The billionaire's Contract

Chapter 5

POV: Glory

He's back.

I knew he would be. I spent the entire night tossing and turning, replaying his words over and over in my head. The cold gray eyes. The flat voice. The leather binder that promised everything I needed and everything I feared.

I told myself I would refuse. I told myself I would throw him out again. I told myself I would find another way, even if I had to sell my own organs on the black market.

But when I open my office door at nine AM and see him standing there, perfectly composed, holding that leather binder like a weapon, my resolve crumbles into dust.

"Good morning, Glory."

"Don't 'good morning' me." I step aside and let him in, because the hallway is too public and I don't want the neighbors to see me arguing with a billionaire. "You said you'd come back."

"I keep my promises."

"Your promises are worth nothing to me."

He doesn't react. He simply walks to my desk, places the binder on the cluttered surface, and sits in the chair across from me like he owns the place. Which, technically, he probably could.

"I've made some changes," he says. "Additions. Clarifications. I thought you should see the final version."

"Final version? You assumed I'd say yes."

"Yes." He looks at me, and there's no arrogance in his eyes. Just certainty. "Because I know you."

"You don't know anything about me."

"I know you checked your bank account this morning and found less than five hundred dollars." His voice is clinical, like he's reading a report. "I know your mother's treatment is due tomorrow. I know your father's pension was stolen by a fraudulent partner. I know your brother works two jobs and still can't afford his tuition." He pauses. "I know you're drowning, Glory. And I'm offering you a lifeboat."

My hands are shaking. I want to slap him. I want to scream at him. I want to throw him out of my office and never see his cold gray eyes again.

Instead, I reach for the binder.

"Forty-seven pages," I say, flipping through. "You really put in the work."

"Every detail is important. I want you to know exactly what you're agreeing to."

I read the first few pages. The language is dense, legal, impenetrable. But the numbers jump out at me. $4.8 million. Paid in full upon signing. My mother's treatment covered. My father's debt erased. Bright's tuition settled.

It's everything I need. Everything I've been fighting for.

And it feels like selling my soul.

I slam the binder shut and hurl it across the room. It hits the wall with a satisfying thud and falls to the floor, pages scattering like confetti.

"Who do you think you are?" I'm on my feet now, my voice shaking with rage. "You come into my office with your leather binder and your cold eyes and you think you can just buy me? Like I'm a piece of property? Like I'm nothing?"

Leonard doesn't flinch. He looks at the scattered pages, then back at me. "I'm not trying to buy you. I'm trying to partner with you."

"Partner? You want me to marry you. Pretend to love you. Live in your house and smile for the cameras and play the role of the perfect billionaire wife. That's not a partnership. That's prostitution."

"I don't want your body."

"Then what do you want?"

He stands up slowly. He walks to the scattered pages and begins to gather them, one by one. His movements are calm, measured, infuriating.

"I want someone who can't be bought," he says quietly. "Someone who won't lie to me. Someone who will tell me when I'm wrong. Someone who reminds me that there's still fire in the world." He looks up at me, and his gray eyes are suddenly, shockingly vulnerable. "I don't want a wife. I don't want love. I want a partner. Someone real. Someone like you."

I stare at him. His words are the most honest thing anyone has ever said to me. And that terrifies me more than his coldness.

"Four point eight million," I say slowly. "That's what you're offering."

"That's what you need."

"And in exchange, I play your wife for a year."

"One year. No emotional obligations. No physical expectations. Just appearances. Events. A shared household." He pauses. "And when it's over, you walk away free. No strings attached."

I think about my mother, lying in her hospital bed, her face pale and thin. I think about Bright, working two jobs, falling asleep in his textbooks. I think about my father, his spirit broken, his pension stolen by a man he trusted.

I think about the $412 in my bank account.

"There's something you should know," I say, my voice barely a whisper. "I lost everything once. My career. My dreams. My future. I was nineteen years old, and I was supposed to be an Olympic gymnast. I was supposed to be great. And then my knee gave out, and just like that, everything I'd worked for was gone." I meet his eyes. "I promised myself I would never let anyone take anything from me again."

"Is that what you think I'm doing? Taking from you?"

"I think you're asking me to give up the one thing I have left. My freedom. My independence. My pride."

"I'm not asking you to give up your pride." He steps closer, and I don't step back. "I'm asking you to trade it for something better. Your mother's life. Your brother's future. Your father's peace. I'm asking you to make a choice that no one else can make for you."

"You make it sound so simple."

"It is simple. Hard. But simple." He holds out the reassembled binder. "Read it. Think about it. Then tell me yes."

I take the binder. My hands are shaking. "And if I say no?"

He looks at me for a long moment. "Then I'll respect your decision and never contact you again. I'm not in the business of forcing anyone to do anything they don't want to do."

I want to believe him. I want to believe he's not the monster I'm trying to make him out to be.

"One more thing," I say. "I want to add a clause. My own clause."

He raises an eyebrow. "Which is?"

"If you become insufferable. If you cross a line. If you treat me like a servant or an object or anything less than a partner—I get to walk away. No financial penalty. No legal consequences. I just leave. That's the only power I want. The power to walk away."

He considers this for a moment. Then he nods.

"Fair. Write it in."

I open the binder and flip to the last page. I take a pen from my desk and write in the margin, in my messy handwriting: "Both parties retain the right to walk away if the other becomes insufferable. No financial penalty. Just common decency."

I sign my name at the bottom.

"Now you sign," I say, pushing the binder toward him.

Leonard takes the pen. He reads my clause and smiles. It's not a big smile. Not a genuine smile. But it's a smile.

"Common decency," he repeats. "I think I can manage that."

He signs.

The moment the pen leaves the paper, I feel something shift in my chest. A weight lifting. Another weight dropping. I've just signed away a year of my life. I've just agreed to marry a stranger. I've just sold my future to save my family.

I look at my signature on the page. Then I look at Leonard.

"You should know something," I say. "I don't love you. I don't even like you. This is a transaction. Nothing more."

"I know," he says quietly. "That's exactly what I want."

I stare at him, and for a moment, I see something flicker in his cold gray eyes. Something almost sad. Something almost human.

Then it's gone, and he's just Leonard Kingsley again. Billionaire. Stranger. The man who just bought my life for $4.8 million.

"When do we start?" I ask.

"Tomorrow. I'll send a car for you at seven AM. We have a wedding to plan."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that." He picks up his briefcase and walks to the door. "Oh, and Glory?"

"What?"

"Thank you. For saying yes. I think, in the end, this will be good for both of us."

He leaves. I sit in my chair, staring at the contract, the red pen still in my hand. My heart is pounding. My hands are shaking. I feel like I've just jumped off a cliff and I'm still waiting to hit the ground.

I pick up my phone and call my mother.

"Glory?" Her voice is thin, weak, but it's the most beautiful sound in the world. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine, Mama." I force a smile into my voice. "Everything's going to be fine."

"I don't believe you. You have that tone in your voice."

"What tone?"

"The tone you use when you're lying to me."

I laugh, and it comes out like a sob. "I'm not lying. I promise. I just... I made a deal. A good deal. The treatment is covered. Everything is covered."

She's silent for a moment. Then: "What did you do, Glory?"

"Mama, please. Just trust me. Let me take care of you. That's all I want."

"Glory"

"I have to go. I love you." I hang up before she can ask more questions. I can't hear the disappointment in her voice. I can't face the truth that I just sold myself to a stranger.

I call Diamond next.

"Please tell me you're calling to say you changed your mind about that i***t at the gala," Diamond says. "Because I've been thinking, and I'm pretty sure he's the one. The one who will sweep you off your feet and"

"Diamond." My voice breaks. "I need you. Can you come over?"

I hear her pause. "Glory? What happened?"

"I'll explain everything. Just... please. Come over."

"I'm on my way."

She hangs up. I sit in my chair, staring at the contract, the red pen still in my hand.

And I cry.

Not for myself. For my mother, who will never know what I sacrificed for her. For Bright, who will never understand why I did it. For my father, who will never forgive himself for not being able to save me.

For the little girl who dreamed of being an Olympic gymnast and never imagined she'd end up here, sitting in a dusty office, married to a stranger, owned by a contract.

I cry u

ntil there's nothing left.

Then I pull myself together, wipe my face, and wait for Diamond to come. Because I have a wedding to plan.

And I have no idea how I'm going to survive it.