A real marriage.
My gaze flicked away from her instinctively, scanning the office - the leather chairs, the polished desk, the framed artwork on the wall—as if any of it could ground me. She really was suggesting we have a real marriage. Heat crept up my neck, my face warming in a way I was painfully aware of. This was not how this was supposed to go. Even when I anticipated what she wanted, it still took me by surprise.
“You’re suggesting,” I said carefully, “that we don’t plan the divorce.”
“I’m suggesting,” she replied gently, “that if you want this to work, you can’t walk into it already planning the ending.”
I swallowed. God help me, she sounded like she actually meant it.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted by the idea—if only I knew she wanted me, not just what I could provide. That uncertainty left me aching, vulnerable, and suddenly aware of how defenseless emotion could make me. All my life, logic was armor—but now, feelings threatened to slip beneath it.
So I did what I always did when I felt exposed. I changed the topic.
“There would be rules,” I said, straightening my posture, forcing my voice back into something businesslike. “Clear boundaries.”
Her lips curved slightly. “I assumed as much.”
“For starters,” I continued, “fidelity. There would be no affairs, no scandals, no one-night stands.”
“And that applies to you as well,” she said, looking thoroughly amused.
I didn’t hesitate. “Of course.”
She studied me again, as if testing the sincerity of that answer.
“I have no desire to cheat on my wife,” I added. “Whether this marriage is based on love or not.”
The word wife felt strange in my mouth. Heavy. Permanent.
Her smile softened, just a fraction. “Good.”
We went over the rest quickly—public appearances, living arrangements, confidentiality. Each agreement felt less like a contract and more like laying bricks around something I wasn’t ready to name. Finally, there was nothing left to discuss.
I reached for the phone on my desk, suddenly grateful we were at my office, where things could stay a secret for as long as I needed them to. “I’ll have my assistant bring in my lawyer. We can draw up the contract now.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “Now?”
“No sense delaying,” I said. “If we’re doing this, we do it properly.”
I pressed the intercom. “Troy?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Send in my lawyer. Immediately.”
“Yes, sir.”
I didn’t expect the sound of my own signature to feel so final.
I closed the folder and looked up at Evania, who was perched on the edge of my desk, as if this were any other day and not the moment she legally tethered herself to a stranger with too much money and too many expectations.
“Well,” she said lightly, swinging one foot. “That was painless.”
I scoffed. “That was a five–page legal document.”
She smiled. “Exactly. I’ve read worse.”
That should’ve been my second warning that this woman was not at all what I thought I was getting into. I stood, buttoned my jacket, and nodded toward the door. “Come on. We’re already late.”
