Page 242 of Damsel in Disguise

I remember that quiet morning in that sterile London hospital room when she slipped that absurd, hastily signed marriage certificate to me. Her hands were steady, but her voice wasn’t.

I was still processing the fact that I was surrounded by people because they were worried about me.

“I’m pregnant,” she spoke the words with a perfectly straight face, weaponizing her family’s leverage to force me into staying.

I looked at her. Really looked at her. The same girl who turned crimson after asking for our first kiss.

The same girl who hid behind library books whenever she was embarrassed.

The same girl whose heartbeat accelerated every single time she attempted to deceive me.

So yes, I knew, of course.

I knew there was no tiny apocalypse growing inside her yet. Even so, with a smile, I signed the document anyway, watching her brothers look at us like we were unexploded bombs.

Leaving England was surprisingly easy.

Oxford offered prestige, security, and a carefully constructed identity built over years to keep the world looking at the professor rather than the asset. None of those titles followed me onto the plane.

The transition hasn’t been without its variables.

Interpol notices, blurry security feeds, and red-flagged government databases kept my photograph circulating across multiple continents the second the Dominion’s main compound erupted.

I was a ghost wanted by multiple intelligence agencies—a walking piece of classified, dangerous research that foreign departments wanted locked in a cell or dismantled entirely.

But a ghost is exceptionally hard to track when he’s buried deep inside the corporate shield of CynoTech.

Adrian and Asher built a fortress around us. As Chief Research Officer, my location remains scrubbed, my data routed through untraceable local servers, and my legal existence protected by the massive financial and political machinery of the Keinston empire.

They didn’t hide me out of altruism—they did it because I’m family now, and Keinstons don’t let the state touch what belongs to them.

Though Ariella’s brothers watched my every movement after we arrived in Sydney. Rightfully so. I’ve given them every reason to believe I’m a threat to her safety.

So I surrendered the remnants of my old empire. I not only left the ashes of the Triarch Dominion behind but also my left my internet influence—letting my past burn to the ground, and officially transferred my intellectual data into CynoTech’s localized network.

It took time. Long conversations. Uncomfortable silences. A great many threats from Asher regarding windows and high elevations.

One memorable afternoon, Adrian calmly informed me over coffee that financing an operation to turn my remains into an unfeeling Synthète won’t be particularly difficult if I ever broke her heart.

Eventually, they stopped waiting for me to fail. Eventually, they realized I really abandoned the only kingdom I ever ruled.

There was nothing left for me in England anyway. Not after she dragged me out of it.

Months later, after the dust of the Triarch Dominion’s collapse had settled, we got married officially.

Our wedding had been small, private, and deeply protected under the southern sky while Ariana Grande literally sang Fantasize, The Boy is Mine and 34+35—exactly the way Ariella wanted it.

Well, there were obviously more tracks, but I only remember specifically these three because of the lyrics and how Ariella kept grinning at me, dancing around me while mouthing the songs.

When the celebrations ended and the world finally left us alone inside our new home, I remembered every word of that ridiculous contract.

She’s standing near the edge of our bed, her bridal silks casting long shadows in the dim light as her eyes nervously track my movement.

“You’re smiling,” she notes, a tiny tremor in her breathing. “I don't trust that expression.”

“A very wise decision,” the smile only widens.

She tilts her head, her hazel eyes searching mine for a crack in the logic, trying to find the clinical professor but finding only the man who belongs to her.