THE BILLIONAIRE'S 30 DAY WIFE

THE CONTRACT

Zara had never been inside a place this cold.

It wasn't weather-cold. It was rich-people AC, the kind of cold that makes your cheap dress feel cheaper, that reminds you of your slippers and your "Yaba, two for two thousand" voice in a building where the floor alone probably cost more than her shop.

Adrian Knight's office was on the thirtieth floor. Floor-to-ceiling glass. Lagos shrank beneath them yellow danfos, brown roofs, the whole sweating, honking city reduced to a postcard. From up here, it looked almost peaceful. From up here, nobody could hear you shouting about rent.

Zara's hands were still stained with flour. She hadn't even had time to wash them properly before his driver had practically dragged her out of Yaba, past her mother's curious eyes, into a black car that smelled like leather and money.

"You made me waste thirty minutes," Adrian said without looking up.

He was behind his desk, white shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbow. The coffee stain she'd gifted him that morning was gone. His face, though, still looked like a man who wanted to fire the entire world and was deciding where to start.

"I said I was sorry!" Zara snapped. "It was an accident! Your car was blocking my bakery entrance!"

Now he looked up.

His eyes were grey. Cold, like that AC. The kind of grey that made you want to check if your own eyes were still working.

"Your bakery," he repeated slowly. "That small container in Yaba that owes three months' rent?"

Zara's mouth opened. Then closed. How did he know?

Adrian slid a slim file across the desk. It landed in front of her like a slap.

"Amadi Bakery. Rent: three hundred and fifty thousand naira per month. Outstanding debt: one point two million. Owner: Zara Amadi. Your mother is at LUTH. Hospital bill: four point eight million. You have..." He tilted his head, scanning the page. "...twenty-three thousand, four hundred naira in your account."

Zara felt the blood drain out of her face. The cold of the office suddenly had nothing to do with the AC.

"How... How do you have my details? Are you stalking me?"

"I do background checks on anyone who assaults me," he said flatly. "You poured coffee on a twelve-million-naira suit."

"It was a hundred-and-fifty-naira coffee!" she shouted.

"It was Loewe. The suit."

Zara wanted to throw another coffee at him. She wanted to throw the whole tray. Instead, she clutched her small bag to her chest like a shield. "What do you want from me? If you want me to pay for your suit, I don't have the money. Arrest me if you want. At least prison feeds you."

"I don't want your money. You don't have any."

He stood up.

He was so tall. Taller standing than she'd remembered from the reception. He walked to the window and stood with his hands in his pockets, looking down at Lagos like it was a board game he'd already won.

"I need a wife," he said.

Zara blinked. "Sorry?"

"My grandfather is dying. His will has one condition before I inherit the company. I need to be married. For thirty days. A contract marriage."

The room went silent. Only the hum of the AC, and somewhere far below, the faint, muffled noise of a city that had no idea what was happening up here.

Zara laughed. A short, shocked, ugly laugh. "Is this a prank? Do I look like wife material for you? Go and meet those i********: fine girls on Banana Island."

"I tried." He turned to look at her. "They want my money, not the contract. You..." He paused. "You don't even like me. That's perfect. No feelings. No drama. Business."

He walked back to his desk and pulled out a second file. Thicker. Heavier. It dropped onto the desk with a thud that Zara felt in her chest.

"Contract Marriage Agreement. Thirty days. You live in my house. You attend family dinners. You act like you love me in public. In private, we don't touch each other. After thirty days, we divorce. And you get..."

He paused. I watched her face.

"Fifty million naira. Plus I clear your bakery debt. Plus I pay your mother's hospital bill in full."

Fifty million.

Zara's legs almost gave way. She gripped the edge of the chair. Fifty million naira. That wasn't money. That was a miracle. That was her mother's surgery. That was her bakery becoming a real shop with a real sign, not her father's faded one. That was leaving the Yaba container forever.

"You're lying," she whispered.

"I don't lie." Adrian tapped the file. "It's signed. My lawyer is outside."

Zara's heart was beating so loudly she could hear it in her ears. This was insane. Marry a stranger? A cold, arrogant billionaire who looked at her like she was dirt under his expensive shoes? For thirty days?

"What if I say no?" she asked.

"Then you go back to Yaba. Your bakery gets locked tomorrow the landlord already called me. And LUTH will discharge your mother because you can't pay."

He said it like he was reading the weather forecast. No emotion. No cruelty, even. Just facts.

Zara hated him. She really, truly hated him. But tears were burning behind her eyes, and she hated that more.

Her mother. Mama's face this morning, coughing into her wrapper, telling her, "Zara, don't worry. God will provide."

God had provided a devil in a white shirt.

"Why me?" she asked, her voice shaking. "You can get any girl."

Adrian stared at her for a long time. Long enough that she started to feel uncomfortable, like he was reading something on her face she didn't know was there.

Then he said something she did not expect.

"Because this morning, when you poured coffee on me, you didn't beg. You shouted at me. You told me to move my stupid car from in front of your shop. Everyone else bows." He paused. "You didn't."

Zara wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Flour was still there. She could feel it.

"So you want to marry me because I insulted you? You are not okay."

"Sign here." He pushed a pen toward her.

The pen was heavy. Gold. It probably cost more than her oven.

Zara looked down at the contract. Her eyes moved over the clauses, blurring slightly.

Clause 1: Duration 30 days.

Clause 4: No intimacy unless both parties consent.

Clause 9: No falling in love.

No falling in love.

As if. As if she could ever fall in love with a man like him. A man who did background checks like other people did small talk. A man whose face didn't move when he said the word "dying."

She thought of her mother. Thought of her bakery keys hanging by the door. Thought of forty burnt meat pies and a red paper and a life that had been shrinking for years.

She picked up the pen.

"If you ever disrespect my mother or my bakery again," she muttered, "I will pour hot soup on you next time. Not coffee."

For the first time, Adrian's lips twitched. Almost a smile. Almost.

"Noted, Mrs. Knight."

Zara's hand shook as she signed. Zara Amadi.

Adrian signed beneath hers. Adrian Knight.

The contract was done.

Outside, Lagos traffic was still honking. Inside that cold office, a poor baker from Yaba had just become the wife of the richest bachelor in Lagos.

She didn't know whether to cry or scream.

Adrian pressed his intercom. "Prepare the car. Take my wife home. She needs to pack."

My wife.

The words sent a strange shiver down Zara's spine and she hated that too.

As she stood, the door opened and a tall woman in a grey suit stepped in, tablet in hand, eyes sharp as glass.

"Sir, the board meeting is in ten minutes. And your grandfather's nurse called. He's asking for you."

Adrian's jaw tightened, just slightly. "Tell him I'll come tonight. With my wife."

The woman's eyes flicked to Zara, the flour on her hands, the cheap pink gown, the plastic bag hanging from her wrist and something crossed her face. Not quite a smile. Not quite disgusted. Something in between, like she was already calculating.

"And this is...?"

"My wife," Adrian said again, and this time the words landed differently. He said it like a fact he was daring the world to argue with. "Zara, this is Ngozi. My assistant. She'll get you anything you need."

"Anything?" Zara asked, before she could stop herself. "Including a way out of this contract?"

Ngozi's eyebrows rose. Adrian didn't smile, but something in his eyes shifted amusement, maybe, or surprise.

"Anything except that," he said.

Zara followed Ngozi out into the corridor, her cheap slippers whispering against marble that probably cost more than her rent. Her heart was still hammering. Her hands were still shaking. And somewhere behind her, in that cold, glass office, a man she barely knew was already telling someone she was his wife.

She had thirty days to survive him.

She had thirty days to save her mother.

And she had absolutely no idea which one would be harder.