Chapter 1 - Cecilia Underwood learned to hate 2 things: lies, especially the ones she was forced to live every day, and Gavin Hogan, her husband, who treated her like a queen in public and like something disposable in private.
The marriage was never meant to be real. It was business theater, a 1-year performance designed to calm investors and secure a merger between 2 powerful families. They were not supposed to love each other. They were not supposed to build a life. They were not even supposed to touch.
For months, they did not.
But on the night everything changed, when exhaustion, alcohol, and pain broke through the walls between them, Cecilia became pregnant. Before she could decide how to tell him, she heard Gavin speaking to his brother.
“Do you really think I’d be that stupid?” he said. “Have a child with a woman like her? She’s only good for what I need her for. That was carelessness. And I don’t make mistakes twice.”
After that, Cecilia decided he would never know.
She would run far away from him and carry the secret alone.
Before all of that, before the pregnancy, before the whispered promises and cruel regrets, Cecilia stood at her father’s funeral in a black velvet dress that scratched her skin like a constant reminder that the day was real. The casket was lowered into cold ground, mourners murmured condolences, and still she could not cry. Maybe the shock had hollowed her out. Maybe the tears had dried somewhere between the hospital call and the cemetery.
Her mother, Katarina, stood beside her, pale and trembling, a soaked handkerchief clenched in her hands. She did not look at Cecilia, and that frightened Cecilia more than the funeral itself. There was a silence between them that felt like the moment before a storm.
When the ceremony ended and the crowd began to disperse, Katarina finally turned to her.
“Cecilia. We need to talk,” she said, her voice unsteady. “The lawyer is waiting now.”
Cecilia did not argue. Arguing would only delay whatever was coming, and she was already too tired to fight.
She followed her mother to the family lawyer’s office, a dim room that smelled faintly of paper, coffee, and bad news. The lawyer was a middle-aged man with thin glasses and an expression too solemn to be reassuring. He offered coffee. Neither woman touched it.
Then he began speaking about debts, nervous investors, mergers, and guarantees. His words moved through the room like ghosts Cecilia could not fully grasp.
“Without your father,” the lawyer said, adjusting his glasses as he turned through documents that seemed to contain the ruins of her family’s future, “the investors are questioning the stability of the merger with the Hogans. They need guarantees. Something that demonstrates family commitment. Something beyond paperwork.”
Cecilia frowned, trying to understand where the conversation was going.
Her mother already knew. Cecilia could see it in the way Katarina still would not look directly at her. A decision had already been made without her.
“I proposed a solution,” Katarina said at last, so quietly Cecilia almost missed it. “The Hogan family accepted.”
“What solution?” Cecilia asked, though some part of her already knew.
Katarina closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them, there were tears there, but also a cold determination that made Cecilia’s stomach turn.
“You and Gavin Hogan. Marriage. It will show the investors that the commitment between the families is real. That the merger is solid. It will calm the market.”
Cecilia stood so fast the chair nearly toppled backward.
“You’re selling me?” Her voice came out louder than she intended. She did not care. “Like I’m cattle?”
“Cecilia.” Katarina stood too, desperate now. “Without this, we lose everything. The company, the house, the family name. Your father left a mess, and this marriage saves both companies. It saves us.”
“And me?” Cecilia shouted, tears finally coming hot and furious. “My life? My plans? I’m not a bargaining chip.”
“It’s for 1 year,” Katarina said quickly. “Just 1 year. It’s a contract. Then you’re free, and you will have saved everything your father built.”
Cecilia laughed, but there was no humor in it. Only bitterness.
“One year of my life to save the legacy of a man who couldn’t even save himself.”
The silence that followed nearly suffocated her.
Then her mother spoke the words that broke something final.
“I already signed, Cecilia. The wedding is next week.”
For a moment, Cecilia felt as if the ground had been pulled away from beneath her feet.
“You didn’t even consult me,” she whispered. “You made this decision for me, as if I were your property.”
“I did this to protect you,” Katarina cried. “The choice was this or the street, for both of us. I couldn’t let you suffer. I couldn’t let everything we have disappear. Gavin seems like a good man. He promised me he wouldn’t do anything you didn’t want.”
Cecilia looked at her mother, the woman she had loved all her life, and felt completely alone.
She left the office without another word. There was nothing large enough to express the pain and anger inside her. She had lost her father. Now she was losing her freedom.
All in the name of a merger she had never asked for.
The following week passed in a blur of stylists, photographers, and event planners who treated her wedding like the social event of the year. Cecilia could barely look at the white dress hanging before the huge mirrors. It was all too elaborate, too polished, too false.
She knew Gavin Hogan only from corporate events. He was always immaculate, distant, and unreadable. His dark hair was always combed back. His eyes gave away nothing.
On the wedding day, Cecilia stood before the mirror in white and felt like a fraud. The dress was beautiful; she could not deny it. But the woman staring back at her seemed like a stranger. She practiced the smile she would need, the smile that said she was happy while she was dying inside.
The ceremony took place in a vast church filled with investors, journalists, and people Cecilia did not know. They were all there to witness the union that would stabilize 2 companies in crisis.
She walked to the altar with Katarina beside her, each step carrying her farther away from herself.
Gavin waited at the front, flawless in a tailored suit, his eyes as blank as polished stone. When Cecilia reached him, he offered his hand. She accepted because that was what the script required.
His hand was warm and firm, but there was no affection in it. Only obligation.
The priest began. Cecilia barely heard the words. Her mind was somewhere else, turning over the impossible fact that her life had become theater for investors.
When the vows came, Gavin turned toward her with a smile he must have practiced as carefully as she practiced hers.
“Cecilia,” he said, his voice soft, controlled, and perfect for the cameras clicking around them. “I promise to love you, respect you, and build a future by your side.”
He kissed her hand, and camera flashes exploded around them.
Cecilia forced her sweetest smile.
“Gavin,” she said, repeating the words they had agreed on, “I promise the same. To build something beautiful with you.”
The lie left her lips so easily she almost believed it for a second. Then she saw the investors smiling, satisfied, and remembered what this was.
When the priest said Gavin could kiss the bride, he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers in a chaste, quick kiss. It was convincing enough to draw applause. Cecilia felt like a doll moved by invisible strings.
This is my hell, she thought.
The reception was worse. There, Cecilia had to keep the show alive for hours. She smiled, laughed, and pretended to love the man at her side. Gavin played his role perfectly. He held her waist, pulled her close, smiled for cameras, and behaved as if she were the love of his life.
Each touch was calculated. Each smile rehearsed.
She hated every second.
“You’re beautiful together,” an investor said, approaching with champagne in hand, his face flushed from drinking. “True love. It’s beautiful to see.”
Gavin squeezed Cecilia’s waist hard enough for pain to radiate through her ribs, but she kept smiling.
“Yes,” he said, his voice full of false tenderness. “True love. We’re lucky, aren’t we, darling?”
Cecilia forced a laugh so natural it unsettled her.
“Very lucky.”
The investor walked away satisfied. As soon as he was gone, Gavin released her as if she burned him. He leaned toward her ear, his voice cold and cruel.
“Smile more. You look like a hostage.”
She turned her face toward him, keeping the smile in place for anyone watching.
“Because I am.”
“And so am I,” he replied, without empathy. “So fake it better. We have an audience.”
He walked away to greet another group of investors, leaving Cecilia alone in the middle of a party celebrating a lie.
She danced when asked. She smiled for photos that would appear in magazines. She said “thank you” so many times that the words lost meaning.
By the time the night ended, she felt as though she had run an emotional marathon.
The Hogan mansion was larger than Cecilia imagined, all stone, glass, and cold modern lines. It suited Gavin. The driver left them at the entrance, and once the door closed behind them, Gavin transformed completely. The smile vanished. His posture loosened. He became the cold stranger she had glimpsed beneath the performance.
He pulled off his tie with abrupt movements, as if it were choking him, and walked toward the staircase without looking back.
“Your room is in the east wing, far from mine. We’ll stay separated.”
Cecilia swallowed and nodded. There was nothing to say.
A silent maid led her to the room that would be hers for the next 12 months. When the door closed, the tears finally came.
The room was beautiful, decorated with careful taste, but it felt like a gilded prison. Cecilia sat on the huge bed, hugged her knees, and felt reality settle over her like weight.
A knock made her jump. When she opened the door, Gavin stood there, still in his suit, his shirt partially unbuttoned. He entered without asking permission, and his presence filled the room, making her step back instinctively.
“We need to establish rules,” he said. “I need to be clear about how this is going to work.”
Cecilia crossed her arms over her chest.
“I’m listening.”
He walked to the window, hands in his pockets, and looked outside as though she were not there.
“Rule number 1. This is business theater for investors. Out there, we’re the perfect couple. In here, nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
Each word landed hard, but Cecilia kept her expression neutral.
“Rule number 2,” he continued, still not looking at her. “Don’t touch me. Outside of public events, you don’t touch me. Ever.”
She laughed bitterly.
“Trust me, I have zero interest in touching you.”
He finally turned. His eyes were so empty that for a moment she wondered whether there was anything human behind them.
“Rule number 3. Don’t expect real affection. That doesn’t exist between us, and it never will.”
Humiliation burned her cheeks, but she lifted her chin.
“Understood.”
“Rule number 4,” he said, with something almost cruel in his voice, “1 year. The contract ends, we get divorced, you leave, and I forget you existed. Everyone’s happy.”
The silence that followed was so heavy she could barely breathe.
“Perfectly clear,” she said, her voice firmer than she expected.
Gavin nodded, as if he had solved a business problem, and walked to the door. Before leaving, he stopped and looked back. For a second, Cecilia thought she saw something different in his eyes, but it vanished too quickly to be named.
“There’s an event tomorrow at 7:00. The stylist comes at 3:00. Wear whatever she tells you to. Smile. Pretend. That’s what you’re good for.”
The door closed behind him with a soft click.
Cecilia slid down the wall to the floor, hugged her knees to her chest, and cried harder than she had cried since receiving the news of her father’s death. She cried for the freedom she had lost, for the life she would never have, and for the cold man who now controlled every visible part of her existence.
Alone in that enormous room, she understood exactly what she had become.
A tool.
A piece in a corporate chess game.
Nothing more.
The weeks after the wedding became a routine as predictable as it was painful. Cecilia learned to live 2 different lives inside the same existence. Duality became her new reality, and with each passing day, she felt more divided between the woman she pretended to be and the woman she really was.
In public, Gavin Hogan was the perfect husband. He kissed her cheek with calculated tenderness. He held her hand as if she were precious. He laughed in ways that made investors sigh with satisfaction. He called her “love” and “darling” with an ease that would have been impressive if it were not fake.
Cecilia returned each gesture with rehearsed smiles and loving looks that meant nothing.
When the doors closed and the cameras disappeared, Gavin became a cold stranger who barely acknowledged her existence. Dinners at the mansion were so silent she could hear silverware scrape against porcelain across the cavernous room. He did not look at her. He did not speak unless absolutely necessary. The coldness around him was so complete that she felt as though she were sitting next to an ice sculpture.
She tried to convince herself she could survive 1 year of lies and loneliness. But each day became harder. The public mask grew heavier, and sometimes she caught herself forgetting who she was beneath the performance.
She was Cecilia Underwood Hogan on paper.
Inside, she was losing herself.
The investors’ charity gala took place at a 5-star hotel downtown. Cecilia prepared for another night of pretending with the same resignation as always. The stylist chose a red dress fitted to her body, elegant enough to impress but not so striking that it drew attention away from the perfect couple.
In the mirror, the woman staring back looked confident, sophisticated, and fully in control.
Inside, Cecilia was falling apart.
Gavin waited in the car, impeccable as always in a black suit that probably cost more than many people earned in a month. He did not look at her when she entered. He checked his watch and motioned for the driver to go.
The event was exactly like all the others, crowded with important people discussing money and power while drinking expensive champagne and pretending to care about charity. As soon as Gavin and Cecilia entered, his arm wrapped around her waist with rehearsed familiarity. She forced herself to relax against him and remember that this was only another show.
“My wife is incredible,” Gavin told a group of investors who immediately surrounded them. His voice carried fake pride so convincing that even Cecilia almost believed it. “Smart, beautiful, everything a man could want. I’m a lucky man.”
He kissed her temple gently. She felt the warmth of his lips on her skin and knew there was nothing behind it but performance.
She smiled sweetly, placed her hand on his chest, and made her voice sound loving.
“Thank you, darling. You’re wonderful too.”
The investors melted at the display. Cecilia heard their satisfied comments about the merger, about family stability, about how reassuring it was to see the couple so united.
They spent the night that way, glued together, smiling for cameras, exchanging empty affection that made strangers sigh and left Cecilia feeling emptier each time.
At one point, Gavin led her onto the dance floor. She had to suppress the urge to pull away when his hand settled at her waist and drew her close. They moved slowly to the music. Anyone watching would have thought they were in love.
In reality, Cecilia counted the seconds until she could escape him.
“You’re doing well,” Gavin murmured in her ear, his tone neutral and professional, as if evaluating an employee. “Keep it up.”
She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from saying something that would ruin the illusion. She only nodded, smiling.
When the dance ended, she was drained.
The ride back to the mansion was tense in a different way. As soon as the car doors closed and they were alone, Gavin moved away from her, releasing her body as if it disgusted him. The mask of the perfect husband fell so quickly it was almost shocking.
“You touched too much,” he said. “It was unnecessary. Uncalled for. Excessive.”
Anger rose in Cecilia’s throat. It was always like this. He always found a way to blame her for following the rules he had created.
“You told me to fake it better,” she snapped, turning toward him in the back seat. “You said I looked like a hostage, so I faked it better, exactly as you wanted. What do you want from me?”
“I want you to pretend, not rub yourself all over me like you’re my mistress,” he said, his tone cutting. “Have limits. Be more controlled.”
Cecilia laughed, but there was no humor in it. Only weeks of accumulated frustration.
“I’m disgusted too, you know,” she said. “Every touch of yours. Every fake kiss. It repulses me. So don’t tell me I exaggerated when you’re the director of this whole theater piece.”
Gavin looked at her, and for a moment she saw genuine anger in his eyes, the first real emotion she had seen since the wedding.
“Great,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “Feelings mutual. Now be quiet until we get home.”
The silence that followed felt solid, almost impossible to breathe through. Cecilia turned to the window and fixed her gaze on the city lights passing by. She forced herself to control her breathing and the tears that threatened to fall.
She would not cry in front of him.
The weeks that followed were more of the same, and Cecilia began to wonder whether she could survive the full year without losing her sanity.
Then something changed.
It was 2:00 a.m. when she went downstairs for water, unable to sleep after another silent dinner. She noticed the light on in Gavin’s office, which was strange because he was usually asleep by then. Curiosity drew her closer.
The door was slightly open.
Inside, Gavin sat behind the huge desk with a half-empty bottle of whiskey beside him and a glass in his hand. He looked different. His posture was hunched. His hair was disheveled, as if he had run his hands through it repeatedly. His expression held something she had never seen before.
Vulnerability.
Real pain.
She knocked lightly.
He looked up, his eyes red and tired.
“Get out,” he said, but the words were weak.
Cecilia entered anyway, closing the door behind her. She approached slowly, as if dealing with an injured animal.
“You’re drinking alone,” she said. “What happened?”
Gavin laughed bitterly.
“Why do you care? You hate me. I hate you. Why don’t you leave and let me suffer in peace?”
She should have left. She should have let him drown in his own misery. But something in her could not do it. Maybe because, despite everything, she understood what it meant to be broken and alone.
“Even hating you,” she said softly, sitting in the chair across from his desk, “no one deserves to suffer alone. Tell me what happened.”
He looked at her for a long moment, as if deciding whether she was real or only an alcohol-induced hallucination.
Then he began talking.
He told her about a partner who had betrayed the company, about stocks plummeting, about furious investors demanding explanations and threatening lawsuits. He talked for more than an hour, and Cecilia listened. When it seemed appropriate, she offered solutions, drawing on knowledge she had gained from years of listening to her father discuss business.
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“You understand?” Gavin said at last, genuine surprise in his voice. “Business. Strategy. Markets. I thought you were just a dumb doll spoiled by Daddy, but you really understand?”
The comment hurt, but Cecilia did not let it show.
“Everyone thinks that,” she replied with a tired sigh. “Including you. But I learned from my father. I spent years listening to him talk about business, absorbing everything. I was just never given a voice to show what I knew.”
Gavin studied her with an intensity that stirred something in her stomach.
“Cecilia,” he began, and for the first time her name did not sound like an accusation.
“Not today,” she interrupted, standing and walking around the desk until she was beside him. “You’re broken. Exhausted. Drunk. Today you just need to breathe and survive.”
She touched his face.
He stiffened for a second, then relaxed under her hand.
Something shifted in the room, charged and dangerous. Gavin looked at her, then at her mouth, and she saw the exact moment he made the decision.
He pulled her down and kissed her.
It was not like the chaste, calculated kisses they exchanged in public. This kiss was real, intense, desperate, and full of a need neither of them wanted to admit.
Cecilia responded without thinking. In that moment, the rules they had created seemed meaningless. There were only the 2 of them, the whiskey, the grief, and the vulnerability that had finally broken through.
His hands found her waist and pulled her into his lap. She settled against him, feeling the warmth of his body and the quick rhythm of his breathing.
“Stop,” he whispered against her lips, though it did not sound like an order. It sounded like the last thread of control breaking. “Stop now or I won’t be able to stop.”
She looked into his eyes and saw vulnerability mixed with desire.
“I want this too,” she murmured.
That was all the permission he needed.
What happened next was urgency, need, exposed wounds, and collapsing barriers. Gavin carried her to the leather couch in the corner of the office, and they lost themselves in each other in a way that was both desperate and unexpectedly delicate. Every touch was different from the calculated public ones. These were real, loaded with intensity that left Cecilia breathless.
She allowed herself to feel for the first time since the marriage began. She let herself forget the contract, the rules, and the performance. She existed only in the moment, under his hands, against his body, inside something that felt terrifyingly true.
When they finally came together, it felt as though the world stopped spinning.
Cecilia woke wrapped in warmth.
For one confusing, glorious moment, she did not remember where she was. Strong arms around her waist anchored her between sleep and waking. When she opened her eyes and saw the office bathed in soft morning light, the memories returned in a wave that made her heart race.
The previous night had been real.
She turned her head slowly, afraid to break the fragile moment, and found Gavin’s face inches from hers. His eyes were already open, watching her with an expression she could not fully read.
There was something there that was not his usual coldness. Something like regret, mixed with anger directed more at himself than at her.
She tried to smile. Tried to say something that could soften the silence.
Before she could speak, Gavin pulled away abruptly.
May you like
He stood from the couch with tense, quick movements. The warmth disappeared at once. He picked his shirt up from the floor and put it on with his back turned to her.
Cecilia sat up, pulling the robe around herself as though it could protect her.
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