Married To The Cold Mr. Kingston

The Man Who Never Loses

I told myself the man in the ruined shirt was just another stranger.

London was full of them — people who crashed into your life for thirty seconds and disappeared into the crowd, leaving nothing behind but the ghost of an awkward moment you'd replay at 2am wondering if you could have handled it better.

I forgot about him.

Or I tried to.

The problem was I had too much time to think.

With no job to go to and a bank balance that made my stomach clench every time I looked at it, I spent the next two days refreshing job listing websites, eating toast, and trying very hard not to calculate exactly how many weeks I had before I couldn't make rent.

The answer was six.

Six weeks.

I was on my third slice of toast and my fifth job application when my phone rang with a number I didn't recognise.

London area code.

Professional.

I sat up straighter out of habit.

"Aria Bennett?" The voice on the other end was female, crisp and efficient in the way that made you feel slightly underdressed just listening to it.

"Yes, that's me."

"My name is Sophie Hart. I'm personal assistant to Mr. Ethan Kingston."

A pause.

As if the name was supposed to mean something.

It did — vaguely. I'd seen it in headlines. Business pages. The kind of man whose photo appeared next to words like *empire* and *ruthless* and *net worth* printed in bold.

"Mr. Kingston would like to meet with you," Sophie said. "Tomorrow morning. Ten o'clock."

I almost choked on my toast.

"I'm sorry — meet with me?" I pressed a hand to my chest. "Why?"

"Mr. Kingston will explain everything in person." A brief pause. "A car will collect you at nine forty-five. Please dress professionally, Miss Bennett."

The line went dead.

I sat very still for a long moment.

Then I looked down at my oversized university hoodie, my mismatched socks, and the toast crumbs scattered across my lap.

*Dress professionally.*

Right.

---

Kingston Tower was exactly the kind of building that made ordinary people feel small on purpose.

It rose from the heart of the city like a dark glass blade — all sharp angles and cold ambition, the Kingston Group logo gleaming silver near the top. The kind of building that didn't need to announce itself because it already knew it was the most important thing on the skyline.

The car — sleek, black, completely silent — had collected me at exactly nine forty-five.

I'd spent the journey convincing myself this was about the ruined shirt.

He was going to sue me.

I was going to be sued by a billionaire for one cup of coffee with six weeks of rent left and absolutely no contingency plan and this was genuinely how my life was going to end.

The lobby did nothing to calm my nerves.

Marble floors. Soaring ceilings. Staff who moved with the quiet purpose of people who had never once been late for anything in their professional lives. A security badge waited for me at the front desk — *Aria Bennett, Visitor* — and Sophie Hart materialised at my elbow within seconds, exactly as efficient in person as she sounded on the phone.

"Miss Bennett." A brief professional smile. "Right this way."

"Can you tell me what this is about?" I asked, following her toward the lifts.

"Mr. Kingston prefers to explain things himself."

The lift opened directly into a private office on the forty-second floor.

I stepped out and forgot, briefly, how to breathe.

The view was extraordinary — London spread out in every direction, grey and gold and completely endless, the Thames a dark ribbon cutting through the distance. Floor to ceiling windows. A desk that probably cost more than my car. Bookshelves lined with books that had actually been read, their spines worn and cracked and beautiful.

And behind the desk — Ethan Kingston.

He looked up when I entered.

Same sharp jaw.

Same dark eyes.

Same expression — that total unnerving composure that made you feel like he'd already calculated how this conversation was going to go and found the outcome satisfactory before I'd even sat down.

He was wearing a different shirt.

White again.

Pristine.

Of course.

"Miss Bennett." He stood — not out of warmth, I sensed, but out of habit. The automatic politeness of someone raised with manners they'd never bothered to feel. "Sit down."

It wasn't quite a request.

I sat.

He studied me the way you study a document — looking for the relevant information, discarding everything else. It should have felt rude. Somehow it just felt honest.

"You're wondering why you're here," he said.

"The thought had crossed my mind."

Something shifted almost imperceptibly in his expression. Not quite amusement. Close to it.

He reached across the desk and slid a cream folder toward me. Thick. Formal. The kind of folder that contained either very good news or life-altering complications.

"I have a proposal," he said. "Read the document first. It will save time."

I opened the folder.

The word *CONTRACT* sat at the top of the first page in clean unambiguous font.

I read it.

Then read it again more slowly because the first time through I was fairly certain I'd misunderstood.

I hadn't.

I looked up.

"You want me," I said carefully, "to pretend to be your wife."

"For six months," he confirmed. "The arrangement would be dissolved quietly after that point. Full payment on page three regardless of outcome, provided the terms are met."

I turned to page three.

The number made my vision blur at the edges.

"That's—" I stopped. Swallowed. "That's a significant amount of money."

"Yes."

"For six months."

"Correct."

I closed the folder and set it on the desk between us because holding it felt dangerous — like the numbers might reach through the paper and make decisions on my behalf before my brain had the chance to catch up.

"Why me?" I asked. "We've met once. I spilled coffee on you."

"I know considerably more about you than you might expect," he said, without apology. "You're twenty-four. You lost your job three days ago. No criminal record. No significant social media presence. No connection to anyone in my professional or personal circle." He paused. "You're also not easily intimidated."

"I spilled coffee on you and tried to clean it with a napkin," I said. "That's not exactly fearless."

"You didn't apologise eleven times and burst into tears," he said. "For my purposes that qualifies."

I sat back.

London spread endlessly behind him.

Forty-two floors below, the city carried on completely indifferent to the fact that I was sitting in a glass office being offered a contract to temporarily marry a billionaire.

"Why do you need a fake wife at all?" I asked.

For the first time something crossed his face that wasn't composure.

Brief. Controlled. Gone almost before it formed.

"My father," he said, "has arranged a marriage. A woman whose family have been business allies of ours for years. The union would be strategically significant." His jaw tightened almost invisibly. "I have no intention of going through with it."

"So you'd rather marry a stranger."

"I'd rather present my father with an existing commitment that makes his arrangement impossible." He held my gaze without wavering. "You would be that commitment."

I looked at the folder.

Then at him.

He was watching me with that patient unreadable composure — the composure of a man who had already decided I would say yes and was simply waiting for me to arrive at the same conclusion.

I hated that he was probably right.

"I need to think about it," I said.

He nodded once. "You have twenty-four hours."

I stood, picked up my bag, and walked to the lift with my spine straight and my face neutral.

The doors closed.

I leaned against the mirrored wall and let out a breath I'd been holding since the moment I walked in.

Twenty-four hours.

I went home.

Found the eviction notice on my door.

Called his number before I'd even taken my coat off.