Chapter 1

My name is Maya. For the last five years, I' ve been Jessica Blackwood' s executive assistant. More than that, I' m her best friend, her confidante. Jess is the daughter of Arthur Blackwood, CEO of Blackwood Industries, a man who controls everything, including her.

A year ago, Jess arranged my marriage.

To Liam Walker.

Head of Security for Blackwood Industries. Her father' s man.

Our house is beautiful, cold. Liam is rarely here. When he is, he' s a ghost. We share a bed, but there' s a frozen river between us. No words, no touch. An unconsummated marriage. I told myself it was for Jess. She thought it would give me security, a place within the Blackwood sphere, protected.

But I feel like a well-dressed prisoner in a gilded cage, just like her.

Jess lives in a bigger, more opulent cage, but a cage nonetheless. Her father, Arthur, is a tyrant. He pulls her strings, dictates her life, her choices. Her deepest desire is a child, one she can raise on her own terms, away from his suffocating influence. Arthur obstructs this. He sees heirs, not happiness.

"He won't even let me consider a donor, Maya," Jess told me last week, her voice tight with unshed tears. We were in her private lounge, a room filled with priceless art and suffocating silence.

"He says it's not the Blackwood way."

"What is the Blackwood way, Jess? Misery?"

She looked at me, her eyes reflecting my own frustration. "It feels like it."

My own marriage is a constant, dull ache. Liam is a stranger. Tall, imposing, ex-military, his presence fills a room, yet he' s utterly absent from my life. I see him at Blackwood functions, a stoic guardian. At home, he' s a shadow. I' ve concluded he' s either completely uninterested or he' s hiding something significant. Jess orchestrated this, thinking it would be a partnership, a way for me to be close, protected. Instead, it' s a void.

I come from nothing. My background is modest, a stark contrast to the Blackwood billions. Jess saw something in me years ago – competence, loyalty. She gave me a career, a life I couldn' t have imagined. But this marriage, this cold arrangement, it' s a price I' m finding harder to pay. I' m pragmatic, a survivor. But I yearn for something real, a genuine connection. Watching Jess' s romantic struggles, and now living my own sham, has made me cynical.

Tonight, like most nights, I ate dinner alone. The kitchen gleamed, sterile. Liam' s plate was set, untouched. He wouldn' t be home. He never was.

I sat in the living room, the television off. The silence was heavy.

I thought about Jess. About her quiet desperation.

And I thought about myself, trapped.

We both needed to escape.