Chapter 1 - “What do you want, my kidney?”
“One year.”
Her laughter stopped.
“We remain legally married for one year. Public appearances when required. Separate bedrooms. Separate private lives. At the end, we divorce. You receive two million dollars.”
The diner seemed to become strangely quiet.
Even the refrigerator hum receded.
Cassidy stared at him.
“You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
“You picked a waitress crying near a pie case.”
“I picked a woman with no connection to my family, no connection to my competitors, no public profile and an urgent reason to accept.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“It’s practical.”
“No, it’s disgusting.”
“You asked the universe for a husband.”
“I wasn’t asking you.”
“The universe has poor administrative procedures.”
Cassidy nearly laughed.
She hated him for almost making her.
Then she remembered Emily.
“What happens if I say no?”
“I finish my coffee.”
“And?”
“You never see me again.”
“No threats?”
“No.”
“No ruining my custody case?”
His eyes narrowed.
“I don’t threaten children.”
There was something abrupt in the answer.
Something real.
Cassidy sat across from him without meaning to.
“Why don’t you marry some woman you already know?”
“Because every woman I already know comes with alliances.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Families. Boards. Expectations. Leverage.”
“And I don’t?”
“You come with a seven-year-old girl and thirty-seven dollars.”
Cassidy went still.
“How do you know what’s in my bank account?”
Dominic looked toward her phone.
She followed his gaze.
Her banking app was still open on the screen.
Thirty-seven dollars and fourteen cents.
She snatched the phone up.
“That’s not funny.”
“I wasn’t laughing.”
She studied him.
“And you expect me to go somewhere with you in the morning?”
“Not alone. Bring an attorney.”
“I don’t have an attorney.”
“You said legal fund.”
She flushed.
He had heard more than she realized.
“My family lawyer will draft the agreement. Your legal-aid attorney can review it.”
“I’m not involving my custody lawyer in your weird billionaire marriage contract.”
“You absolutely should.”
That answer surprised her.
He slid his card across the table.
“Eight o’clock. My attorney’s office is on LaSalle.”
“I start court at eleven.”
“The ceremony takes less than fifteen minutes.”
“You’ve planned this.”
“I plan everything.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is.”
Cassidy picked up the card.
She hated the weight of it.
Because impossible things were supposed to be easy to reject.
This was not.
“What about Emily?”
“She is not part of the contract.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Dominic’s expression altered almost invisibly.
“What about her?”
“If I live in your house—”
“Our house, legally.”
“If I live in your house, she lives there too.”
“Yes.”
“She eats breakfast in your kitchen.”
“Yes.”
“She leaves crayons everywhere.”
“I’ve survived worse.”
“She asks questions. Constantly.”
“I’ll answer the ones that concern me.”
“She hates peas.”
“Noted.”
“And if she gets attached to you?”
Silence.
That was the first question that seemed to disturb him.
He leaned back.
“That would be unwise.”
“She’s seven. She doesn’t make decisions based on corporate risk.”
“No.”
“Neither do I.”
“You will tomorrow.”
Cassidy stared at the card.
Her hands were shaking.
“I don’t know you.”
“No.”
“I may wake up tomorrow and realize this is the stupidest decision I’ve ever considered.”
“Almost certainly.”
“I could hate you.”
“Likely.”
“And after a year?”
“You leave richer than either of us needs to discuss.”
“You make everything sound like a receipt.”
“It prevents confusion.”
Cassidy looked toward the rain-black windows.
Somewhere across the city, Emily was asleep in the home of a temporary certified caregiver while Cassidy worked another shift to prove she could provide.
Tomorrow, strangers would discuss her life.
Her square footage.
Her income.
Her hours.
Her support network.
And perhaps decide that love was not a sufficient resource.
Cassidy closed her fingers around Dominic’s card.
“I’m not promising anything.”
“Eight o’clock.”
“I said I’m not promising.”
Dominic stood.
He buttoned his coat.
At the table, he left the hundred-dollar bill.
Then, almost as an afterthought, he removed something else from his inside pocket.
A small velvet box.
Cassidy’s breath caught.
He opened it.
Inside was a narrow platinum ring set with an old oval diamond.
Not enormous.
Not flashy.
Beautiful in the quiet way old things were beautiful because they had already survived someone.
“My mother’s,” he said.
Cassidy looked up.
Dominic closed the box and put it away again.
“If you come tomorrow, you wear that.”
Then he walked into the rain.
Cassidy watched him disappear past the diner window.
Only after he was gone did she notice the second item beneath the business card.
A folded piece of paper.
She opened it.
It was a property listing.
A three-bedroom brick house in Evanston with a small fenced yard, a library two blocks away, and an elementary school ranked at the top of the district.
At the bottom, in neat handwriting, Dominic had written:
Closing can be completed at 9:30 a.m. Title in your name only.
Cassidy stared at the note for so long that Jerry eventually came out of the kitchen.
“What happened?”
Cassidy looked up at him.
“I think I just got proposed to.”
Jerry blinked.
“By Dracula?”
“Yes.”
He considered that.
“You saying yes?”
Cassidy looked through the glass door at the rain.
“I think that’s the worst part.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
At 7:46 the next morning, Cassidy stood in an elevator with wet hair, a thrift-store navy dress, and the certainty that she had lost her mind.
Her legal-aid attorney, Rebecca Sloan, stood beside her holding twenty-seven pages of contract.
Rebecca was forty-two, divorced, brutally practical, and had spent the last twenty minutes alternating between legal analysis and questions beginning with Are you absolutely sure?
The elevator climbed toward the thirty-first floor.
“I still don’t like it,” Rebecca said.
“You said the contract is legal.”
“I said it is unusually favorable to you.”
“That sounds good.”
“That’s what worries me.”
Cassidy looked at her.
Rebecca tapped the papers.
“No morality clauses. No requirement to share a bedroom. No access to your custody case except logistical support. Immediate property transfer. Separate finances. Two million dollars in escrow, payable after twelve months even if he initiates divorce early.”
“So?”
“So men like Dominic Vale do not accidentally offer generous contracts.”
“You know him?”
“I know his lawyers.”
“Is that worse?”
“Much.”
The doors opened.
A receptionist in cream silk greeted them by name.
Dominic was waiting in a glass conference room overlooking the river.
He wore a dark suit, white shirt, no tie.
Cassidy resented that he looked as though he had slept.
She had not.
A silver-haired attorney named Patrick Crane stood when they entered.
Dominic looked at Cassidy.
“You came.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I’m never surprised.”
“You should try it. Builds character.”
Patrick coughed to hide a laugh.
Dominic ignored him.
Rebecca placed the contract on the table.
“Clause seventeen changes.”
Patrick frowned.
Dominic said, “Which part?”
“My client’s sister cannot be photographed, marketed, discussed publicly, or used to support the public image of this marriage without Cassidy’s written approval.”
“Agreed.”
“Dominic—” Patrick began.
“Agreed.”
Rebecca continued.
“Cassidy retains unilateral authority over all educational, medical and custodial decisions for Emily.”
“Of course.”
“Written.”
“Add it.”
“If Cassidy believes your household is unsafe, she can relocate with Emily immediately without breaching the financial settlement.”
Patrick leaned forward.
“That effectively gives her—”
“Add it.”
Everyone went quiet.
Cassidy watched Dominic.
“Why are you agreeing so easily?”
“Because none of those provisions affect what I need.”
“And what exactly do you need?”
“A marriage certificate.”
“That’s it?”
His gaze held hers.
“That is what the contract says.”
Rebecca pulled Cassidy aside near the window.
“This is your last clean exit.”
Cassidy looked down thirty-one stories at the wet streets.
“What happens today if I show up in court with no new housing?”
“You still have a case.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Rebecca sighed.
“The evaluator may recommend temporary placement while you stabilize housing.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
Cassidy closed her eyes.
Emily hated unfamiliar houses.
After their mother died, she had slept with Cassidy’s old sweatshirt under her pillow for three months because it smelled like home.
Temporary placement.
Adults loved temporary words because adults understood calendars.
Children understood absence.
Cassidy turned.
“Where do I sign?”
The civil ceremony took place at 9:06.
No flowers.
No guests except two lawyers and Dominic’s driver, Nathan Cole, who acted as witness.
The clerk looked bored.
Cassidy envied her.
When the clerk asked Dominic whether he took Cassidy as his lawful wife, he said, “I do,” with the same tone a person might use to confirm a reservation.
Then it was Cassidy’s turn.
She thought of her mother’s hand.
She thought of Emily asleep under her purple blanket.
“I do.”
Dominic opened the velvet box.
The ring was even more beautiful in daylight.
He took Cassidy’s left hand.
His fingers were warm.
There was a pale scar across his knuckles.
For the first time, he seemed uncertain.
Not afraid.
Careful.
“This was hers?” Cassidy whispered.
“My mother’s.”
“Why give it to someone temporary?”
His jaw tightened.
“Because fake jewelry makes people look for fake marriages.”
He slid the ring onto her finger.
It fit perfectly.
Cassidy stared at it.
“How did you know my size?”
“I didn’t.”
“That’s creepy.”
“My attorney had three sizes prepared.”
“Less creepy.”
The clerk smiled.
“You may kiss.”
Cassidy’s head snapped up.
Dominic looked at her.
“We don’t have to,” she whispered.
“No.”
The clerk had already looked away.
Nobody cared.
That was strangely worse.
Dominic touched Cassidy’s cheek.
Not possessively.
Almost formally.
Then he kissed her forehead.
It lasted one second.
But Cassidy felt it all the way down to her chest.
He stepped back.
“Done.”
By 9:41, the Evanston house belonged to Cassidy Miller Vale.
At 10:52, she walked into family court with a property deed, childcare plan, new health coverage, copies of Dominic’s income documentation, and a husband who made everyone in the hallway look twice.
Rebecca had warned them.
“Do not pretend you married because of the custody case. If asked, be truthful that the relationship developed quickly. Do not lie under oath.”
Cassidy nearly laughed at the phrase relationship developed quickly.
The evaluator, Ms. Helen Ward, wore square glasses and the expression of a woman who disliked surprises.
May you like
She looked at Dominic.
Then at the deed.
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