Ninety-nine million dollars!"
Nicole's scream was thin and sharp, cutting through the heavy silence of the elite boutique. Her heart felt like it had stopped beating the moment she saw the "Eternal Star" leave its velvet cushion. Time seemed to slow down. She watched, paralyzed, as the fist-sized diamond hit the marble floor.
CRACK.
The sound wasn't like glass breaking. It was a deep, sound that echoed around the high ceilings of the shop, sounding like a gunshot. The most expensive diamond in London—perhaps the world—now lay in three large, jagged chunks and a dozen shimmering shards.
"Nicole!!! Oh my god, Nicole, what did you do?" Mara's voice was shaking so hard she could barely get the words out. She gripped her friend's arm, her fingernails digging into Nicole's skin. "I told you! I told you we shouldn't be here!"
Nicole couldn't answer.she has always wanted to be here for her 21 birthday celebration,not to buy diamonds necklaces but to touch the most expensive diamond.
Her lungs felt tight. She dropped to her knees, her cheap denim jeans hitting the cold floor as she stared at the mess.
"I just wanted to touch it," Nicole whispered, her voice cracking. "I just wanted to feel what riches felt like for one second."
"Riches?" Mara let out a hysterical sob, looking around at the security cameras and the stunned staff who were already closing in. "Nicole, we've been managing
I told you this was a delusional idea.Now look! You've destroyed something we couldn't pay off if we lived a thousand lives!"
The shop workers moved in like a swarm. Two security guards blocked the exit, their faces stern and unmoving. A woman in a sharp black suit, the floor manager, approached them. Her eyes weren't on the girls; they were on the broken stone. She looked like she was about to faint.
"Do you have any idea what you've done?" the manager screamed.
"I'm sorry," Nicole sobbed, her hands hovering over the shards, not daring to touch them again. "I'll pay. I'll work. I'll do anything."
The manager let out a cold, mocking laugh. "Work? You? This stone is worth more than this entire building. You could work every second of your life and you wouldn't even pay for the dust on that floor." She turned to a guard. "Call the police. No, wait. Call the boss. He's upstairs in the private lounge. He needs to see this."
Nicole felt the color drain from her face. She had heard of the owner. Everyone in London knew the name Alex Sterling. He wasn't just a CEO; he was a shark. He was young, impossibly handsome, and famously heartless. They said he had never lost a dollar in his life and he never showed mercy to anyone.
"Please," Nicole begged, looking at the manager. "Don't call the police. Let me talk to him.
"He's in his office," the manager said, pointing toward a set of heavy, gold-trimmed doors at the back of the shop. "Pick up the pieces. You're going to present them to him yourself."
With shaking hands, Nicole gathered the broken pieces of the diamond into a silk cloth provided by a worker. Every step toward the back office felt like a walk to a literal execution. Mara followed her, crying silently, her head down.
When the doors opened, the air in the room felt twenty degrees colder.
The office was massive, overlooking the London skyline. Sitting behind a desk made of dark obsidian was a man who looked like he was carved from the same stone. Alex Sterling didn't look up from his tablet immediately. He was wearing a navy suit that cost more than Nicole's entire education. His dark hair was perfectly styled, and his jawline was sharp enough to cut.
"The Eternal Star is broken, sir," the manager whispered, her voice trembling.
Alex froze. Slowly, he looked up. His eyes were a piercing, icy gray. They landed first on the cloth in Nicole's hands, then traveled up to her face.
Nicole didn't wait. She crashed to her knees right there on the thick carpet.
"I am so sorry, Mr. Sterling," she choked out. "It was an accident. I'll work for you. I'll clean, I'll run errands, I'll do anything. Please don't send me to jail. I have nothing, but I have my hard work."
Alex stood up. He was tall—much taller than she expected. He walked around the desk with a slow, predatory grace. He reached out and opened the silk cloth, looking at the three pieces of the diamond.
Then, he did something unexpected. He laughed. It wasn't a happy sound; it was a dark, insulting sound that made Nicole's skin crawl.
"You'll work for me?" he asked, his voice was dimmed.He looked her up and down, his eyes lingering on her cheap shoes and hair. "Look at you. You look like you haven't had a decent meal in a week. What could a girl like you possibly offer a man like me?"
"Anything," Nicole pleaded, looking up at him with tear-filled eyes. "I'm young, I'm strong. I'll give you every penny I ever earn."
"You're a pauper," Alex snapped, his ego flaring. His voice rose in anger as he leaned down, getting right in her face. "This diamond was the centerpiece of my winter collection. My reputation is tied to this stone. And you—a nobody with nothing—think you can pay me back by 'working'?"
He grabbed the cloth and threw it onto the desk.
"I should lock you up and throw away the key," he growled. "I should let you rot in a cell until you're old and grey, just to make a point that nobodies shouldn't touch things that belong to kings."
Mara tried to speak up, but Alex pointed a finger at her without even looking. "Be quiet if you don't want to join her."
The room went silent, except for Nicole's quiet sobbing. Alex turned away, walking to the window. He stood there for a long moment, his back to them. He was thinking. He has for so many times contracted so many ladies to give him a child and pay them off but nothing has ever worked.
He has everything in the world—money, power, looks—but there was one thing he didn't have. One thing his family's lawyers had been harrassing him about for months. He needed a child.
Alex for some reasons hates marriage and doesn't intend to do so,but he hated the socialites and gold-diggers in his circle.
He turned back around. The anger was gone, replaced by something much more terrifying: a cold, calculated stare.
He walked to his desk, pulled a single sheet of paper from a drawer, and tossed it onto the floor in front of Nicole.
"Sign this," he said.
Nicole looked at the paper through her tears. "What is it?"
"A contract," Alex said, sitting back in his chair and crossing his legs. "You want to pay off the ninety-nine million dollars? Here is your chance. You will marry me. You will live in my house. I will use you for exactly four months. If you get pregnant within those four months, you will stay until the child is born. Once the child is delivered, you hand it to me, I pay you a settlement, and your debt is wiped clean. We divorce, and you disappear."
Nicole's breath hitched. "You... you want me to have your baby? For a diamond?"
"If you aren't pregnant in four months," Alex continued, ignoring her shock, "I let you go, but I still sue you for every cent. You'll spend the rest of your life in prison. If you sign, you're free of the debt. If you don't, the police are at the door in five minutes."
Mara grabbed Nicole's shoulder. Nicole, no. This is crazy. We can find another way."
"There is no other way!" Alex shouted, slamming his hand on the desk. "Look at the price tag, girl! You could work for one hundred years and you wouldn't pay for one shard of that stone!"
He pushed a gold pen across the desk. It rolled and stopped right in front of Nicole's knees.
"Decide now," Alex said, his voice turning cold again. "Jail, or….my bed?Which is it?"
Nicole looked at Mara, then at the broken diamond, and finally at the man who looked at her like she was nothing more than a piece of property. Her hand shook as she reached for the pen.
She didn't know that by signing this paper, she wasn't just paying a debt. She was walking into a nightmare she might never wake up from.
She pressed the pen to the paper and wrote her name.
Alex smirked, a cruel, victorious look in his eyes. "Welcome to the family, Nicole. Don't get comfortable. You're only here to do one job."