ARIA'S POV

My jaw clenched as I stared down at the name on the contract again, just to be sure I hadn't hallucinated it the first time.

Kane Callahan.

Not just any client. Not some rich boy with daddy issues or a seasonal inheritance itch.

Callahan. That name was a knife in my gut.

The contract didn't lie. Neither did the itinerary. Nor the penthouse address that screamed Old Money with new PR polish.

Zane's family.

I let out a bitter laugh, the kind that scratched your throat on the way up. Of course. Of course, the universe would make me sign a fake marriage contract with Zane Callahan's half-brother. 

The same man who stood like a god over my deepest trauma, the same man who had cared as I bled out alone and still managed to humiliate me afterwards.

Fate didn't pull punches. It threw them bare-knuckled and straight to the gut.

Still, I signed the NDA.

Still, I packed my bag and entered the town car that arrived exactly when the assistant said it would.

Because that's who I was now.

Aria Whitmore: Professional Wife-for-Hire.

Trauma survivor.

Expert in emotional detachment.

And now? Future Mrs. Kane Callahan, if only for seven cursed days.

But the car wasn't heading toward the Callahan Holdings tower.

I knew Manhattan well enough to clock every turn. The driver didn't speak-thankfully-and the screen separating us stayed firmly up.

I rechecked the itinerary. The contract had listed "Callahan Holdings, 32nd floor office."

Instead, the car took a hard right off Park Avenue and kept climbing north, weaving into quieter blocks, past doormen and polished limestone buildings with gold plaques and names like The Vesper and La Rivière.

By the time we pulled up in front of the penthouse tower, I already knew.

This was no office meeting.

"Sorry for the sudden change of plans. But take the elevator up to the top floor, Miss Aria. Don't keep me waiting."

The concierge opened my door, and as the elevator climbed, my gut clenched.

I'd been through worse.

Hell, I was worse: scarred, steel-hearted, calculated to the bone. But something about the sudden change in plans made every alarm in my system blare at full volume.

He knew.

Kane Callahan already knew who I was.

The elevator opened directly into the living room. Of course, it did. I rolled my eyes.

His penthouse was all glass walls and marble floors. A view of the skyline that screamed generational wealth and strategic detachment.

He stood at the far end, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a glass of bourbon like it had been poured exactly three minutes before I arrived.

"Kane Callahan," I said without greeting, stepping in with my coat still on and with bitterness laced in my voice that I couldn't seem to hide.

"Funny. I thought we were meeting at your office. Why the sudden change in plans?"

He set his glass down.

"Do you want to talk about logistics in a boardroom under fluorescent lights? Or here, where no assistants or security cameras get in the way?"

I crossed my arms. "You could've just said that upfront. You didn't need to play cloak and dagger."

"I've found that most people show their true selves when they're caught off-guard.".

"And what did you learn about me, Mr. Analytical?" I asked, stepping farther into his lion's den.

"That you don't rattle easily." His eyes moved over me, clinical, not lustful. Strategic. Like he was assessing an asset, not a woman. Or a person. "That's a good thing. It'll... sorry, my bad. You will be a great asset."

I gave a short laugh. "You don't know the half of it."

He didn't deny it. Just motioned to the chair across from him.

I didn't sit. I just stood with my arms crossed and my chin tilted just enough to let him know I wasn't intimidated.

Not even close.

"You should've told me who you were," I said.

"I didn't lie about it, though."

"Zane Callahan's brother or half-brother. Whatever," I said, voice flat. "That name should've been in bold at the top of the contract."

"Do you need to know the name of every guy who contracts you?" he replied coolly.

That calm tone. God, it made me want to throw something.

I stepped closer. 

"You think this is funny? You think dragging me into your little CEO fantasy while casually omitting that you're related to the man who ruined my life is a joke?"

"No," Kane said. "I think it's an opportunity. For both of us."

I stared at him. "Excuse me?"

He took a step toward me now, slow and deliberate. "You want money. You've made a rather good business out of wearing rings that aren't yours. I need a wife, for a short window, to solidify my position on the board. You were the best option."

"And Zane?"

"What about him?"

"You're seriously going to sit there and act like this has nothing to do with him?"

Kane's jaw ticked. Just for a second. "Zane doesn't run this family. And he sure as hell doesn't run me."

I couldn't stop the bitter laugh that slipped out. "He sure had a way of ruining lives, though. Specifically mine."

"I know what he did," Kane said quietly.

That silenced me.

There was something in the way he said it. Like he'd seen the aftermath. Like he hadn't just read about it in tabloids or overheard it during company gossip, but knew. Lived it.

But he didn't. Nobody did.

"I hated him long before he broke you," Kane added.

A beat passed. And then another.

"You expect me to believe that aligning myself with the Callahan name again is somehow smart?"

"No," Kane said. "I expect you to do the math. You walk away now, you'll still make six figures next time. But stay? You walk away with seven. And something Zane could never erase, his past, hand-delivered to his door, wearing my last name."

He was good, and I was intrigued.

I hated that I didn't hate him more.

I looked away, stared out the glass walls at the New York skyline, glittering little stars.

Everything in me said to walk away, to run even. To disappear and leave the Callahans, all of them, in my rearview.

But...

The photo of my baby's ultrasound still lived in a box I hadn't opened in two years.

The hospital bills were paid, but the grief never was.

Zane still walked around like I hadn't stood there, watching him f-k my stepsister in the bed I lost my child in.

Some ghosts just can't stand to be alone.

I pivoted back to face Kane, who was looking at me with that perpetually serious expression of his.

"One week," I declared, trying to sound more resolute than I felt.

"Seven days," he echoed, his tone confirming that he was just as serious about this as I was.

But there were some ground rules I needed to lay out. "No intimacy," I insisted, raising a finger for emphasis. "No emotional manipulation. And absolutely, no more surprises."

He nodded thoughtfully. "You'll get the same in return," he replied, a hint of a smirk playing at the corners of his lips, as if he found this whole arrangement amusing in some way.

With that, my back straightened, almost as if I could feel a spark of defiance coursing through my spine.

"Then congratulations, Mr. Callahan. You just bought yourself a wife," I said, letting the weight of those words sink in.

He stepped closer, extending his hand as if we were sealing some kind of deal. His palm was open and inviting, but I hesitated.

I mean, who in their right mind would shake hands on something like this? I looked at his hand, every inch of me screaming to take it, but reason held me back. Because let's be real, if the devil you know is bad, the one who despises your demons just as fiercely as you do?

Well, that could be a whole different level of hell.

But maybe, just maybe, that kind of "worse" is what I needed right now.

I nodded.

Let the game begin.

★

KANE'S POV

Change was the only thing constant.

Tsk. I never believed that saying.

Certain events can't change, certain people whom you couldn't change no matter how hard you tried, and Aria was one of them.

Was. The woman who stood in front of me was a shadow of what Aria was.

I could still remember the glow in her eyes, her wide smile, which warmed everyone up; she was like sunshine, spreading cheerfulness whenever she got it. The woman who glared daggers at me didn't exude such qualities.

Hell, she looked like she would shatter whatever she touched.

It took my brother a year to wipe out her smile and two more years of whatever hell he made her go through to strip her of her goodness.

That bastard.

When she stormed into my office like she owned the fucking place, at first, I was willing to pay double to know who gave her the audacity to walk into my office like that.

The look in her eyes told me she would kick back. She wasn't the little toy, used and treated like a slave.

As I stated my offer, she calmed, although I wasn't stupid enough to think she had let her guard down.

She could whip out a dagger from her black purse and plunge it into my heart at any time.

I won't blame her.

I wasn't that bastard, Zane, but I still bore the same surname as him. I was his brother.

Half-brother, but I don't think she would reconsider her plans based on that fact. We continued as I made a deal I knew she wouldn't refuse, one she saw as an opportunity, not just for money, but for revenge.

I stared at her; she looked weak, ridiculous with her glow, her long hair packed into a simple ponytail revealing the contour of her face, her blue ocean eyes flared with anger and pain, her lower lip captured by her teeth. She wore a simple off-shoulder gown.

She looked more like a little devil.

And yet I leaned in, awaiting her approval.

ARIA'S POV 

The city lights bled into each other like watercolors behind the tinted glass, too soft for a city that never really softened. Manhattan pulsed outside, loud and dirty and alive but in here? In the backseat of this luxury hearse Kane Callahan had arranged, I was insulated. Cushioned in leather, silence, and my own thoughts.  

Convenient, really. That we didn't ride together. Probably thought it'd be too much to share a car with his rented wife. Or maybe he just didn't want to ruin the leather with my perfume. 

Either way, I wasn't complain, I liked the quiet. I liked knowing I had a few more minutes to pretend I still had control.

The car pulled up to a building that looked like it had been designed by someone allergic to warmth. All sharp angles, steel, and tall glass. 

Kane Callahan's penthouse loomed above it all, a gleaming tower of cold power. 

Nothing like Zane's home, which had always felt like a trap pretending to be a castle. This place didn't pretend. It told you straight up-you didn't belong here unless you came with blood on your hands and money in your veins.

I stepped out into a marble lobby that smelled like money and barely-disguised elitism. 

Of course the elevator had its own security system. 

Of course there was a man at the desk who barely blinked when I walked in, like women in designer heels and emotional ruin showed up every night.

The ride up was fast, way too fast. I needed longer to breathe or brace. Or lie to myself better.

When the elevator doors opened, it was like stepping into a museum curated by someone who hated comfort; clean lines, dark wood. 

One very expensive looking sculpture that probably meant nothing. It was all too pristine, like if I touched anything, it'd shatter. Or I would.

Power lived here. It throbbed beneath the surface, through the walls, in the bones of the place. You didn't walk into Kane Callahan's penthouse, you entered his territory.

I exhaled slowly, like maybe that'd help with the way my chest suddenly ached.

Don't think about Zane.  

Don't think about that house.  

Don't think about the nursery you never finished painting.

Don't think about....Christabel.

The echo of it clawed at the back of my throat anyway.

This wasn't love and it wasn't healing either. This was business.

But the thing about cages–even gilded ones? They still lock from the outside.

And right now, mine was forty floors above Manhattan, owned by a man I didn't trust, paid for with pieces of myself I hadn't realized I was still selling.

Then I decided to explore. 

Not out of curiosity-God no-but survival. If I was going to be locked in here for the week playing house with a Callahan, I needed to know my battlefield. 

The place was eerily quiet. There were no ticking clocks, no hum of appliances, just silence so deep it pressed against my ears. Weirdly calming, like the quiet before a hurricane touches down.

My fingers skimmed along the edges of an oak desk that looked hand-carved and offensively expensive. A vase stood next to it-delicate, probably antique. I could swipe it and sell it for enough to ghost this whole city if I wanted to.  

Would he notice? Would anyone?

My eyes lifted to the art on the walls. No faces, just lines, and shapes, and angry little attempts at meaning. Pretentious, like most men in power. They don't want to be reminded of people-just of concepts; control, minimalism, superiority. And whatnot..

I kept moving. The place was a labyrinth of glass and silence and very masculine trauma, and it made me feel... small. Like I was wandering the inside of a beast that hadn't quite decided if it wanted to eat me yet.

Then I saw it-a door.

Of course.

Every expensive home had one. The door you're not supposed to open....which obviously meant I would.

I wrapped my fingers around the knob and just as I twisted..

It opened from the other side.

And there he was.

Kane.

Tall, buttoned-up, and looking at me like I was a puzzle he hadn't quite decided whether to solve or shatter.

His face was unreadable-stoic, still-but up close like this, I noticed something I never gave any of my clients a chance to. A small blemish near his jawline, a pimple. A very human flaw on a man sculpted like a threat. That's how close we were...

It was funny. He was the first one I'd ever gotten close enough to notice something like that. And I thought most men like him don't want to be seen.

His gaze didn't move from mine.

Neither did I.

Tomorrow, I'd be his wife.

And I hated Mondays.

••⁠ 

KANE'S POV

I opened the door and found her there-Aria.

Exactly where I expected her to be.

She didn't flinch, didn't blink, just stared up at me like she'd been caught picking a lock and didn't particularly care if she was arrested for it.

"Exploring already?" I said, my tone even.

Her gaze swept over me, unimpressed. "Didn't realize welcoming your wife required so much... restraint."

God her sarcasm, she's also defensive, and predictable.

I took a step forward, she stepped back...just one. Not from fear but from instinct and whilst at it we didn't break eye contact. I reached behind me and shut the door.

"What's in there?" she asked, nodding toward the room I'd just exited.

"Nothing that should concern you."

Which was the truth, and also a lie.

I walked past her. She didn't move at first-deliberately-but then I heard the soft click of her heels behind me. She lingered, the way someone does when they want to prove they're not following, even when they are.

She commented on the apartment. Something dry and biting about modern cathedrals and cold shrines to capitalism.

I didn't respond.

I didn't need to.

We reached the main hall, the quiet pressing between us like a third presence. I stopped.

So did she.

"We begin tomorrow..." I said without turning around. "Press coverage starts at noon. You'll be photographed leaving this building. They'll be subtle affection. And there's a diamond already delivered to your room. You'll wear it."

I turned then, meeting her eyes again.

"There will be interviews, curated events, joint appearances. You'll be styled accordingly. The Callahan aesthetic is... intentional."

Her eyes narrowed just slightly. "You mean manicured."

"I mean precise."

She took a step closer, arms crossed now. "I'll play the role, Mr Kane. But let's be very clear-I'm not something you dress up and parade around, I'm not yours to own."

That struck something, but it wasn't anger, nor resistance.... Admiration, maybe. Or amusement. It was hard to tell where those lines blurred.

I almost smiled.

"Duly noted" I said.

And it was.

⁠•⁠•

Aria's POV

I watched him walk away, that clean, calculated stride of someone who'd always been listened to. 

Kane Callahan.

Of course he envisioned the same boundaries and rehearsed affection. We were disturbingly aligned but the only difference?

He was a Callahan.

A goddamn Callahan.

My jaw tightened around the taste of the name. I hated how it sat in my mouth-heavy, familiar, like rusted metal. 

My lungs felt too small for this space suddenly, like Manhattan air had thickened just to mock me. 

Kane hadn't raised his voice, hadn't threatened me, hadn't touched me. But standing in this glass kingdom, with his voice echoing like a script I once knew too well, I felt the weight of what I was stepping into all over again.

I was in the Callahan den once more.

Wearing their name....again.

But this time, I wasn't the girl who wore it like a badge of belonging. I wasn't the naive bride who clutched ultrasound pictures with trembling fingers and whispered promises to a child who'd never take a breath. 

I wasn't the girl who bled on marble floors while her husband fucked her sister.

I was something else now.

I was sharper, colder and very much more calculated.

The week began tomorrow, and the curtain would rise. My part was written, rehearsed, sealed with a signature.

This just might be my call to redemption...or rather revenge.

If so...then the stage was set for a performance they'd never recover from.

ARIA'S POV 

Monday came without warning...no soft sunrise, no gentle easing into the day. Just a slap of cold reality and the echo of my heartbeat in Kane Callahan's too-perfect penthouse.

I stepped out of the bathroom, towel snug around my body, steam curling behind me like smoke and I froze.

There it was.  

The dress.  

Laid out on the bed like it belonged there.

Emerald green; deep, rich and defiant.

I blinked. Then smiled-thin, crooked, not quite real. He listened, apparently, he remembered.  

"Any color but white."

Still, I didn't move. Something twisted low in my stomach. Not though excitement. No, it was heavier than that, oddly familiar.

I used to dress like this for someone else.  

For Zane.  

"Look presentable.." he'd said.  

Translation? "Be what I want you to be."

My fingers brushed the embroidery, it was soft and stupidly expensive. And yet all I could feel was that old chokehold.

Is this what I signed up for?

Three years ago, I promised myself I'd make them pay. Zane. Sibil. I carved that vow into every scar they left behind.

But how?  

How do you avenge a baby you never got to hold?  

How do you repay betrayal so deep it rots you from the inside out?

I sat beside the dress, still clutching it like it might disappear. The mirror caught me in its frame...this version of me I barely recognized.

No tears, atleast not today.

I reached for the hairdryer and turned it on, the noise filling the silence in my head. My reflection rippled slightly from the heat, but she stayed.

I was playing wife again, I knew the role well. But this time, I was the one holding the script.

I'd sit among the powerful now, peel back everything Zane thought he built, inch by inch.  

As for Sibil-she was just another pawn...a shadow I'd outshine.

Today was Monday and the headlines would call me a Callahan.

But I'd always know better.

Few minutes later a knock was heard on the door. Three sharp taps and no hesitation or warmth to it. The door creaked open, and in walked a woman who looked like she ironed her soul along with her blazer.

She was tall, thin, and clinically neat. Her bun looked like it was spun from tension, and her heels clicked with precision.

Every step she took radiated the type of energy that scared interns and silenced boardrooms. 

I'd bet money her calendar was color-coded down to her breathing schedule and if caffeine were a person, it would be her-sharp, bitter, and unsettlingly efficient.

"Ms. Aria"  she said, her voice crisp, sterile, and lacking any unnecessary syllables. "Mr. Callahan sent me to assist." 

Of course he did.

I gave her a slow once-over, lifting a brow. I wasn't in the mood for any kind of "assisting", but I nodded anyway, mostly out of curiosity to see just how far her professionalism would go before she cracked.

She approached, holding the dress up like it was a fragile national treasure instead of a tool in a high-stakes game. 

"You're to wear this, with your hair styled down, makeup bold but tasteful. The press will be in attendance."

Naturally. A Callahan wouldn't dare miss a good headline.

She stepped behind me and began helping me into the dress with all the emotion of a tax audit. Her fingers were quick and precise, like she was working with a mannequin and not a woman with a pulse.

"You'll need to smile, engage, appear approachable but untouchable," she continued. "As his wife, you are expected to-"

"What's your name?" I cut in, flat and quiet.

She hesitated, probably not used to being interrupted mid-script. "Anna" 

"Anna" I repeated, tasting it slowly like it was a foreign flavor I hadn't decided to like yet. "Who's going to be at this event? What am I walking into?"

Because if you have to play the game, you gotta know the game.

She paused, visibly weighing how much to say. "I don't have direct access to the full guest list, but I know it's a Callahan-hosted internal celebration. Majority of the family will be there."

The Callahans.

The air shifted.

I didn't move, but something in me folded, my stomach churned.

Even after three years, after all the work I'd done to build this steel version of myself, my chest tightened with the kind of dread that doesn't announce itself-it just arrives and settles. 

Zane could be there. That name alone was enough to make the polished surface I'd worked so hard on crack at the edges.

He might see me. The new me. Or maybe he'd just see her again-the girl who bled on cold marble. 

I swallowed hard, the lump forming too fast to hide. My breathing slowed, restricted.

You're fine, Aria...you've survived worse, I always told myself.

I stared ahead, unblinking. My reflection caught in the mirror. This version of me wore emerald and armor, but under it, the scar boiled. 

Then she snapped her fingers close to my face.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

I nodded fast.

Anna kept talking,listing things,outlining my role, naming expectations and movements like they were chess pieces.

But I wasn't listening anymore.

Her voice had faded to background noise, just another layer of static in a room already too full of ghosts.

Now I'm dressed, my hair curled, makeup soft...minimal, just the way I liked it. I've never been one for layers of foundation or blinding highlighter. 

It always made me feel like I was on a stage I didn't audition for. I didn't need to be a spectacle...I just needed to be seen enough. 

Y'know, precision over parade.

Anna, Kane's assistant, led the way through the long corridor, her voice flat and factual as she rattled off the rest of the day's schedule. 

I wasn't really listening-something about walking exactly seven seconds behind Kane, nodding at specific board members, avoiding eye contact with a certain cousin who apparently bites with his eyes.

Her voice droned like a hallway monitor who took her job too seriously.

Then she stopped talking.

I looked up and met his gaze.

Kane stood ahead of us, still as a statue. Framed by the golden light from the massive chandelier above him. Dressed in a tailored white suit so sharp it could've cut glass.

White.

My stomach twisted, I felt nauseous and just stopped walking.

It was subtle, just one step back-but I felt it in my whole body like an alarm bell.

I couldn't breathe.

His brow creased slightly. "You're alright?"

My voice came out quieter than I expected. "Why are you wearing white?"

He didn't miss a beat. "You said you wouldn't wear white and I agreed. I didn't say I wouldn't. It's my favorite color."

Of course it is.

Of course it's his favorite. Because why wouldn't a man like him wear the color of ghosts and innocence and blood? He could wear it because it didn't haunt him.

My ears rang so hard,I felt like it could burst, I blinked-and suddenly the world wasn't the hallway anymore.

It was white marble floors stained red.

It was my body curled on them, bleeding.

It was a scream stuck somewhere between my lungs and my throat.

The hallucination struck so fast, I couldn't stop it, I couldn't reason it away.

The white suit wasn't white anymore.

He stepped forward, a quiet movement, and reached out, probably to steady me. But the moment his fingers neared mine, I slapped his hand away.

Hard.

He looked surprised, but didn't step back.

"Water..." Anna said curtly, rushing to get it.

I stood there trying to ground myself...to claw my way back to reality. My breath came in short, shallow waves. My vision blurred just enough to make everything feel unreal. I counted the seconds in my head...five in...hold...seven out.

Then he had the audacity to smirk.

"Maybe you're not fit for the job," he said, like it was some clever observation and not a calculated dig.

I took the water Anna handed me. My grip was tight enough to crack the glass if I pushed harder. I wanted to throw it at him, drench that smug suit, then he'd go change. But I didn't, he might have more white suits to taunt me with so I swallowed instead.

Straightened my spine and smoothed my dress.

Then I nodded to Anna like nothing had happened. "I'm fine, thank you"

I turned back to him and smiledcool and contained, just enough to make it look natural.

"Apologies. I have a condition sometimes. The air-" I waved a dismissive hand "gets too tight."

He didn't buy it, I couldn't care less, I wasn't trying to convince him, but myself.

He nodded slowly, eyes still fixed on me. "Professionalism suits you," he said, voice flat. "Most of the time."

I looked him square in the face, then tilted my head.

"Nothing will go wrong, Mr. Callahan" I said, calm as ever. "I'll make sure of it."