Chapter 1 The Client

The moment I stepped into Blackwood Tower, I made myself a promise: I would not flinch.

Five years ago, security escorted me into the freezing rain, my belongings crammed into two cardboard boxes, stripped of my dignity and my married name. Now, the woman reflected in the mirrored elevator was someone else entirely.

Her hair was cut into a sharp, honey-blonde bob instead of the mouse-brown waves Damian once stroked. Her lips were painted in velvet crimson; her posture rigid beneath a tailored cream blazer. On my leather portfolio, embossed in gold, were two words: A. V. Events.

Nobody here knew Ava Winters. They certainly did not remember Ava Blackwood—the naive girl Damian had hidden in his penthouse before discarding her like trash.

The elevator chimed as it reached the eighty-second floor.

When the doors opened, an assistant looked up from behind a granite desk.

"Ms. Winters?" she asked with a practiced smile.

"Good morning. I had a ten o’clock consultation with Mr. Blackwood." My voice was smooth, low, and level.

"Go straight through the double doors at the end of the hall. He’s expecting you."

My heels clicked against the hardwood with a steady rhythm. With every step, the ache behind my ribs tightened. Breathe, I told myself. You run the most sought-after boutique event firm in the city. You hold the cards.

I pushed open the frosted glass doors.

The corner office was vast, lined with windows overlooking a rain-streaked skyline. Behind a blackened oak desk, a man sat reviewing contracts.

He hadn’t looked up, but I did not need to see his face. The broad cut of his shoulders in charcoal, the white cuff rolled once against his forearm, the silver watch catching the gray light—it was all etched in my memory.

Damian Blackwood. My ex-husband.

My heart slammed against my ribs, but my feet did not falter. I stopped two paces before his desk.

Damian signed the page before him with a sharp flick of his pen, closed the folder, and raised his eyes.

The world seemed to tilt.

His features were harsher than I remembered, carved from granite. The five years had deepened the lines around his mouth, and silver dusted his dark temples. But his eyes—those icy, arresting steel-gray eyes that had once looked at me with contempt—were unchanged.

He looked straight at me.

One second. Two seconds. Three.

My fingernails bit into the leather of my portfolio.

Nothing.

No shock. No flicker of recognition. To Damian Blackwood, I was merely another vendor who had cleared security.

"Ms. Winters," he said, his deep baritone devoid of warmth. "Take a seat."

"Thank you, Mr. Blackwood." I sat opposite him, crossing my legs with calculated grace.

"Your firm came highly recommended by the board," Damian said, steepling his fingers. "They claim you are discreet, ruthless with deadlines, and capable of handling confidentiality. That is the only reason you are in this room."

"Discretion is the foundation of my business," I replied evenly. "I understand you are planning a wedding."

"An event," Damian corrected, his tone indifferent. "My engagement to Isabelle Laurent was made public on Monday. Her family expects an affair of significant scale. Six hundred guests, an estate venue, tight logistics. I need someone who can execute the entire production without requiring my personal involvement every forty-eight hours."

I swallowed the bitter taste rising in my throat. Isabelle Laurent. The heiress to Laurent Maritime.

"A celebration of that magnitude typically requires input from both the bride and groom," I noted. "Especially regarding personal touches."

Damian’s mouth set into a thin line. "There are no personal touches, Ms. Winters. It is a strategic merger between Blackwood Enterprises and Laurent Maritime. Isabelle has free rein over flowers and the menu. My only requirement is that the day runs with military precision."

He leaned back, his eyes narrowing as he studied my face.

"I’ve only done the marriage thing once," Damian said, each word cutting like a blade. "It was a disaster. Naive, messy, and fundamentally flawed. I won’t make the same mistakes twice."

A spark of rage flared in my chest. A disaster. That was his verdict on the girl who loved him unconditionally before he threw her out and accused her of chasing his fortune.

I smiled. It was the tightest mask I had ever worn.

"Understood, Mr. Blackwood. Cold efficiency is our specialty," I slid the agreement across the oak. "If you sign the retainer clause, we will coordinate directly with Miss Laurent and present the master's timeline by Friday."

Damian took his pen, scrawled his signature, and slid the folder back. His fingers brushed within an inch of mine, but he did not pull away.

For a fraction of a second, his gray eyes flicked back up to my face. A crease formed between his dark brows.

"Have we crossed paths before, Ms. Winters?" he asked quietly.

My pulse drummed in my ears, but my gaze did not waver. "I handle high-profile events across the city, Mr. Blackwood. Perhaps you attended a gala I coordinated."

He held my gaze a beat longer, searching for something he could not place, before shaking his head. "Perhaps."

He stood, signaling the end of the meeting. "I’ll see you at the elevator."

We walked down the corridor in silence. At the elevator bank, Damian pressed the call button.

"Make sure Isabelle stays within budget parameters," he said. "Excess looks desperate."

"Of course," I replied as the doors opened.

Before I stepped inside, hurried footsteps sounded behind us. His assistant rushed around the corner with a tablet.

"Mr. Blackwood, excuse me," she said breathlessly. "Your car is downstairs. Also, the nanny called—she needs confirmation on the twins’ schedule for next week. She needs to know which days you’ll handle pickup."

Damian waved a dismissive hand. "Not now, Sarah. In the car."

Inside my chest, the world stopped spinning.

Twins.

He had twins?

The breath caught in my throat. When had he had twins? With whom?

I stepped inside and turned around.

Damian stood between chrome doors, pulling out his phone, consumed by corporate emergencies. Cold, detached, indifferent. Utterly unaware that five miles away, in a quiet brownstone, two four-year-old girls with their jet-black curls and his piercing gray eyes were waiting for their mother.

The doors slid shut, slicing him from view.

I pressed my back against the cold elevator wall, my hands trembling. He had no idea the two little girls calling me “Mommy” had his blood in their veins. And now, I had to find out why he suddenly had twins of his own—before my secret became his weapon.