't survive being lied to again."
"I promise," he says immediately. "Complete honesty. Starting now."
"Okay." I take a deep breath. "Then let's do this. Let's go to war."
Marcus grins. "Now we're talking. I'll call the PR team. We've got three hours to turn you two into America's favorite power couple."
He disappears into Damien's office, already on the phone. Damien crosses the room and kneels in front of me.
"Thank you," he says quietly. "For not giving up on me. On us."
"Don't thank me yet. I'm still mad at you."
"Fair enough." He takes my hand. "For what it's worth, I'm falling in love with you, Elara Cross. Maybe I already have. And I promise I'll spend the rest of my life proving you can trust me."
My heart does that weird flutter thing again. "You're falling in love with me?"
"Terrifyingly fast."
"That's... actually really inconvenient. Because I think I'm falling in love with you too. Even though you're a liar and a revenge-obsessed workaholic."
He smiles—the first real smile I've seen since Trevor's call. "We're a disaster."
"The worst."
"Want to be a disaster together?"
I think about it. About Trevor's threats and my father's betrayal and the impossible situation we're in. About this baby growing inside me and this man who makes me feel safe and terrified at the same time.
"Yes," I say finally. "Let's be a disaster together."
He kisses me softly, carefully, like I might break. I kiss him back harder, telling him without words that I'm stronger than I look.
When we break apart, Marcus yells from the office, "Stop making out! We have a press conference to prep for!"
Damien helps me stand. "Ready to face the world, Mrs. Cross?"
"Absolutely not. Let's do it anyway."
Three hours later, I'm standing in front of fifty reporters, cameras flashing in my face, wearing a borrowed designer dress from Damien's personal shopper. My hand is linked with Damien's. We're about to lie to the entire world about our relationship.
Except it's not entirely a lie anymore, is it?
Damien steps up to the microphone. "Thank you all for coming on short notice. I have an announcement to make. Yesterday evening, I married Elara Sinclair—now Elara Cross—in a private ceremony. We've been in a relationship for several months and recently discovered we're expecting our first child together."
The reporters explode with questions. Cameras flash. Someone shouts, "What about her engagement to Trevor Ashford?"
"Trevor Ashford is my ex-fiancé," I say, my voice steady. "Our engagement ended months ago when I discovered he was unfaithful. Damien and I met shortly after, and we fell in love. Everything else is private."
It's a good story. A clean story. The media will eat it up.
Then a reporter in the back raises her hand. "Mr. Cross, is it true you acquired Sinclair Hotels as part of a revenge plot against the Ashford family? And that you married Miss Sinclair to gain insider information?"
My blood runs cold. How did they know?
Damien's hand tightens on mine. "Those allegations are completely false and—"
"We have emails," the reporter interrupts, holding up her phone. "Sent from your personal account to your CFO, Marcus Chen, outlining your plan to 'destroy the Ashford merger using any means necessary.' Including, and I quote, 'leveraging romantic relationships with key Sinclair family members.'"
The room erupts. Reporters shout questions. Cameras flash wildly. I stare at Damien in horror.
"That's out of context—" Damien starts, but no one's listening.
Someone leaked his private emails. Someone sabotaged us.
And I have a horrible feeling I know exactly who.
Marcus appears at my elbow, his face pale. "We need to leave. Now."
But it's too late. The damage is done. By tonight, the entire world will think Damien Cross married me as part of a revenge scheme. That I'm a fool who got played. That our baby is just a bargaining chip.
As security escorts us out through a back entrance, I hear one reporter shout: "Mrs. Cross! How does it feel to know your husband only married you for revenge?"
I don't answer. I can't. Because deep down, a small, terrible part of me is wondering the same thing.
In the car, Damien tries to take my hand. I pull away.
"Elara—"
"Don't. Just... don't. Not right now."
He looks like I stabbed him. But he respects my space, sitting on the opposite side of the car in silence.
My phone buzzes. A text from an unknown number:
Told you I'd destroy you both. This is just the beginning. - Trevor