The price to marry my worst enemy is ten million dollars.
Ten million to say "I do." To wear white for a man I hate. To let Damian Sterling put a ring on my finger that feels more like a handcuff.
The lawyer slides the contract across the mahogany table. Thick paper. Heavy. Like everything else in the Sterling empire, designed to
remind you that you are small.
"Miss Hayes, if you could initial page four, paragraph seven. The no-infidelity clause."
I stare at the words.
The Wife agrees to refrain from any romantic or sexual involvement with any third party for the duration of the marriage.
I almost laugh. As if I would.
Across from me, Damian Sterling doesn't look up from his phone. He is exactly as I remember him from college, only worse. Sharper.
Colder. At twenty-one he was an arrogant heir who made my life hell in every architecture critique. At thirty-four, he is the reason my
father is about to lose everything.
He wears a black suit that probably costs more than my entire apartment. His dark hair is perfectly styled, his jaw is tight, his blue eyes -
that impossible, arctic blue that made half the girls on campus lose their minds - are fixed on whatever email is more important than
buying a wife.
"Elena."
His voice. Low. Impatient. He finally looks at me.
And for a second, I forget how to breathe. Not because he is handsome. He has always been handsome in the way a knife is handsome.
Beautiful and built to cut you.
"Are you having second thoughts? That would be inconvenient. My press conference is in two hours."
"No second thoughts," I say. My voice is steady. I am proud of that. "I'm just reading the part where you think you can control who I sleep
with."
A flicker of something in his eyes. Amusement? Annoyance?
"I don't think, Hayes. I know. Ten million buys a lot of control."
My father sits beside me, silent. Thomas Hayes, the man who taught me how to draw a straight line, who built Hayes & Co. from nothing,
looks twenty years older than he did six months ago. His hands are shaking on the table.
That's why I'm here. Because six months ago, Sterling Empire called in the loan on my father's company. Because Damian Sterling decided
he wanted the Hayes waterfront lot for his new tower. Because my father's partner disappeared with the money and left us to drown.
And Damian offered a lifeline. With barbed wire attached.
Marry him for one year. Fix his image problem - the cold billionaire needs a wife to secure the Dubai investors who think he's too volatile.
In exchange, he saves my father's company, pays off our debts, and gives me ten million dollars to restart my life when it's over.
One year. I can hate someone for one year for ten million.
I grab the Montblanc pen.
"Paragraph seven is mutual, I hope?" I ask the lawyer.
The lawyer glances at Damian nervously.
Damian leans forward. Slowly. He rests his forearms on the table. I can smell his cologne. Something clean, expensive, woodsy. It shouldn't
suit him. He should smell like smoke and bad decisions.
"Are you worried about me, Elena? Worried I'll be tempted by my own fake wife?"
His eyes drop to my mouth. Just for a second. It's deliberate. A power play.
I was ready to be invisible to him. I can handle hatred. What I can't handle is that look.
"I wouldn't want your future girlfriends to feel insecure, Damian. You know how jealous models get."
His jaw tightens. We have never been able to be in the same room for five minutes without drawing blood.
He hated me in college because I was the only one who called his designs soulless. I hated him because he made sure no professor ever
took my work seriously after I beat him for the Gold Medal.
"Initial it, Elena."
It's an order. CEO voice. The one that makes boardrooms go silent.
I initial it. E.H. Sharp. Angry. On every page. Non-disclosure. No feelings. No media interviews without approval. Separate bedrooms in the
penthouse. Mandatory public appearances. Divorce after 365 days, no contest.
The last page. Signature.
My hand hovers.
If I sign this, I become Elena Sterling. The wife of my worst enemy.
If I don't, my father loses his house tomorrow.
My father puts his hand over mine. Just for a second. "You don't have to do this, sweetheart."
But he is crying. My father never cries.
I sign.
Elena Hayes. In black ink that bleeds slightly into the expensive paper.
Damian watches my hand move. His expression unreadable.
"Good girl," he murmurs, so low only I can hear it.
Heat shoots up my spine. Anger, not anything else. Definitely not anything else.
He signs next. D. Sterling. Fast, aggressive, illegible.
The lawyer exhales like he's been holding his breath for an hour. "Congratulations. You're married. Well, you will be. The civil ceremony is
on Thursday. Small, private, with the press release right after."
"Thursday?" I choke. "That's in two days."
"My investors don't wait, darling," Damian says, standing. He buttons his suit jacket. One smooth motion. "Don't worry. My assistant has
bought you a dress. And everything else you'll need. You own nothing that belongs in a Sterling penthouse."
Of course he did.
He walks to the door. He expects me to follow. Like everyone else does.
I don't move.
"Damian."
He stops, hand on the door handle, and looks back.
"I hate you."
I want him to know. I want it on record before this farce starts.
For the first time today, he actually smiles. It's not a nice smile. It's devastating.
"I know, Hayes. That's what makes this so fun."
He leaves. The door clicks shut behind him, leaving his cologne and the contract that just sold my life.
---
Thursday comes too fast.
The "small, private" ceremony is in the garden of the Sterling family estate in the Hamptons. Which is not an estate, it's a compound that
could house a small country.
There are fifty photographers hidden behind the hedges that his PR team "didn't know about." There is a Vera Wang dress in my size that
makes me look like someone else. Someone soft and expensive.
There is no family on my side except my father, who looks like he might throw up. There is Damian's entire board, his grandmother who
looks at me like I'm dirt under her Louboutin, and his soon-to-be ex-best friend who is now his business rival.
And there is Damian.
He stands under the arch of white roses, waiting. No tie. White shirt, sleeves rolled up slightly. He looks less like a groom and more like a
man about to close a hostile takeover.
Which, I suppose, he is.
I walk toward him. My father holds my arm so tight I will have bruises.
"You look beautiful," Damian says when I reach him. Loud enough for the microphones.
His eyes say: You look terrified.
The officiant starts talking. I don't hear a word. I stare at Damian's mouth as it moves. I do. You may now kiss.
Oh God. The kiss. We didn't discuss the kiss.
Damian's hand slides to my waist. Possessive. Hard. He pulls me into him. One hand, two inches above my hip, fingers digging in through
the silk.
"Smile for the cameras, wife," he whispers against my mouth, his breath warm.
Then he kisses me.
It's supposed to be fake. A peck. For the photos.
It isn't.
His mouth is firm, demanding, tasting like mint and power. He kisses me like he has wanted to do it for years and hates himself for it. Like
he wants to punish me for making him want it.
My knees actually buckle. I grab his shoulders to stay upright. I hear the cameras exploding.
He pulls back just an inch. His blue eyes are black now, blown wide. He looks as shocked as I feel.
Then his PR smile snaps back into place. He turns me to face the photographers, his arm locked around my waist like a steel band.
"Mrs. Sterling," he says to the crowd.
Flash. Flash. Flash.
My phone buzzes in the bouquet they gave me. A text from an unknown number.
I glance down.
It's a photo. Of me and my best friend Leo, from last night. Leo hugging me goodbye outside my tiny apartment. His head on my shoulder.
Innocent. Brotherly.
Underneath, a text:
Paragraph 7, wife. We need to talk about punishment. - D
My blood runs cold. He had me followed. On our wedding night.
I look up at my new husband. He is still smiling for the cameras, his hand now stroking my side in a way that looks loving from far away,
but feels like a warning.
He leans down again, his lips brushing my ear.
"Welcome home, Elena."
And I realize I didn't just marry my worst enemy.
I married a man who will never let me go.