The city had changed in six years. Aria Linh hadn't.
Aurium's skyline glittered like polished teeth above her, tall and hungry. People passed her in tailored coats and perfect shoes, heads down, eyes blank—everyone going somewhere. Everyone faster than her.
She stood still on the sidewalk, one hand clutching the strap of a worn faux-leather bag, the other holding a printout of an email she hadn't stopped rereading since it arrived.
> From: Executive Office, Ryuu Global
Subject: Debt Resolution Proposal
Time: 7:02 AM
Miss Linh,
Your presence is required.
11:00 AM.
46th Floor.
Come alone.
There was no signature.
No explanation. No details.
Just a summons.
The kind you don't ignore when your father's company is six months from bankruptcy and the men in suits are already circling like buzzards.
The revolving doors of Ryuu Global's headquarters spun open like the jaws of a machine.
Aria took a breath she didn't feel enter her lungs and stepped inside.
---
The lobby was silent—marble floors, chrome accents, and light so white it made her skin look ghosted. A woman behind the front desk gave her a glance and didn't ask her name.
"Take the private elevator. It's waiting."
Aria walked. Past men in fitted suits and women clicking across the floor like they belonged there. Past a marble sculpture shaped like an open claw. Past the concierge, who didn't look up.
The elevator opened as she approached.
Alone.
She stepped in.
The doors closed with a hiss, and suddenly it was just her and the hum of rising tension.
Floor 46. Top floor. Executive suite.
She knew the name Ryuu. Everyone did.
But she knew him long before the world did.
---
They used to call him the Ryuu heir—the golden boy. Brilliant. Strategic. Always five steps ahead of anyone in the room, even at twenty-one.
Back then, Aria thought Kade Ryuu was invincible.
Then she ruined him.
Or so the world said.
---
The elevator opened to silence.
No reception desk. No assistants. Just a hallway lined with glass.
At the end: a door. Frosted, but not enough to hide the figure inside.
He was standing with his back to her. Still. Hands behind his back. Tall, dressed in charcoal, motionless like a statue carved to intimidate.
Her hand hovered over the doorknob.
Once she opened that door, her past would no longer be behind her.
She knocked. Once.
The voice on the other side cut clean and clear through the frosted glass.
"Come in."
The door opened smoothly beneath her fingers.
And there he was.
Kade Ryuu turned as she entered, and for a second, the world seemed to mute itself.
Same face.
Sharper, maybe. Leaner. That sculpted jawline now carried a trace of shadow like it hadn't been shaved out of vanity, but neglect. His black hair was cut shorter than she remembered, a precise sweep to one side—but the same cold, intelligent gray eyes met hers across the space, and Aria's lungs forgot what they were for.
He didn't smile.
Didn't move.
Just regarded her like she was a report he'd already read and found lacking.
"You came." The words were flat. Inevitable.
"You summoned me," Aria said, straightening her spine. She hated how tight her voice sounded.
Kade nodded to the chair across from his massive desk. Sleek. Black. Probably custom.
She didn't move.
"This isn't a reunion, Aria. Sit."
It wasn't her name that startled her—it was the way he said it. Like it tasted wrong in his mouth.
She sat.
Her hands folded in her lap to keep them from shaking. She wasn't nineteen anymore. She wasn't an intern with a folder full of whistleblower documents. And she definitely wasn't here to beg.
But the man across from her wasn't the same either.
He studied her. Not with curiosity. With calculation. As if every breath she took was part of a larger equation.
He reached into a drawer and pulled out a folder—thick, black, and stamped with a Ryuu Global seal.
"I assume you've seen the numbers," he said. "LinhTech's quarterly filings."
She nodded. Barely. "You've been buying our debts."
"Correct."
Her stomach turned. "You've cornered us."
"That's what I do." He opened the folder, slid a single page across the desk. "But this isn't about your father's business."
She hesitated. Then looked down.
Her name was typed at the top. Clean. Clinical.
ARIA LINH — MARRIAGE AGREEMENT
Her heart stuttered.
"You're out of your mind."
His voice didn't rise. "Two years. No annulments. No early exits. Appearances at my side when called upon. In return, your father's company stays afloat. Your family keeps their home. You stay out of poverty."
"This isn't a proposal," she said. "It's blackmail."
His lips curled—just slightly. "Call it leverage."
"And what exactly do you get out of this? Besides humiliating me?"
For the first time, something flickered in his expression.
Not anger. Not triumph.
Almost... weariness.
"I need a wife," he said simply. "You need a lifeline. Let's not pretend this is anything else."
"You're the one pretending," she said, voice hardening. "Pretending this isn't about six years ago. About what happened. About what I—what you think I did."
He leaned back.
"Do you regret it?" he asked softly.
Aria froze. "What?"
"Do you regret exposing me?"
She wanted to say yes. Or no. Or something.
Instead, she stared down at the contract.
"You have until the end of the day," Kade said. "Sign it, or LinhTech's assets go to auction tomorrow."
She stood.
He didn't stop her.
At the door, she turned. "You used to be kind."
"You used to be naïve."
Their eyes locked. And for just a second, the silence wasn't empty—it was full of things unsaid.
Then she left.
And the door closed behind her.
The wind outside had turned sharp.
Aria didn't remember leaving the building. She just remembered the way her heels sounded against the lobby floor—clicking too loudly, betraying how fast she walked to get away. Her heart hadn't stopped racing since.
She didn't go home.
She didn't go to the bank, or to her father's office where the unpaid bills were stacking like a second ceiling.
She walked.
Down the boulevard. Past a bakery she used to visit during internships. Past a dress shop where she once dreamed of trying on something white for the right reasons. Past a café with the same soft jazz playing as if time hadn't moved—but she had.
Somewhere between memory and exhaustion, her legs gave out on a park bench two blocks from nothing. She sat there for nearly an hour, unmoving.
A wife.
For two years.
To him.
The man whose life she'd destroyed without even understanding how.
But it hadn't been on purpose.
She'd been a kid—green, idealistic. She'd found evidence of financial laundering and passed it to the compliance board, believing it was the right thing. Believing the company would fix it. Believing someone would protect her.
Instead, the board blamed Kade. The golden heir. The young man whose name was on half the approval forms—because he was the heir. Because everything went through him.
He never forgave her. The world turned on him. And she—
She disappeared.
For six years, she avoided his face in magazines, his voice on news clips, his name on corporate headlines.
And now here he was.
Demanding marriage like it was a debt she still owed.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
A message from the hospital:
Mr. Linh's medication has been delayed due to coverage lapse. Please call to confirm insurance status.
She stared at the screen. Then closed her eyes.
That night, Aria returned to her tiny apartment. She didn't cry. She didn't sleep. She sat at her desk with the contract he'd given her—somehow slipped into her bag—and a pen.
One signature.
That was all it would take to save her family from collapse.
Or to sentence herself to a life she didn't choose.
But maybe, just maybe—this time, she could control the terms.
She picked up the pen.
Her hand trembled—but she signed.
Not for him.
For herself.