Substitute Bride, Stolen Heart

Chapter 5 : Lessons In Survival

"Sit up straight."

I straightened on reflex before I even registered the command, and Killian's mouth twitched like he'd expected exactly that.

We were in his study, late afternoon light slanting through tall windows, a stack of family files spread across the desk between us names, faces, alliances, feuds going back generations. He'd called it a "lesson." It felt more like preparing for war.

"Marcus Voss." He slid a photo toward me the same sharp-suited man from breakfast, caught mid-laugh at some gala, looking nothing like the venom I'd watched him spit that morning. "My father's brother's son. Third in line for everything I control, which means he's spent his whole life resenting that he isn't first."

"He wants what you have."

"He wants what he thinks he's owed." Killian's jaw tightened. "There's a difference. Men like Marcus don't fight fair, because fair was never going to get him anywhere. He'll go after you before he goes after me."

"Why me?"

"Because you're the crack he thinks he's found." He met my eyes, unblinking. "A switched bride. A scandal waiting to be dug up. If he can prove our marriage started on a lie, he'll use it to challenge everything, the contract, the merger tied to it, my father's trust in me."

My stomach dropped. "This marriage isn't just about us."

"It was never just about us." He said it plainly, no cruelty in it, just fact. "But that doesn't mean it has to stay that way."

I didn't know what to do with the way that last sentence sat in my chest.

Before I could ask him to explain it, the study door opened without a knock, and a woman swept in like she owned the room, tall, elegant, dressed in ivory that probably cost more than everything I'd worn in my entire life combined. She stopped short at the sight of me, eyebrows lifting.

"Well." Her voice was honeyed, amused. "So the rumors are true."

"Selene." Killian didn't stand this time either, though something in his posture sharpened. "You weren't on today's schedule."

"I'm never on the schedule, darling. That's rather the point." Her eyes slid to me, cataloguing, the same way Marcus's had except hers carried something closer to curiosity than contempt. "You must be the understudy."

"Avalene," I said, before Killian could answer for me. "Not an understudy. His wife."

Something flickered in Selene's expression surprise, maybe, that I'd spoken at all. Killian's mouth curved, just barely, like he approved.

"Feisty." Selene smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "I like her already. Killian, darling, you didn't tell me your convenient little contract marriage came with spirit."

"Selene." His voice dropped in warning. "Say what you came to say, or leave."

"Fine." She dropped into the chair across from the desk without being invited, crossing her legs like she had all the time in the world. "Your father wants to see you. Both of you, actually. Something about verifying the marriage was conducted... appropriately." Her eyes cut to me again, sharp as a blade dressed up in silk. "I do hope you're ready for that conversation, little bride. Elias Voss doesn't forgive mistakes."

I looked at Killian. For the first time since the wedding, I saw something flicker across his face that wasn't calm control.

It looked almost like worry.

"When?" he asked.

"Tonight." Selene rose, smoothing her dress, clearly enjoying every second of the tension she'd just detonated in the room. "Dinner. Seven o'clock. Do try to look less like you're about to be executed, darling it's terribly unbecoming of the Voss name."

She left as breezily as she'd arrived, and the silence she left behind felt heavier than anything Marcus had brought that morning.

"Who is she?" I asked quietly.

"An old family friend." Killian's voice had gone flat again, guarded. "And someone I should have told you about before now."

"Told me what?"

He didn't answer right away. He just looked at me for a long moment, something unreadable behind his eyes, before he finally spoke.

"That she's the woman my father always assumed I'd marry." His jaw tightened. "And that tonight, my father is going to want to know exactly why I didn't."