Chapter 1
Eden’s POV
I picked the bench by the window because it felt less claustrophobic. The courthouse lobby smelled like floor polish and yesterday’s coffee, and the fluorescent lights above made everything look slightly damp, like a photograph left out in the rain.
One coffee cup sat in my hand, slowly cooling. The other rested on the bench beside me like a hopeful placeholder. I glanced at it every few seconds, as if maybe Craig would appear and reach for it with that stupid crooked smile of his and say, “Sorry, traffic was a nightmare,” and this would all feel normal again.
But the foam on top had already flattened. The caramel drizzle was melting into a thin oily ring. Mine was still warm. His wasn’t anymore.
9:13.
I checked the time even though I’d just checked it. Our appointment had been for 9:00 a.m. The confirmation email said to arrive early. I’d been here since 8:40, because Craig was always late, and I thought maybe for this—just this once—he wouldn’t be.
But that was wishful thinking. I was good at that. Good at filling in the gaps between what Craig did and what I needed him to do.
I stared straight ahead at the clerk’s desk, where couples were lining up one after another, some of them nervous and giggling, some solemn. Most were dressed more casually than I was—button-downs, sundresses, one guy in a Star Wars T-shirt. My white dress suddenly felt like overkill. It was knee-length, soft satin, nothing flashy. I’d picked it because it looked like something you could get married in without looking like you expected too much.
“Case No. 4419, Devon and Mei,” the clerk called. A couple stood and made their way down the hall. The woman wore white sneakers and held a bouquet of what looked like grocery store tulips. I watched her hand tighten inside his.
My chest felt like someone was slowly pushing a fist into it.
The bench creaked as I shifted. I tried Craig again. Straight to voicemail. I waited, hit redial.
This time it rang once before going to voicemail.
That was new.
The little girl across from me was staring. Blue dress. White tights. Beads in her braids that clicked when she turned her head. She sat beside a woman—probably her mother—who was scrolling on her phone, oblivious.
The girl leaned close to her and whispered something. The woman didn’t react.
I caught a flash of pity in the girl’s wide brown eyes.
I turned my phone over in my lap. Maybe he was looking for parking. Maybe he went to the wrong entrance. Maybe—
A buzzing noise came from my bag. Voicemail.
My mother.
I hesitated, then tapped it and held the phone to my ear.
“Hi, sweetheart! I hope you’re married by now, but just wanted to say—your dad’s crying, I’m making scones, I think I’m more nervous than you—”
I hung up.
The sound of her voice, so excited and full of assumptions, made my stomach lurch. I sat forward, gripping my knees with both hands. The skin on my arms felt too tight.
He’s just running late. Something came up. He’ll walk in any minute now. He always cuts it close.
Behind me, the glass doors hissed open again. I turned—too fast.
Not Craig.
A tall man in a dark overcoat walked in, flanked by a woman in business attire, her heels clicking quickly as she talked into her AirPod. I caught a few words—“inheritance,” “timing,” “deadline.” Her voice had that controlled urgency people use when something expensive is at stake.
They moved past without looking at me.
The lobby was still cold. Colder than it should be for late spring. Or maybe that was me. I rubbed my arms. I’d chosen the dress because Craig liked it. He said it made me look “grown-up,” which, from him, was somehow a compliment.
I stood and walked to the counter.
The clerk looked up with the kind of weariness that comes from a thousand awkward appointments.
“I think my—uh, my fiancé’s running late,” I said.
“What name?”
“Hale. Eden Hale. And Craig Daniels.”
She typed something into her computer, then gave me a tight smile. “You’ve been moved down the docket. We’ll call you again if he checks in, but we’re tight today.”
I nodded, swallowed. “Thanks.”
Back on the bench, I looked at the second coffee. The lid had a small dent, like maybe I’d gripped it too hard when I set it down. I stared at it, unblinking, until it blurred a little.
I didn’t cry.
I wouldn’t cry here. Not in this dress. Not in this room full of strangers and fluorescent lights and bored clerks and pitying children.
But my hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
My phone buzzed. I grabbed it.
A calendar reminder.
9:00 a.m. — Civil Marriage Appointment with Craig Daniels 💍
I stared at it, then slowly reached over and picked up his untouched coffee.
I smoothed the front of my dress for the hundredth time with my free hand and tried to sit like someone who hadn’t been publicly humiliated in slow motion for the last twenty minutes.
My fingers kept going to my phone. Not to check for messages—there were none—but just to hold it. A flimsy talisman. The screen still glowed faintly with the dismissed calendar alert. My thumb hovered above the text thread again. Still no reply.
Craig had a way of vanishing when things got real. His disappearing act usually showed up as late-night silences, skipped conversations, muttered excuses about stress. But this—this was something else. This was deliberate.
I opened our last messages again.
EDEN: I’m here. You almost here?
EDEN: Craig?
I added one more:
EDEN: You okay?
Three gray bubbles. No answer. No delivered check mark.
The clerk’s voice called another couple’s name, and they rose to follow her like they were being granted access to something sacred. I couldn’t hear the name—just the bright, lilting sound of people walking toward a future together.
I felt like I was being quietly exiled.
I glanced toward the exit. I could leave. But somehow, walking out alone felt worse than sitting here. Walking out would make it real. Final. A full stop at the end of a sentence I hadn’t finished writing.
The little girl across from me was still watching. Her legs swung in tiny arcs above the floor, shoes hitting the bench frame with each pass.
“She’s all alone,” she whispered.
Her mother looked up. “Emma, don’t.”
“She is.”
Her mother gave me an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry.”
I forced a nod. “It’s fine.”
It wasn’t.
A man’s voice nearby cut through the haze.
“She left it all to the dog. The actual dog.”
Laughter. Two men in suits, one of them holding a manila folder, passed by on their way to the elevators. Legal banter. This whole place thrummed with bureaucracy and bad news. Marriage and death, wills and bonds, lawsuits and restraining orders—all of it stacked in clean manila folders and passed from hand to hand like it was paper, not lives.
I blinked, suddenly too hot under the collarbone.
Breathe, Eden.
My phone lit up again.
I snatched it off my lap like it might explode.
It was a missed call. Unknown number. A voicemail left.
My first thought: Maybe Craig borrowed someone’s phone.
I played it, pressing the speaker gently to my ear.
It wasn’t Craig.
“Eden? It’s Mom. I know you’re probably busy and blissed out and all that, but I just wanted to say... your dad’s already crying. I told him not to wear the ugly tie. I made the lemon scones, even though I hate zesting. Call us when it’s official, okay? I—oh, wait, your aunt just texted—”
I closed the voicemail before she could finish.
She didn’t deserve that. But I couldn’t listen to one more word of someone else’s joy right now. Not when the room around me was starting to spin like I was underwater and gravity had forgotten me.
I looked down at my lap. My hands were clutched too tightly, fingers aching. I hadn’t realized I’d been squeezing the hem of my dress until I saw the wrinkles spider out across the fabric.
I let go.
Outside the window, the light was shifting. A cloud had moved across the sun. The day didn’t look the same as when I’d arrived. The bright promise of the morning had dulled into something colder, more brittle.
The bench creaked as I shifted.
A man was standing on the steps outside. Dark coat, expensive shoes. Tall. He wasn’t moving. Just... standing there. Like he’d come out to breathe and forgot how.
He glanced toward the window, and for a split second, our eyes met.
Then he looked away.
I don’t know why I noticed him.
Maybe it was the stillness. The courthouse steps were always in motion—people coming and going, feet clicking, voices rising in echoing waves—but he stood like a statue carved into the scene. Expensive coat, dark navy. Immaculate posture. Hands in his pockets like nothing could touch him.
And yet—he looked lost.
Not like me. I was sitting there, unraveling in full view of the public. But he was the kind of lost you had to be looking closely to see. His jaw was tight, like he was grinding something between his molars. His shoulders weren’t relaxed. They were braced. Waiting for impact.
I only glanced at him for a second. He didn’t belong to my story.
But I belonged to his.
ALEXANDER POV
“Married,” Elaine said, slapping the folder shut with too much force for a woman who wore pearl earrings. “By the time the old man kicks it. Otherwise, the assets go to a trust and you get what he called—let me quote this correctly—‘a generous but character-building stipend.’”
I stared at her.
Elaine straightened her blazer. “Look, don’t shoot the messenger. Your father redrafted the will with his new estate attorney last week. He’s paranoid about legacy.”
“He’s been paranoid since 1987.”
“Well, now it’s actionable. And if he dies unmarried, you don’t inherit the company.”
“I’m not the one who’s supposed to be married,” I said. “He’s the one shacking up with a twenty-six-year-old Pilates instructor.”
Elaine arched a brow. “Yes, and yet the clause is about you. The board wants a Reed heir with a stable personal life. Your father wants to twist the knife one last time. Either way—you need a wife.”
“Is this legal?”
Elaine gave a sharp laugh. “You think billionaires care about legal? They care about enforceable.”
I stared past her toward the glass doors. The lobby inside was full of couples—some happy, some not, all paired. My gaze snagged on one woman, sitting alone on a bench near the window. White dress. Shoulders slumped. Red-rimmed eyes. Two coffees, one untouched.
I knew that look. I’d seen it in the mirror once, years ago, when the empire my father built had started to own me piece by piece.
Elaine followed my line of sight and squinted. “She looks wrecked.”
“Yeah.”
Elaine turned back to me. “You’ve got forty-eight hours. Maybe seventy-two if he clings to life with his usual spite. If you want the company, you get married. Immediately.”
She handed me the folder. “Everything you need is in here. Marriage license, prenup template, list of...eligible acquaintances.”
I didn’t take it.
“You want me to hire a wife?”
“I want you to keep your kingdom,” she said. “Unless you’re feeling noble today.”
Her voice faded as she walked away, heels sharp against the concrete.
I stood there for a long minute.
Then I looked back through the window.
The woman in the white dress was wiping her cheek with the back of her hand. It wasn’t dainty or graceful. It was the kind of gesture you make when you stop caring who sees you cry.
I adjusted the cuffs of my coat, squared my shoulders, and headed toward the glass doors.
EDEN’s POV
I didn’t hear him approach—not at first.
I was too busy trying not to fall apart again. I’d given myself a deadline: five minutes to cry, then I’d get up, walk out, find a bathroom stall, and disappear in private like a professional. I’d cry there with the grace and dignity of a woman who wasn’t supposed to be sobbing in a government building in full bridal attire.
But I was still on the bench. Five minutes had passed. And someone’s shoes had stopped in front of me.
Leather soles. Polished. Confident footsteps that had just... stopped.
I looked up.
He was taller up close. Sharper. His coat looked like it cost more than my rent, and under it was a dark suit tailored to someone who had the body for suits. His tie was undone just enough to make him look intentional, not messy. His hair—black, slightly tousled—looked like he’d run a hand through it instead of a comb.
He didn’t smile.
He just looked at me.
I wiped under my eye again, more self-conscious this time.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, half standing. “I was just leaving.”
“You’re not waiting for someone?”
The way he said it wasn’t nosy. It was... curious. Dry. But there was something behind the dryness, like he already knew the answer and was giving me space to lie if I wanted.
I laughed. It came out cracked. “I was. He’s late.”
The man nodded once, slow. “Is he late, or is he not coming?”
It wasn’t cruel. It wasn’t even blunt. Just honest.
I looked at the cup next to me on the bench. “I don’t think he’s coming.”
He followed my gaze. “You bought him coffee.”
“Stupid, right?”
“No,” he said. “It’s polite.”
A pause stretched between us, not awkward—just wide.
Then he said, “I have a proposition.”
I blinked. “What?”
He checked his watch. His eyes were sharp, but his tone stayed cool and matter-of-fact.
“I need to get married. Immediately. It’s a condition of my father’s will.”
My brain barely caught up to the sentence.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re dressed for it. I’m already here. You’ve been stood up. I’m in a bind.” He met my eyes. “It would be business. Nothing more. A legal formality. You would never have to want for anything.”
I stared at him, open-mouthed.
He gave me a look—deadpan. “This is the part where you ask me if I’m insane.”
“Are you?”
“No.”
I stood up, too quickly. “Okay, I don’t know who you are, or what kind of reality show stunt this is—”
“I’m Alexander Reed.”
The name didn’t register right away.
“I run Reed Holdings.”
Then it did.
“Oh my god,” I said.
“I’m not asking for a real marriage. It would be a contract. You live comfortably, with full discretion over your time and privacy. We stay married long enough to satisfy the estate terms, then annul or divorce—your choice. In the meantime, you’d be... well-compensated.”
My heart was pounding.
“You think I’d just marry a stranger for money?”
“You were about to marry someone who didn’t show up.”
That one stung. My jaw tightened.
Alexander waited. No pressure. No pleading. Just waiting.
And then, unbelievably, I heard myself say, “I work. I have a job.”
“You can keep it.”
“My ex works there.”
“Irrelevant to me.”
“I’m not quitting my life.”
“Good.”
Another pause.
He stepped closer.
“Look, I’m not a romantic. I won’t waste your time with flowers or flattery. This would be transactional. Clean. You’d have autonomy, security, and zero expectations.”
His voice dipped low.
“And you’d never have to sit on a courthouse bench with cold coffee again.”
I stared at him.
The worst moment of my life had just become an insane moment of opportunity.
I should’ve said no.
Instead, I said—
“When?”
