Olivia’s POV

My phone buzzes on the bathroom counter while I’ve got a mascara wand an inch from my eye, and i almost poke myself when i look down and see Daniel's name.

“We need to talk, this isn't working anymore, i think it's best we end things.”

That's it? Eleven words, three years, and it ends with eleven words and a full stop, like a door slamming shut.

I read it twice, waiting for it to change into something that makes sense, waiting for another text to pop up and say sorry, wrong chat, or say anything that isn't this but nothing comes, not even the three dots.

My face does something in the mirror i don’t know, it isn't crying yet, it's worse than crying, it's the second right before it, when my whole face just drops, like I’ve been holding something up for a long time and I’m too tired to keep doing it. My eyes look too big, my mouth is a little open, like i want to say something back, but there's no one really there, just a phone screen and a gray text bubble and three years of dinners, his mother's birthday and the apartment we almost got together, all of it gone in one text from a man who didn’t even have the guts to call me.

I set the mascara down before my hand shakes it onto the counter, i couldn’t text back, what is there to say to eleven words.

The clock on my phone says 8:41 and i’m supposed to walk into Ashford Industries in nineteen minutes, and it takes twenty-five if the train is on time, which it never is before nine.

"Okay," i say out loud, to no one, to the mirror, to my own face still stuck in that hurt look, "Okay."

I don’t have time to fall apart, that's the one thing broke, no-plan, barely-holding-it-together people don't get, time to fall apart when they want to. I wipe under my eyes even though nothing has fallen yet, grab my blazer off the door, and ran.

I’m still running when I gets to the lobby of Ashford Industries at 9:04, heels too loud on marble that costs more than my rent, my hair coming loose from the clip i did in the elevator, my blazer only half buttoned. I catch my own reflection in the gold doors and didn’t know that face either, just a blur of a woman trying to catch up to a day that's already ahead of her.

"You're late," Priya says, not looking up from her desk, not mean about it, just says it like a fact.

"I know," I replied, out of breath, dropping my bag at her desk outside the executive office. "I know, I know, I'm ….."

"He wants you."

My hands stop on my bag strap, "What?"

"Mr. Ashford." Priya finally looks up, and there's something careful on her face, something that makes my stomach drop the rest of the way down, "He asked for you the second you walked in like he knew."

Ethan Ashford does not call people into his office at 9:06 in the morning for nothing. In the two years I have worked three feet from his door, I’ve never once seen him call someone in for something a memo couldn't fix. He is cold, the kind of cold you get when you've never had to try hard for anything. He is quick, exact, and he doesn't do small talk. He says good morning like he's checking a box, I’ve seen him make grown men stumble over their words, not once in two years has he looked my way for longer than it takes to hand him a folder.

So when i knock and he says come in without looking up, i get ready for a complaint, a missed email or something small i can say sorry for and fix in ten minutes.

I was not get ready for the folder he slides across the desk the second i sit down.

"Sit," he says, even though I’m already sitting, "Read it."

"Read…" I look down, it's a contract, legal pages, thick paragraphs, a line at the bottom for two names. My name isn't there yet, but there's a blank space right where a name should go, and just seeing that blank space makes my hands go cold before i even read the first line. "Mr. Ashford, what is this?"

"My grandfather died six days ago."

The words come out flat, no sadness in them, or none he lets show, and for a second i forget the contract is even there, "I'm so sorry, i didn't know, i would have said something."

"You wouldn't have known, it wasn't out yet." He says it the way he says everything, like a fact to be filed away, not felt.

"His will has one rule, i get everything, the company, the house, all of it, only if I'm married by the time I turn thirty. If I'm not, the whole thing goes to a children's home instead, an orphanage upstate my grandfather picked, like he thought it deserved his money more than his own family." His jaw tightens and finishes,"I turn thirty in five weeks."

I stare at him, I’m aware my mouth is open, and i shut it, "Okay," I said slowly, the way you talk to someone you're not sure is being serious, "And you're telling me this because?"

"Because I want you to marry me."

The room goes very quiet, outside the glass wall, Priya's phone rings twice and stops but Olivia's own heartbeat is the loudest thing in the room now.

"I'm sorry?"

"One year," he says, like he's reading numbers off a page, which, i think, looking down at the contract, he pretty much is. "We get married, we stay married for twelve months, we make it look real enough that a lawyer looking for a reason to say it isn't real can't find one. At the end of the year, we file for a quiet divorce, you walk away, and you walk away with one million dollars."

I laughed, It just comes out, short and stunned, not the right thing to do in this room at all. "You're joking."

"I don't joke."

No, i thought, he really doesn't, i’ve never once heard Ethan Ashford make a joke in two years. That might be the most convincing part of this whole strange thing, that he's saying it with a completely straight face.

"Why me?" It's the only question that really matters, out of the dozen stuck in my throat. "You could have anyone,like your ex fiancée, Isabella, everyone knows about her."

Something closes off behind his eyes at the name, quick, there and gone, "I'm not marrying someone the papers already have a file on neither am i marrying someone with an agenda." He leans back, looking at her the way he'd look at a line in a contract, checking for the catch. "You're careful, you're quiet, you've worked here two years and I doubt half this floor could pick you out of a lineup, no offense."

"None taken," i replied, meaning it more than i want to, invisible, even from him, especially from him, it's invisible.

"That's exactly what I need," he says and continues, "Someone lowkey, someone who doesn't want to be photographed, who isn't going to sell this to a magazine, who gets that this is a deal and nothing more." His eyes flick, just for a second, to the closed door, like he's already thinking past this whole conversation. "You need money and i need a wife, It's not hard to understand."

It's not hard to understand, and still i can feel my own heartbeat in my ears, i can feel that text still sitting in my phone in my bag, “This isn't working anymore,” i can feel how strange it is that this morning started with one man throwing me away and is somehow ending with another man offering me a million dollars to pretend to be his wife.

"I need to think about it," i heard myself say.

"You have until Friday," He's already looking back down at whatever was on his desk before i walked in, already done with me, already moved on to the next thing then he concluded, "Take the contract, read every line, my lawyer's number is on the last page if you have questions you don't want to ask me."

I stand up, my legs feel strange under me, like they belong to someone a little less shocked than i am. I’m almost at the door when his voice stops me.

"Olivia."

I turn around, it's the first time, i realized, that he's used my first name instead of Ms. Bennett.

"This is real money, enough to change your life." For a second, something almost human crosses his face, then it's gone again, "Don't say yes because you feel sorry for me, i don't need that. Say yes because it's the smartest thing you'll do all year."

I didn’t respond. I don’t trust my voice to come out steady, not after the morning I’ve had, not while I’m holding the contract folder against my chest like it might try to get away from me, I just nod and let myself out.

By the time i gets back to Clara's apartment that night, I’ve been sleeping on Clara's couch since my lease fell through last month, since Daniel, she's tried to say it about four different ways in her head, and none of them sound sane out loud.

Clara takes one look at my face from the kitchen, wine glass halfway to her mouth, and puts it down, "Okay girl, what happened and don't say nothing, you have your break-up-slash-disaster face on."

"Daniel broke up with me over text this morning," Olivia says, dropping her bag by the door.

"WHAT!!!!!"

"And my boss asked me to marry him for a year for a million dollars."

Clara stares at her for a long moment, wine glass forgotten, "I'm sorry?" she says finally. "Can we go back to the first one ? no, no, actually, start with the second one. Start right there, sit down, take your shoes off and talk."

I sat and pulled the contract out of my bag, and sets it down on the coffee table between them like proof.

"Start from the beginning," Clara says, quieter now, and I did.