Billionaire’s Forbidden Bride

The rain began pouring the minute she signed the contract.

Elena Carter found herself listening intently, locked on the long marble table in a penthouse with a stunning view of Manhattan, feeling each raindrop tapping against the floor-to-ceiling windows like a jittery child. Her eyes landed on the paper directly in front of her, where her name sat scrawled next to his, and try as she might, her hand shook.

That little shake was caught by Luca Moretti.

“Second thoughts?” he asked, cool as a cucumber.

Elena glanced up, connecting eyes with the man she’d just pledged to marry. She longed to have asked for divine intervention right then and there.

With an eerily calm presence, Luca draped himself in his leather chair, as if he hadn’t just altered the paths of their futures with a flourish of an expensive pen. He was in complete control, clad in a crisp navy suit that reeked of high-class, and brandishing a voice that dripped power.

“No,” she said, after a bit, lifting her chin. “Just taking it all in.”

“Good,” he responded, his tone clear-cut. “Because this deal is nonrefundable.”

For a brief moment, she could have sworn a flicker entered his eyes — amusement, perhaps? Maybe a warning? —but it disappeared behind the same hard exterior he had maintained since they first met.

It hadn’t been six weeks since her fashion line nearly collapsed because of a bungled investor. And now it was four weeks since this mysterious Luca Moretti appeared at her door with a solution she didn’t want but felt hemmed into accepting.

They were contracted as married, for a year and only on paper. It needed to be public enough that his undercover business interests would be satisfied, but dignified enough that she wouldn’t feel like a sellout.

In theory, it didn’t sound so bad.

But Luca was not theoretical at all at this moment.

He stood up, shrugging his jacket into place and buttoning it with a kind of showing that made it seem effortless. “You’re going to be living at my place tonight.”

Elena blinked. “Tonight? Just like that?”

He raised an eyebrow. “This isn’t some high school sleepover, Miss Carter. You entered into a legally binding marriage contract. As of now, we’re living together, attending public events as a couple, and — when needed — putting on a convincing show.”

“I’m a designer, Mr. Moretti. I can sell a fantasy,” she shot back, staring him down. “Even if it’s all pretend.”

There was a faint smile breaking at the corners of his mouth. “You might be worse at this than I thought.”

There was thick tension in the air between them. Outside, thunder rumbled like a sinister warning. But the silence that stretched between them felt different and charged.

Taking a deep breath, Elena tightened her grip on her bag as she headed towards the elevator with the feeling of his stare burning into her back. She wasn’t going to let herself falter — not when her heels sounded against the marble like a heartbeat, and especially not when she pressed the elevator button with a less than steady hand.

“Wear red,” Luca shouted just as the elevator doors opened.

She turned to him, surprised. “What did you just say?”

“For tonight’s charity gala. Something daring. And the press will be watching us.”

At that point, she would have been better off walking away, with a sweet smile on her face, and saying something like, “Absolutely, dear husband,” as if she were playing along like a good actress.

Instead, she locked eyes with his piercing gaze and said, “If you wanted a wife who followed orders, you should have just married a mannequin.”

She saw the doors close between them.

And for the first time since she’d signed her life away, Elena Carter felt herself smiling.

When she walked into the Moretti townhouse, it didn’t seem very homey to her — it was more like a fortress constructed of money and upscale taste. In October 2023, six stories of stone and steel loomed at the edge of the Upper East Side, a regal presence presiding over the neighborhood. Inside, all was gleaming—cold metals, warm lights, sumptuous but understated decor.

But immediately, step inside the threshold, all became so intense. As if every gleaming surface and pricy painting were saying: this place isn’t yours.

A butler took her upstairs, where a suite awaited her — a closet filled with gowns, a bed so big it could swallow her whole.

She had already unpacked her bags.

It felt like her past life was being erased, piece by designer piece.

A knock broke through her thoughts.

Before she could respond, the door opened, and Luca appeared.

No warning, no pleasantries.

She barely recognized him.

The sharkeisha CEO in the charcoal suit had morphed into a guy in a tux, black tie hanging loosely from his neck, his gleaming irises darker than she recalled.

“You’re late,” he commented.

“I didn’t realize that punctuality was part of the deal.”

His expression didn’t change. “Everything’s all part of the deal.”

Elena snatched a red silk gown hanging on the wardrobe. “Does this meet your fancy photographers bold enough?

He looked at the dress then at her bare shoulders. “It’ll do.”

She turned her back to him, saying, “Zipper, please.”

He hesitated for a brief moment, before taking a step closer, causing her skin to prickle. With a bone-melting slowness, his fingers barely touched the skin at her back while he pulled the zipper up, like he was taunting her.

“You don’t have to be the icy billionaire with me,” she said softly. “We both know all of this is just a performance.”

And then there was a pause.

His warm breath brushed the back of her neck.

“Pretend gets tricky,” he whispered, “when people forget it’s just pretend.”

She turned to face him. “Then maybe you should watch your own self.”

What happened next — their eyes meeting and a tension crackling in the air between them, potent and electric — was never supposed to happen. It was a spark they each felt but didn’t want to name.

Stepping back, Luca broke the moment.

“Elena,” he replied, his tone hushed. “Tonight, you belong to me.”

“I already signed the papers,” she replied hotly. “Don’t push your luck.”

But as they descended the stairs together — his hand on the small of her back, her smile pasted on like some nearly farcical mask — Elena could not tell where reality ended and the performance began.

The gala was held at the Galleria Beaumont, formerly an art museum, now a cacophonous battleground for Manhattan’s elites. Even before the valet opened the car door, the flash of cameras engulfed them. Elena’s dress shimmered against the city lights, drawing the eyes of every camera pointed her way as if she was in the spotlight.

“She’s stunning,” another person whispered.

“Who is she?” another voice piped up in the right-hand corner. “Moretti’s new wife?”

It felt almost suffocating to receive the gaze of the onlookers. But with Luca’s hand at her waist, she felt grounded. She was no longer just Elena Carter the struggling designer. Now she was Elena Moretti, the wife of a millionaire, a woman one would think would sashay into these social events bedecked in diamonds and luxury items.

At least, that’s how the audience would view her.

Inside, the gala was a flurry of champagne toasts, forced smiles, and whispered conversations about deals and gossip. Luca drifted through the crowd with an air of authority, speaking little, absorbing everything. Elena, for her part and out of practice, delivered her lines with care, freckles of polite shallow talk with the society women and genteel avoidance of their prying questions.

But she could not shake off the whispers.

“She’s not from his world…”

“Did you hear they set up the marriage?”

“I heard he’s in this just for a business deal —”

“Elena.” Suddenly Luca’s voice cut through the chatter, plunging her back into the moment. “Come with me.”

He guided her to a side hallway, away from the noise and flashing lights.

“What are you doing?” she asked, annoyance tinged with confusion.

“From clawing women and nasty rumors,” he answered matter-of-factly.

She folded her arms, a smatter of sarcasm in her tone. “Didn’t think you were the shining knight.”

“I’m not.”

He moved in closer, their faces inches apart.

“You fought valiantly tonight,” he said. “But let me tell you something — you need to know this — in this world, how people see you is everything. “I brought pyres)` so they can burn you alive.

“And what about you?” she questioned. “Are you going to rip me to shreds too?”

He pinned her with a glare — dark and inscrutable. In that moment, she saw the man behind the angular lines, the facade crumbling ever so slightly.

“I’m not who you should be worried about,” he replied, cryptically.

Before she could reply, the door at the end of the hall opened.

A man came in — early thirties, well-dressed, eyes that seemed to shoot through her. In an instant, Luca’s demeanor changed, his body tense.

“Elena,” he said evenly. “Go back to the ballroom.”

“Who is—”

“Now.”

She faltered in the tension that crackled between the two men. Luca’s tone allowed for no dissent.

As soon as she exited, she caught sight of him over her shoulder.

The air crackled around Luca and the new boy, who were barely an inch apart. Whatever was happening had nothing to do with business. It felt intensely personal.

When they made their way back to the townhouse, the city had grown eerily quiet. In the air, midnight had settled, trailing a thick brooding cloud above them.

After getting a whiskey, Luca retreated into the study, while Elena hung just outside the doorway.

“Who was that dude at the gala?” she asked, genuinely curious.

“Someone you shouldn’t have to worry about,” he shot back.

“That’s not an answer,” she pushed.

Finally looking up, weariness marked his features for a change, he said, “Neither is this arrangement a real marriage. Keep that in mind.”

Getting frustrated herself, Elena snapped back. “And yet I’ve signed real papers, I’ve moved into a real home, and I’m wearing a real ring.”

In a heartbeat he crossed the room, eliminating the distance between them.

“I told you this arrangement is not straightforward,” he said, his voice low but steady.

“Then tell me what am I really stepping into,” she said.

“You’re stepping into my world,” he said, in a serious tone. “One filled with shadows.”

The air between them felt charged with tension. She felt the heat of his breath, the weight of the moment.

“Are you trying to scare me?” she said, nearly in a whisper.

He didn’t reply.

He reached in instead, tucking a rogue hair behind her ear before turning away.

As she watched him leave, part of her knew already the price of this deal would be more than she bargained for. Perhaps everything she had.

Elena sat at the table, the pen in her hand feeling like a stone. It was a sleek black pen, as cold as the man sitting opposite her.

She inhaled deeply and her hand shook ever so slightly as she wrote her name on the final page. She writes just as perfectly and neatly and like the caricature of the image she carefully cultivated over a lifetime. But inside she was in turmoil.

One signature, one year, one man who looked at her as though he was a puzzle he had no desire to try and solve.

Luca Moretti sat there like a statue, his face an utter blank. There was not a flicker of emotion on his sharp features as he took the document out of her hand. He didn’t smile, he didn’t even thank her; instead, he simply nodded once, as if they were engaged in some typical business deal rather than getting married.

Maybe that’s all it ever really was — just business.

Elena sat up in her chair and smoothed the luxury of her navy dress. She played confidence like a suit o