Wife To My Fathers Enemy

If someone had told me I'd be marrying a man twice my age to save my father's crumbling empire, I would have laughed. Not because it was impossible-but because it sounded like something out of one of those overly dramatic European soap operas my mother used to watch. The ones where the women cried pretty and the men stared blankly out of windows with wine glasses in their hands.

But here I was, sitting across from Damien Volkov, the man my father called the devil himself, about to become his wife.

I didn't cry prettily. And Damien didn't bother with a wine glass. He just signed the contract with a Montblanc pen, as if he were buying out another company-not a girl who hadn't even finished her second year of college.

"You don't have to look so scared," he said without looking up. His voice was low, almost bored.

I flinched.

His accent was British with something darker beneath-Russian, maybe. Cold, clipped syllables that didn't quite match the way he stared at me earlier during the negotiations: like I was something to be assessed, used, then shelved away.

"I'm not scared," I said, even though my hands trembled in my lap.

He finally looked up. Grey eyes. Ice and steel.

"You should be," he replied simply, then passed the pen across the table.

It paused right in front of me.

Everything inside me screamed. But when I turned to my father, Jean Moreau, he wouldn't even meet my eyes. He was too busy watching Damien, as if still trying to calculate if he could back out. As if there was any other option left.

"Sign, Elena," my father muttered, rubbing his forehead. "Let's get this over with."

My throat closed up, and I could barely hold the pen steady. My name looked foreign as I scrawled it across the bottom of the agreement:

Elena Genevieve Moreau.

Daughter of a fallen tycoon.

Now property of Damien Volkov.

---

48 Hours Earlier

I was in Milan, sipping overpriced espresso and flirting with Luca Bellamy, my best friend since we were kids. He was the kind of man my father would have approved of-charming, age-appropriate, and loaded with fake promises and real smiles.

"Elena, you're avoiding my question," Luca said, leaning forward. "Why haven't you come back to Paris?"

"Because Paris reminds me of everything I'm trying to forget," I said flatly. "And besides, fashion week in Milan is less... suffocating."

Luca smiled, but there was something heavy in his eyes. "You mean your father's bankruptcy? Or the man suing him for everything he owns?"

I went quiet.

He sighed. "I'm worried about you."

"You don't need to be," I lied.

But I should've known something was wrong when my father called that night and told me to come home immediately. He didn't explain, and I didn't ask.

---

Back to Present

After the contract was signed, the lawyer left. My father mumbled something about needing a drink and disappeared too.

It was just me and Damien now. Silence hovered like fog in the private lounge of the Geneva penthouse where the papers were finalized. The windows looked out over the city like glass eyes. Cold. Detached. Beautiful.

"So," I said, trying to break the silence, "do I move in tonight, or is there a grace period before I become Mrs. Volkov?"

His lips twitched. Not quite a smile-more like a warning.

"We're flying to Monaco in the morning. My estate has more privacy."