THE WIFE HE MARRIED FOR REVENGE

THE PRICE

AVA'S POV

Sleep wasn’t happening. I spent the night on my living room floor, surrounded by contract pages. By 3 a.m., I’d read every line twice.

One year.

That detail stuck with me. The marriage lasted one year, not forever, three hundred and sixty-five days. Then, per page eleven, section four, either of us could walk away. No strings left.

I was back at Blackstone Tower the next morning at nine. Luca was already there waiting, staring out at the city, like he'd known that I would come.

“You read it,” he said.

“I did.” I held up the file. “I have questions.”

“I thought you would.”

“Separate bedrooms. No press. No expectation….” I swallowed. “…...intimacy. One year, and we both walk away like nothing happened. That’s the offer?”

He gave a short nod. “That’s it.”

“And if I say no?”

His look didn’t change, but the air turned colder. “Then Bennett Enterprises files a bankruptcy by Thursday. The board has already voted to go after your father’s remaining assets. If your father’s lawyer hasn’t called you yet, he will.”

My stomach hollowed out. “You did that.”

“I told the board what was happening. They made their own decisions. I don’t control every decision that gets made in this building, Ava.”

“That’s conveniently hands-off.”

“It’s the truth.”

For a second, I wanted to hurl the folder at him. Or leave and never come back and let my dad clean up his own mess. But then I thought about everyone who worked for us, like Marta in accounting, who’d been there since I was born; or the warehouse crew with families; or the interns my dad kept promising a future. They didn’t deserve any of this.

“Why me?” I tried again. I wasn’t letting him dodge this time. “You could buy the company outright. You don’t need a wife to do that. So why does this only happen if I marry you?”

He went quiet, and when he finally spoke, his tone was sharper than before, cold, precise.

“Because a check doesn’t force your father to watch his daughter take my name. A check doesn’t cost him a thing at all. This does.”

“You want to punish him.” I said.

“I want a lot of things your family can’t understand.”

It hit me then; he wasn’t doing this for the merger. Whatever this was, it went back further than any board meeting, further than any debt on a balance sheet. This had history, a depth I couldn’t see yet.

“You hate us,” I said. “I don’t know why, but I know it’s true.”

He didn't argue. That stung more than if he’d lied.

“I’ll sign it,” I said. My hands weren’t steady, but my voice was. “Not because I trust you. Not because I’m okay with this or think this is sane. But because there are two hundred people whose lives hang on this, and I’m not going to let them lose everything because you and I don’t get along.”

“Careful,” he said. “That almost sounds noble.”

“Don’t mock me.”

“I’m not.” For the first time, something in his face shifted, slight, but there. I wondered if he’d expected me to break. “A few more of my own terms, though, not in the contract,” he said.

“Go on, then.”

“You never ask about my personal life. Not my past, not my mother. That’s off-limits.” His jaw tightened.

There. A c***k. Something flickered when he spoke about his mother, so I locked that away for later because I'd learned a long time ago that the things people refused to discuss were usually the things that mattered most.

.

“Fine. I won’t ask.”

“Good.”

I grabbed his pen from his desk before he could offer it to me and scribbled my name at the bottom of the last page. Control, or the illusion of it, was all I had.

Luca watched every moment. When I finished, he looked at me with that unreadable calculation, not triumph, not quite. Something closer to a man finally seeing his plan click into motion.

Luca grabbed the contract and skipped right to my signature.

“That’s it?” I asked.

He shot me a look. “That’s it.”

I tried to nod like I believed it, but relief just... didn’t come. Not even a hint.

My stomach twisted up.

I kept waiting for something, to get hit with adrenaline, panic, maybe even cry. Anything. But, nothing.

All I felt was completely erased. Not just tired, you know, the kind of tired that even sleep can’t touch. This one dug deep, settled into my bones.

“So, what do we do now?” I said.

“We start getting ready,” he told me.

“For the wedding?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

I pressed my fingers to my forehead. “Of course.”

Three weeks. That’s what he’d given me, three weeks to throw together a wedding I didn’t even want, with a man I hardly knew.

Three weeks to fool everyone around us into believing we were mad for each other. Soulmates, or whatever.

Honestly, it was almost funny.

“This is going to be a disaster,” I said.

He didn’t flinch. “I doubt it.”

I looked him up and down. “You sound awfully confident.”

“I usually am.”

That actually got a laugh out of me. It came out bitter, but it was real enough.

He blinked, just for a moment like he wasn’t expecting that.

I couldn’t look at him anymore.

“So, do we actually have to pretend we like each other?” I mumbled.

His voice stayed even. “When it’s just us? You don’t have to fake anything.”

I met his eyes. He was dead serious.

“And around other people?”

“Then you’ll smile.”

I stared at him. “That’s it? That’s your advice?”

“That’s it.”

I shook my head. “Unbelievable.”

“You’ll get the hang of it,” he said, almost bored.

I let out a dry laugh. “I’m not sure I want to.”

He didn’t answer.

I grabbed my bag and headed out, but he called my name right before I reached the door.

“Ava.”

I stopped and looked back.

“Don’t confuse this arrangement with trust.”

I raised my brow. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Good.”

I rolled my eyes and walked out before he could say anything else.

In the elevator, with the doors shut, I leaned my head back against the elevator wall. I was getting married. Actually getting married. I glanced down at my hand. There wasn’t a ring yet, but somehow, everything already felt heavier.