Chapter 1

Amara Devereaux’s wedding gown clung to her, heavy with rain and regret. The delicate lace, once pristine and perfect, was now streaked with mud as she stumbled toward the cliff’s edge, her breath ragged and sharp in the cold night air. Thunder rumbled overhead, lightning slicing through the sky in jagged flashes, illuminating the paper trembling in her hands.

“Marry her. Destroy her father. Take everything.”

The ink bled at the edges where raindrops had smudged the words, but their meaning remained clear. A contract. A cold, calculated arrangement between two men she had trusted.

Her father. Her husband.

Amara’s heart clenched as betrayal wrapped itself around her ribs like a vice. Damien Blackwood, the man she had thought was her savior, her lover, her husband had never truly been hers. Every whispered vow, every stolen kiss, every time he had held her in the dark it had all been a lie.

She should have seen it coming. Damien had always been a man shrouded in secrets, his eyes too calculating, his words too measured. But when he touched her, when he looked at her, she had believed God, she had wanted to believe.

But this?

This was unforgivable.

Her fingers curled around the sodden contract, crushing it in her grip. Wind howled through the cliffs, the sea below roaring like a beast demanding her pain. Her entire world had been stripped away in a matter of minutes, and the only thing keeping her upright was the secret she carried inside her.

A child.

Damien’s child.

She pressed a trembling hand to her still-flat stomach, a fresh wave of anguish rolling through her. Would he have destroyed her too, if he had known? Would their baby have been just another piece in his game of vengeance?

A sharp sound echoed behind her a boot scraping against gravel.

She spun, pulse hammering. Damien.

Even in the storm, he was devastatingly composed. His dark suit was damp from the rain, but it only made him look more lethal, more dangerous. His storm-grey eyes locked onto her with an intensity that sent a shiver down her spine.

“Amara,” he said, voice low, controlled. “Come inside. Now.”

She took a step back. “Stay away from me.”

His jaw tightened. “You shouldn’t be out here. The cliffs are dangerous in this weather.”

A bitter laugh escaped her lips. “You’re the real danger, Damien. Not the cliffs. Not the storm. You.”

Something flickered in his expression of guilt? Regret? She didn’t know, and she refused to let herself care.

“Let me explain,” he said, taking a step forward.

She shook her head violently. “Explain what? That I was nothing more than a business transaction? That you were never going to love me?” Her voice cracked, the betrayal cutting deeper than any blade ever could. “Or do you want to tell me how you planned to ruin my father and take everything while I slept beside you, believing you were my husband in more than just name?”

Damien’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. His silence was answer enough.

A fresh tear slipped down her cheek, lost in the rain. “I was going to tell you,” she whispered, her hand still resting protectively on her stomach. “About the baby.”

Damien’s entire body stilled.

For the first time since she had met him, he looked truly shaken. His eyes darted down, focusing on the way she held herself, realization dawning like a thunderclap in the storm.

“You’re lying,” he breathed, but there was doubt in his voice.

Amara let out a shuddering breath. “I wish I were.”

For a split second, something raw and unguarded flashed across his face something dangerously close to fear. But then, just as quickly, it was gone, replaced by the cold, ruthless man she barely recognized anymore.

“You’re not leaving,” Damien said, stepping toward her.

She took another step back, her heel nearly slipping on the slick ground. “Watch me.”

His expression darkened. “You’re my wife.”

“I wish I wasn’t.”

The words were a dagger between them, and she saw the way his jaw clenched as if she had actually wounded him. Good. Let him hurt. Let him feel even a fraction of what she was feeling.

Lightning cracked across the sky. In the distance, she could hear the faint sound of tires screeching on the wet pavement her escape.

She took one last look at the man she had loved, the man she had thought had loved her. The pain in her chest was unbearable, but she didn’t let it stop her.

With a final breath, she turned and ran.

Damien’s voice roared her name behind her, but she didn’t stop. She ran through the storm, through the night, toward the unknown toward a future where she and her baby would never be pawns in Damien Blackwood’s twisted game.

She didn’t look back.

Because if she did… she might never have the strength to leave.