The Ice King Paid Me to Be His Bride

PROLOGUE: Three Months Later

The church doors were already open when the first camera flash went off.

Mia Carter stood at the top of the stone steps in a white dress she had not chosen, holding a bouquet she did not remember accepting, while two hundred reporters shouted her name from behind a velvet rope like she was something they had all been promised.

Adrian Volkov's hand was wrapped around hers. Steady. Warm. Exactly the way it was supposed to look in every photograph that would run tomorrow morning.

"Smile," he said quietly, without moving his lips. "They're watching."

She smiled. She had gotten very good at smiling.

Inside the church, three hundred guests were waiting. Sponsors. Teammates. A pastor who had no idea he was about to officiate a lie in front of the entire country.

Mia turned her head, just slightly, so that only Adrian could hear her.

"This wedding is a lie."

Something shifted behind his eyes. Not shock. Something closer to fear, and she had never once, in three months, seen Adrian Volkov look afraid.

"Mia—"

"Don't."

The organ began to play.

The doors opened.

And the whole country watched me walk toward the man I had promised myself I'd destroy.