Mara POV

The dress weighs nothing and everything at once.

I stare at my reflection in the full-length mirror of Cross Manor's bridal suite. The woman looking back wears ivory silk. Her auburn hair is twisted into an elegant updo. Her makeup is flawless but her emerald eyes are hollow.

I don't recognize her.

"You look beautiful." Diana's voice cracks behind me.

I turn to find my sister standing in the doorway in her bridesmaid dress-pale pink, designer, paid for by him. Her eyes are red-rimmed. She looks like she wants to cry.

"Don't." I shake my head, my throat tight. "Please don't make this harder."

Diana crosses the room in three steps and grabs my hands. Her grip is fierce.

"You don't have to do this," she whispers urgently. "We'll figure something else out. We'll"

"There is nothing else." I squeeze back, willing her to understand. "Dad needs that treatment, Di. Your heart condition needs monitoring. Mom needs..."

"You." Diana's voice breaks completely. "Mom needs you. Not trapped in some contract marriage to a man who treats people like property."

The door swings open before I can respond.

Lucien's assistant-a severe woman named Patricia-steps inside with a clipboard. She doesn't smile.

"Five minutes, Mrs. Cross." She says the name like it's already mine. "The guests are seated."

Mrs. Cross, the words make my skin crawl.

Patricia leaves as Diana pulls me into a hug that feels like goodbye.

"I love you," she breathes against my shoulder. "And I'm so sorry."

"Don't be sorry." I hold her tighter, memorizing this moment. "Be happy. Live your life. That's all I want."

We break apart. I blink rapidly, refusing to let tears ruin the makeup that took an hour to apply.

**********

The walk to the ceremony is a blur.

Cross Manor's gardens have been transformed into something from a magazine-white roses everywhere, string quartet playing, three hundred guests in designer clothes. I recognize maybe ten people. The rest are Lucien's world. His business associates. His society connections, his kingdom.

Adrian meets me at the entrance to the aisle. He's supposed to give me away since Dad can't walk.

"You can still leave," he says quietly, offering his arm. His kind eyes search mine. "I'll drive you myself."

"And go where?" I take his arm, my fingers digging into his sleeve. "Back to debt collectors and loan sharks?"

He flinches, we both know the answer. The music changes as everyone stands. I force myself to walk.

Each step down the white carpet feels like walking toward an execution. Faces blur past, cameras flash. Someone's crying-probably Mom. The sun is too bright and the roses smell suffocating.

Then I see him.

Lucien stands at the altar in a custom black tux, looking like every woman's fantasy. Tall. Powerful. Devastatingly handsome. His steel-blue eyes lock onto mine, and there's nothing in them. No warmth, no emotion. Just a cold assessment.

He's evaluating his purchase.

Adrian deposits me at the altar and steps back. I'm alone with Lucien under an arch of white roses while hundreds of people watch our lie unfold.

"You look acceptable," Lucien murmurs, so low only I can hear.

"You look like a man buying a wife," I whisper back, smiling for the cameras.

His jaw tightens. Good. I hope this costs him something, even if it's just his pride.

The officiant-some judge Lucien knows-begins the ceremony. Dearly beloved, gathered here today in a sacred union. Every phrase is a mockery.

I catch Diana's eye in the front row. She's clutching Mom's hand, both of them crying. Dad sits in his wheelchair beside them, his face stone cold. He refused to smile, he refused to pretend.

"Do you, Lucien Alexander Cross, take this woman"

"I do." Lucien's voice is clear.

The officiant turns to me. My hands are shaking. I clutch the bouquet of white roses so hard a thorn pierces my palm.

"Do you, Mara Elizabeth Quinn, take this man"

The words stick in my throat. I can't breathe. Can't think. This is it. This is the moment I sell myself.

I feel blood trickling from my palm where the thorn cut deep.

"I do." My voice is barely a whisper.

"Then by the power vested in me..." The judge beams like this is real. "I now pronounce you husband and wife, you may kiss the bride."

Lucien turns to me. His hand comes up to cup my jaw, tilting my face toward his. Our eyes meet for half a second. I see nothing in him. No desire, no affection, just ownership.

Then he kisses me. Cameras flash like lightning, people applaud as someone whoops.

I stand frozen, letting him kiss me, hating every second of it. Hating him and hating myself more.

When he pulls back, his thumb brushes away a tear I didn't know had fallen.

"Smile, Mrs. Cross," he murmurs against my ear. "You're mine now."

********

The reception is worse.

We sit at the head table like royalty, his hand possessively on my thigh under the table. I'm supposed to look happy in love instead I look like a doll with a painted smile.

Gregory Cross stands to give his speech. Lucien's father is tall, radiating the kind of power that built empires. His eyes-identical to his son's-sweep over the crowd.

"Today, my son secures his legacy." Gregory's voice carries across the tent. "The Cross family has always understood that marriage is about more than sentiment. It's about building something that lasts."

My skin crawls, he is not even pretending this is about love.

"Mara..." Gregory turns to me with a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "Welcome to the family. I trust you understand what's expected of you."

It's not a welcome. It's a warning.Lucien's hand tightens on my thigh. A reminder, I smile and nod like a good little bride.

Diana gives a toast next, her voice shaking. She talks about sisterhood and sacrifice and strength. She doesn't mention love once. The cake cutting, the first dance. The endless photographs. Each moment is choreographed, performed, utterly hollow.

I'm smiling so hard my face hurts. Then I see her.

A woman in the back of the tent, standing alone near the exit. Platinum blonde hair in a perfect chignon. Designer dress that whispers old money. She's watching me with an expression I can't read.

She looks like she belongs in Lucien's world. Like she fits. Like I never will. Our eyes meet across the crowd. She raises her champagne glass in a small salute, the gesture feels like a threat.

She starts walking toward me.

Lucien is pulled away by business associates, leaving me alone at the table. The woman moves through the crowd with practiced grace, her heels clicking on the parquet floor.

She stops in front of me, that unreadable smile still in place.

"You're the bride." Her accent is British, refined. "How lovely."

"Thank you." I set down my champagne, every instinct screaming danger. "I don't think we've met."

"No, we haven't. I'm Evelyn Rowe." She extends a perfectly manicured hand. "I used to be engaged to your husband."

The world tilts.

She sits in the chair Lucien just vacated, crossing her legs elegantly. Her perfume is expensive. Everything about her screams wealth, breeding, belonging.

"We have so much to talk about, don't we?" Evelyn leans closer, her voice dropping to a whisper.

Mara POV

The limo ride to Cross Manor feels like a long ride. Lucien sits across from me in the back seat, scrolling through his phone. He hasn't spoken since we left the reception. Hasn't looked at me. The wedding ring on my finger catches the streetlights, flashing like a warning beacon.

I stare out the window, watching Ravenstone City blur past. We leave the downtown high-rises behind, climbing into the hills where the real money lives. Each mile takes me farther from everything I know.

The limo turns onto a private drive lined with trees. Security gates slide open automatically.

Then I see it.

Cross Manor rises from perfectly manicured grounds like something out of a magazine. All glass and steel and modern architecture. Floor-to-ceiling windows that reveal lit interiors. The whole structure seems to glow against the night sky.

It's stunning but cold. It's a fortress.

"Home sweet home," Lucien says flatly, pocketing his phone.

The limo stops at the front entrance. A valet opens my door. I step out onto cobblestones, still wearing my wedding dress, feeling like I'm arriving at my own execution.

Lucien walks ahead without waiting. I follow him through massive front doors into a foyer that echoes.

Everything is marble. There's not a single family photo. No personal touches, no warmth.

"I'll give you the tour." Lucien shrugs off his tux jacket, draping it over a minimalist console table. "Though there's not much you need to know."

He leads me through rooms that feel like museum galleries. The formal living room with furniture no one's supposed to sit on. The dining room with a table that seats twenty. The chef's kitchen that looks unused. His home office-locked, he notes. Off limits.

Every space is pristine but utterly lifeless.

"How long have you lived here?" I ask, my heels clicking on the marble floors.

"Five years." He doesn't turn around. "Since I took over as CEO."

"It's very..." I search for a word that isn't insulting. "Clean."

"I have a housekeeper." He stops at the base of a floating staircase. "She comes Mondays and Thursdays, stay out of her way."

We climbed to the second floor. The master suite is at the end of a long hallway. Lucien opens double doors, and I step inside expecting one bedroom.

There are two.

A sitting room connects them-neutral furniture, cold fireplace, more glass walls overlooking the grounds. To the left is his bedroom. To the right is mine.

Separate kingdoms with a demilitarized zone between.

"Your room." Lucien gestures to the right side. "Mine is there. The sitting room is shared. I expect you to keep your space clean and respect my privacy."

I walk into what's supposed to be my bedroom for the next two years. It's beautiful in that same cold, impersonal way. King-size bed with white linens. Walk-in closet big enough for a studio apartment. Ensuite bathroom with a soaking tub.

My suitcase sits on the bed, looking pathetic. Everything I own fits in one bag.

"The closet will be stocked with appropriate clothing by tomorrow." Lucien stands in the doorway, not entering. "Patricia has your measurements."

"Appropriate clothing?" I turn to face him.

"You're a Cross now. You'll dress like one." His tone is matter-of-fact. "Designer labels only and nothing cheap."

Something in me snaps.

"My clothes aren't cheap." I cross my arms. "They're just not pretentious."

"They're inadequate." He pulls out his phone again, already dismissing me. "Patricia will handle everything, she has also scheduled your calendar."

"My calendar?" The words come out sharper than intended.

Lucien finally looks up, his steel-blue eyes cold. "Did you think you'd spend two years doing nothing? We have appearances to maintain charity events, business dinners. Society functions."

"I have a job," I remind him. "At the legal clinic."

"You had a job." He corrects me. "You're Mrs. Lucien Cross now. That's a full-time position."

The casual way he says it makes my blood boil.

"I didn't agree to give up my career." I step closer, refusing to back down. "That wasn't in the contract."

"Read the fine print." His smile doesn't reach his eyes. "You agreed to fulfill all social obligations as my wife. That requires availability, Mara. You can't serve hors d'oeuvres at a nonprofit while attending galas with billionaires."

The reminder of how we met lands like a slap.

"What about my family?" My voice shakes despite my best efforts. "Can I visit them? Or is that not appropriate either?"

"Sundays." He says it like he's granting a favor. "You have Sundays. The rest of the week, you're here or at required events."

"And friends? Can I see my friends?"

"Do you have friends who won't ask questions about our arrangement?" He raises an eyebrow. "Because if you do, I'd be impressed. Most people in your position lose their entire social circle once they enter mine."

He's right. God, I hate that he's right.

My friends from the legal clinic stopped texting after I announced my sudden engagement to a billionaire they'd never heard me mention. They probably think I'm a gold-digger and they are not entirely wrong.

"What are the rules, then?" I force myself to ask. "Since you own me for the next two years."

Lucien's jaw tightens at the word "own."

"Don't embarrass me in public," he says coldly. "Don't speak to the press without my approval. Don't make friends with anyone I haven't vetted. Don't go anywhere without informing Patricia. And don't" He pauses, his eyes hardening. "...develop any romantic feelings. This is business, keep it that way."

The last rule is almost funny. As if I could ever feel anything for him besides contempt.

"That's it?" I ask.

"That's it." He pockets his phone, moving toward his bedroom door. "We maintain separate lives under the same roof. You play the devoted wife when required. I pay for your family's existence. Simple."

"Simple," I echo hollowly.

He pauses with his hand on the doorknob, not looking at me.

"The wedding ring stays on at all times," he adds. "Even when you're alone. I'll know if you take it off."

"How? Do you have cameras in here?"

"I don't need cameras." He finally turns, his expression unreadable. "I'll see it in your eyes. The moment you stop pretending. The moment you remember you're not really mine."

The words hang between us, loaded with something I can't name.

"I'll never be yours, Lucien." I meet his gaze. "Contract or not."

"We'll see." His smile is cold. "Goodnight, Mrs. Cross."

He disappears into his bedroom. The door closes with a soft click that sounds like a cell locking.

I stand alone in the sitting room, still wearing my wedding dress, the diamond ring heavy on my finger. The silence is suffocating.

I walk to the window, looking out at the manicured grounds, the security gates, the walls that separate this place from the real world. From my family, from freedom.

Two years. Seven hundred and thirty days.

I can survive this. I have to.

But as I hear Lucien's door lock from the inside-a clear message about boundaries and distance-something inside me breaks.

I sink onto the pristine white couch, my wedding dress pooling around me and I cry.

For my father's pain and my mother's fear and Diana's guilt. For the life I gave up and the prison I walked into. For the man on the other side of that locked door who bought me like property and expects me to smile about it.

I cry until there's nothing left. Then I stand, wipe my face, and walk into my new bedroom.

The suitcase on the bed mocks me with its inadequacy. I open it with shaking hands, pulling out my clothes-jeans, t-shirts, the blazer I wore to the legal clinic every day.

I hang them in the massive closet anyway, claiming what little space I can.

Mara POV 

Sunlight burns through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

I wake up with silk pillowcases stuck to my face, black mascara streaking the white fabric like I'd been crying in my sleep. Maybe I had. My wedding dress is twisted around my legs, the corset digging into my ribs with the persistence of something that hasn't finished punishing me yet. For three beautiful seconds, I forget where I am.

Then I remember.

The ring on my finger. The contract with my name on it fifteen times. The door closing with that soft, expensive click.

I sit up slowly, my body aching from sleeping in a dress designed for standing and smiling and performing, not for collapsing face-first into a stranger's bed. The bedroom is exactly as pristine as it was last night-white walls, minimalist furniture, surfaces so clean they look like they've never been touched by human hands. Even with my suitcase exploded across a chair, the room refuses to look lived in. It absorbs the mess like it's already decided it won't be keeping me.

A clock on the nightstand reads 7:47 a.m.

I listen for sounds from the other side of the suite. Nothing. Lucien's either still asleep or already gone. Probably gone. Men like him don't sleep in. Men like him were probably born wearing suits, already thinking about quarterly earnings before they took their first breath.

I peel myself out of the wedding dress, letting it pool on the floor in a heap of ivory silk. Standing there in my underwear, I catch my reflection in the full-length mirror across the room and make the mistake of looking.

There are red marks on my ribs from the corset, angry and deep. My hair is a disaster. My eyes are puffy from whatever crying I did in my sleep, the mascara etched into the fine skin beneath them like something that's been there for years.

I look exactly how I feel.

The shower in my ensuite bathroom could fit six people comfortably with room left over for their opinions. Multiple shower heads come at me from three angles. The floors are heated. Everything is white marble, cold and magnificent. I turn the water up until it hurts and stand there, letting it strip away yesterday's makeup, yesterday's performance, yesterday's version of myself who smiled at cameras and said 'I do' in a dress that wasn't really her and meant it for none of the reasons she was supposed to.

When I finally emerge, wrapped in a towel, I hear voices downstairs.

I pull on jeans and a sweater from my suitcase-my real clothes, soft and worn and mine, not whatever designer prison uniform Patricia will deliver later today.

The floating staircase feels strange under my bare feet. Everything in this house feels strange. Too large, too still, too designed to impress people who don't live here.

The voices lead me to a dining room I didn't see on last night's tour. Smaller than the formal one, which is to say it only seats eight instead of twenty. Windows overlook a garden that's been landscaped within an inch of its life. I pause in the doorway, taking in the scene.

Lucien sits at the head of the table, perfectly dressed in a charcoal suit. His dark hair is styled. His tie is knotted with the kind of precision that implies someone did it twice to get it right, or that he is simply incapable of doing anything imprecisely.

The Wall Street Journal is spread in front of him. He doesn't look up.

"Good morning, Mrs. Cross!" A woman in her fifties appears from the direction of the kitchen, warm smile already in place. Her accent is faintly Chinese, her movements efficient and unhurried in the way of someone who has belonged somewhere for a very long time. "I'm Mrs. Dahlia, the housekeeper. Would you like coffee?"

"Yes, please." I slide into a chair across from Lucien, acutely aware of my damp hair, my bare feet, my general failure to look like someone who belongs at this table. "And Mara is fine. You don't have to call me..."

"Mrs. Cross prefers coffee black," Lucien interrupts, not lifting his eyes from the paper. "Two sugars."

Mrs. Dahlia nods, already turning back toward the kitchen.

I stare at him. "I take my coffee with cream."

"You took it black at the wedding reception." He turns a page with precise, unhurried movements. "I assumed that was your preference."

"I took it black because I was nauseous and needed caffeine as quickly as possible." I lean back in my chair and look at him steadily. "I normally drink it with cream."

He finally looks up. His steel-blue eyes do the thing they always do-assess first, react never. A brief, clinical survey that takes in the damp hair and the sweater and whatever my face is doing, and then sets it all neatly aside.

"Noted." He returns to his paper.

Mrs. Dahlia returns with coffee-black, two sugars-alongside a plate of fresh fruit, pastries, and what appears to be a perfectly constructed gourmet omelet. She sets everything in front of me with the kind of quiet reverence usually reserved for royalty or people who might leave a review.

"Thank you." I reach past the coffee cup and wrap my hand around the cream pitcher myself.

Lucien's jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. He says nothing.

I pour cream until the coffee turns the color of warm sand. Add one sugar, not two. Take a slow sip and hold his gaze while I do it, because I have approximately nothing left to lose this morning and I'd like him to know that.

"Did you sleep well?" I try, aiming for something that resembles normal human conversation.

"Fine." He doesn't look up.

"The house is beautiful."

"Yes."

"Very... modern."

"Mm."

I stab a strawberry with more force than necessary. This is going to be a long two years if every morning feels like sitting across from a very expensive wall.

"Do you always read through breakfast?" I try again, because apparently I'm a person who pokes things.

"Yes." He turns another page. "The market opens in thirty minutes."

"Right, of course. Heaven forbid you miss the opening bell."

That gets his attention. His eyes snap up to mine and stay there.

"Do you have a problem with how I spend my mornings, Mrs. Cross?"

"I have a problem with being ignored in my own house."

"This isn't your house." His voice is cold, precise, each word placed like a legal objection. "It's mine. You're living here as part of our arrangement."

The words hits. I feel them in my sternum, which is embarrassing, because I knew this. I signed fifteen copies of this exact truth and I should not be surprised to hear it out loud.

I set down my coffee cup carefully, willing my hands steady. "Message received."

He studies me for a long moment, something unreadable moving behind his expression like weather behind glass. Then he folds the newspaper with sharp, deliberate movements-the kind that suggest even this small act is governed by a system.

"I have meetings all day." He stands, buttoning his jacket. "I'll be home late. Don't wait up."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

He pauses halfway to the door, his broad shoulders carrying some tension he hasn't decided to name.

"Patricia will be by at ten with your new wardrobe and schedule." He doesn't turn around. "Try to be presentable."

Then he's gone. No goodbye. No backward glance. Just the sound of expensive shoes on marble, then nothing.

I sit alone in the dining room, surrounded by furniture, wondering how long a person can live in a house where she's treated like an unwanted houseguest in her own life.

Mrs. Dahlia returns, her expression carrying the particular warmth of someone who has seen this before and chosen kindness anyway.

"He's always like this in the mornings," she says gently, refilling my coffee without being asked. "Very focused on work."

"Does he ever eat breakfast?" I gesture to his untouched place setting, the pristine silverware that was never moved.

"Not usually. Coffee only." Mrs. Dahlia begins clearing his side of the table with practiced efficiency. "He works very hard."

I'm sure he does. You can't build an empire by wasting time on things like eating breakfast, or acknowledging the person sitting across from you, or basic human warmth.

"Mrs. Dahlia?" I catch her attention before she can disappear back into the kitchen.

"Of course, dear."

I wrap both hands around my coffee cup, let the warmth seep into my palms. 

"How long have you worked for him?"​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​