Chapter 1 THE PROPOSAL
I found out my family was selling me off like livestock over a plate of my mother's overcooked lasagna, which felt like the wrong meal for news that big.
"It's not selling you off," my father said, in the tone of a man who knew exactly how it sounded and had decided to fight the framing instead of the substance. "It's a merger. Arrangement. The Whitfields have money we need, and their son has expressed interest, and—"
"And you said yes on my behalf." I put my fork down. "Without asking me."
"I'm asking you now."
"After telling them yes."
My mother reached for my hand across the table, the universal signal for please don't make this harder than it already is. "Ava. The business is three months from collapse. Your father has tried everything. This isn't about romance. It's about survival."
I understood survival. I'd spent the last two years watching my father's company hemorrhage money while he refused to admit how bad it had gotten, watching my mother's hands shake a little more every time the phone rang with another creditor on the line. I understood exactly what they were asking, and I hated that I understood it, because it meant I couldn't dismiss it as easily as I wanted to.
"Give me a week," I said. "Before I agree to marry a man I've met twice at country club functions, give me one week to find literally any other option."
My father didn't look hopeful. "There isn't another option, Ava."
He was wrong. I just didn't know it yet, walking out of that dinner with my chest tight and my phone already in my hand, scrolling through contacts for anyone who might know anyone who might have a better idea than marry a stranger to save the family business.
The better idea found me instead, two days later, in the last place I expected it.
Damian Cole's office looked exactly like every other article I'd read about him — floor-to-ceiling windows, a desk clean enough to suggest either extreme discipline or someone who never actually worked at it, and the man himself standing at the window with his back to the door when his assistant showed me in.
"Ms. Bennett," he said, without turning around. "You're here about the marketing contract your father's company owes us for."
"I'm here because my father's company owes yours money we don't have, and I heard through an assistant who talks too much that you're having a board problem I might be able to fix."
That got him to turn around. Damian Cole in photographs was handsome in the generic, expensive way rich men often are — good tailoring doing half the work. In person, there was something sharper underneath it, an attention that landed on me like he was already three steps ahead of whatever I was about to say.
"I'm listening," he said.
"Your board wants you 'settled' before they'll approve the Hargrove merger. I read that in the same gossip column that mentioned my family's finances, which tells me neither of us has much privacy left to protect." I made myself hold his gaze instead of looking away first. "I need to not marry the man my father picked for me. You need a fiancée the board believes in. I'm proposing we solve both problems without either of us actually getting married to anyone we don't want to."
Silence stretched long enough that I started composing the version of this conversation where I'd have to walk out and pretend it never happened.
Then Damian Cole almost smiled — not quite, just the shadow of one, like he'd decided I was more interesting than his morning had promised.
"A fake engagement," he said.
"A business arrangement. Temporary. Ends the second the merger closes and my father's debt is handled." I kept my voice steady, businesslike, the tone I'd have used pitching any other deal. "Nobody has to fall in love with anybody. We just have to be convincing."
He studied me for a long moment — long enough that I felt it, the specific discomfort of being assessed by someone used to making decisions worth more money than I'd see in a lifetime.
"Convincing," he repeated, like he was testing the word for weaknesses. "Ms. Bennett, I don't do anything halfway, including pretending. If we do this, the board sees a couple who's genuinely engaged, not two people performing a favor for each other. Can you manage that?"
"Can you?"
The almost-smile turned into something closer to real. "I suppose we're about to find out."
He held out his hand, and I understood, shaking it, that I'd just agreed to something considerably more complicated than the businesslike arrangement I'd walked in describing — though it would take me weeks to admit how much of that complication I'd started wanting the moment he turned around from that window and looked at me like I was a problem worth solving personally.
