Chapter 7: Deal with the devil
Isabella swallowed hard.
The reality of what she was about to do pressed down on her ribs like a physical weight. It was terrifying, but she didn’t have another card to play.
"My husband... Kian... is going to kill me," she said. The words came out raw and thin, completely stripped of any pride.
"I found out the truth. He’s sleeping with the maid’s daughter, Alice. He played the perfect husband just long enough to get me to trust him, and I signed every single piece of my father’s property over to him. Now... now he’s just waiting for the right time to get rid of me completely."
Aaron didn’t say a word.
But his lazy posture vanished, his broad frame turning completely frozen in the dimness of the car.
"He watches everything I do," Isabella continued, her voice cracking as she fought back the tears stinging her eyes.
"It isn’t a marriage, Aaron. It’s a trap. If I ask for a divorce, he’ll kill me before the papers are even filed. And I... I can’t do anything on my own. I can’t even find the doors in my own house." Admitting the truth felt like a slap to her own face, but she forced the words out.
Aaron leaned a little closer, the sharp line of his jaw catching the light from the glass.
"So what do you want from me, princess? You want me to put a bullet in his head?"
There was a dangerous, sarcastic edge to his tone, a mock sympathy that told her he found her sudden desperation almost ironic.
"No," she whispered fiercely. "Death is too easy. I want him to pay. I want my father’s money back, every single cent, and I want out of this house until I get it back."
"And how do you plan on making that happen?"
Isabella took a shaky breath, her hands trembling against her skirt. She had run this over and over in her head, but saying it out loud felt like jumping off a roof.
"I need your protection," she murmured.
Aaron didn’t move but she could feel his eyes on her, heavy and unreadable.
"Protection?"
"From my husband." She hesitated, the silence stretching out between them, thick and cold. "Eventually... I’ll need a divorce."
Aaron gave a slow, single nod she could barely see through the blur. "Reasonable."
Another heavy pause hung in the air.
Isabella squeezed her eyes shut, her heart hammering against her ribs.
"...And after that..." She swallowed the dryness in her throat. "...I want us to marry."
The silence that followed was total.
Inside Aaron’s head, every single thought stopped dead.
The woman who had spent years spitting insults at him, the girl who looked at him like he was the filthiest creature alive, had just offered him the one thing he had kept locked behind iron bars in his chest for a lifetime.
The desires he had buried deep threatened to break right through his ribs.
But on the outside, he showed absolutely nothing.
He didn’t smile. He didn’t move a muscle. He just sat there, a massive, quiet shadow.
The silence went on for five seconds, then ten. Isabella’s nerves completely broke under the quiet.
"...Was that unreasonable?" she asked, her voice dropping into a panicked whisper, terrified he was about to open the door and throw her back to Kian.
"Go on," Aaron said, his voice dropping into a low, tight register that gave away nothing.
"Tell me the rest of the plan."
"Kian cares about his reputation more than anything," Isabella explained quickly, trying to steady her breathing.
"He wants the world to see him as the grieving, devoted widower when I’m gone but I want you to claim me publicly as your lover. If people think I’m sleeping with the president of Lotus, it ruins his perfect story.
He’ll be forced to divorce me to save his own face, and he won’t dare touch me in the shadows because everyone will be watching. Once the divorce goes through, we get married. I’ll have the Kazarov name, and Kian won’t be able to touch me."
Aaron let out a slow breath through his nose. The amusement returned to his face, taming the initial shock.
"You’re asking for the devil to stand as your shadow, princess. You know I don’t do charity. What’s in it for me?"
"Thirty percent," Isabella said instantly.
"Thirty percent of all the Kingston properties, the stocks, the shares. Everything we get back from Kian."
Aaron chuckled, a low, rough sound. He tilted his head back against the headrest, intentionally letting the moment hang to watch her worry.
"I’m already rich enough to buy more than half this country, Isabella. Adding a few more buildings to the list doesn’t do much for me."
Anger flared through her fear, her stubborn side kicking in.
"What else do you want?" she snapped.
"Forty percent. I’ll give you forty percent of the entire empire. That is more than generous. You’ll control almost half of the Kingston wealth. You can have every single thing you want from the estate... And... well... of course... except my body and my heart. That is entirely out of the question. And we get divorced too as soon as I get my father’s properties back."
Aaron’s shoulders shook with a silent laugh.
He looked at her, this fierce, beautiful girl who was completely blind, entirely cornered by a murderer, yet still trying to draw lines in the sand and dictate terms to a syndicate boss. It was incredible to watch.
"Forty percent," Aaron murmured, his voice low. "And you think you can tell me what I can and can’t take?"
He went quiet again, letting the dread settle in her stomach.
Isabella sat frozen, ’Did I just ruined my only chance by insulting him?’ she wondered.
For her, this was life and death. For Aaron, it was a game he had zero intention of losing.
He knew how much pride she had to swallow just to ask him for help, and he respected the desperation behind it.
He was going to give her exactly what she wanted, but he wasn’t going to make it easy.
"All right," Aaron said, his tone shifting into something firmer. "I accept your terms. But Kian isn’t stupid. If we’re going to play this lover game to break his pride, we have to make it look real. We need to make him suspicious before we ever take this public."
Isabella’s eyebrows bunched up. "What do you mean?"
"What I mean is..." Aaron’s smile grew wide. "...what kind of lover would I be if I let you walk away without putting my mark on you?"
A hot blush exploded across Isabella’s cheeks. ’What is he? A dog?’
Aaron watched the color rush to her skin, leaning back as he drank in her reaction.
"No," Isabella stammered, trying to pull away against the passenger door. "That’s completely unnecessary. He won’t need physical proof to be suspicious—"
"He will," Aaron cut her off. "He needs to see a crack in his perfect little world. If you want my protection, you play by my rules. Otherwise, I can always have the officers lead you right back to your car."
’He can’t be serious’
Isabella’s throat went completely dry. She was stuck between two dangerous men, but one wanted her dead, and the other was her only lifeline.
She swallowed her pride, her voice barely a whisper. "Fine... a little mark. Somewhere he won’t see immediately."
Aaron didn’t answer. He simply shifted his weight, closing the space between them on the leather seat.
Isabella went totally stiff, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm against her ribs. Because of her blindness, everything else felt twice as loud.
She could hear the shift of his clothes, the slight catch in his breath, but she couldn’t tell where his hands were going. The waiting was miserable.
The silence inside the car stretched on. She could feel the heat radiating off him, but he hadn’t even touched her yet.
"...Aaron?" she whispered into the quiet.
Nothing. The air felt heavy enough to choke on.
Then, his breath hit the side of her ear, so close she felt the slight brush of his lips.
"You’re incredibly tense, princess."
Isabella jumped a little, a small gasp slipping out.
Before she could pull away, Aaron reached out, his large, rough fingers moving a stray strand of hair behind her ear. It wasn’t soft; it was slow, the heavy weight of his hand lingering against her jawline.
His cologne... that carried the creamy warmth of sandalwood, softened by a trace of vanilla that lingered in the air, flooded her head, making her dizzy.
’Goddamnit! How does he always smell so good?’
She froze, her chest rising and falling as she waited for the next movement.
Without warning, Aaron leaned down, his large hand moving to the back of her neck to hold her still.
He didn’t hesitate. He sank his front teeth into the soft slope where her neck met her shoulder, biting down just hard enough to break the skin.
Isabella let out a sharp, ragged gasp, the sudden rush of pain and heat making the sound come out low and breathless.
The sound ignited a fierce, possessive satisfaction that burned through Aaron’s veins.
He stayed there against her skin for a second longer, his tongue moving over the sharp mark he had just left behind.
Burning with shame, Isabella found her strength, pressing both hands hard against his broad chest to shove him back.
"Enough," she panted, her face red as she tried to fix her collar. "That’s enough."
Aaron let her push him away, a satisfied look on his face as he watched her try to catch her breath.
He smoothed down his suit, completely pleased with himself.
"When... when am I going to see you again?" Isabella asked, her voice still shaking, her fingers covering the stinging heat on her neck.
Aaron just leaned back into his corner of the seat, a small smirk on his lips.
"That, princess... is going to be a surprise. Now go back before your driver starts a riot."
A minute later, the rear door of the Kingston sedan opened, and Isabella was guided back into her seat by the female officer.
As she sat in the car, her mind was completely blank, her skin still burning where his teeth had marked her.
The front door opened, and Luke slid into the driver’s seat, tossing his credentials onto the dashboard with a heavy sigh. He turned around instantly to check on her.
"I am so sorry about that, Mrs. Carter," Luke said, his voice tight with professional embarrassment.
"They had some massive glitch in their system and kept me waiting inside the trailer for a ridiculous verification..." He paused.
"Ma’am are you all right? You look completely flushed."
Isabella forced her hands to stay flat on her lap, keeping her head tilted toward the window so the high collar of her dress hid the bite.
"I’m fine, Luke," she lied, her voice sounding distant to her own ears. "The heat in the car was just getting a bit overwhelming while I was waiting. Let’s just go home."
Luke stared at her for a second longer, but finding no other explanation, he shifted the car into drive and pulled out into the traffic.
Isabella leaned her head against the cool glass, her head spinning as she realized she had just signed a contract with the most dangerous man in the city.