Chapter 1:The heir with no heir
Jonathan Kingsley had built a $3 billion empire in Manhattan, but tonight, in his family's penthouse on Fifth Avenue, he was nothing.
"At 30, you are still single!" His aunt slammed her wine glass down. "You embarrass this entire family!"
The whole long dining table went silent. Twenty members of the Kingsley family - uncles, cousins, lawyers, all staring at him like he was a failure.
Jonathan stood at the head of the table, his jaw clenched. He wore a $10,000 suit, but he felt completely naked.
"Your father was married at 24," his uncle spat. "Your grandfather is dying upstairs, and his last wish is to see his grandson settled with a wife and child. And you bring nothing? What kind of man are you?"
"I am busy running the company you all live off of," Jonathan said coldly.
"Busy?" His mother laughed cruelly. "We all know the truth. Arrogant, cold, unlovable. No decent woman can stand you for more than a week. Which respectable family will give their daughter to you?"
His grandmother, frail at 89, lifted her hand.
"Jonathan," she whispered. "If you do not bring a fiancée to my 90th birthday dinner tomorrow... I will give your father's company to your cousin Daniel. You will have nothing."
Daniel smirked from across the table.
Humiliation burned in Jonathan's chest. He had been called ruthless by Wall Street, heartless by the press, but never unlovable. Not by his own blood.
He walked out without another word.
In his office overlooking all of Manhattan, he poured a whiskey with a shaking hand. His phone rang.
"Mr. Kingsley? It's Mrs. Patel from the agency. You wanted a clean, innocent girl with no city connections. One night only. I have her. Rural girl. Tennessee. Small town. Nineteen. Desperate for money, but a good church girl. No boyfriend, no history."
Jonathan stared at the city lights.
"How innocent?"
"Never had a boyfriend, sir. Never even been to New York."
"Bring her," he said. "Tomorrow night, I will show them a fiancée. And they will never question me again."
*Chapter 2: The Girl From Nowhere*
Amara had never left Tennessee before.
The Greyhound bus to New York took 18 hours. Her dress was creased, her old sneakers were dusty, and all she had was a small cloth bag with her mother's hospital letter inside. $25,000. That was what the doctors needed to save her mother.
When the taxi stopped in front of the Kingsley Estate in the Hamptons, she thought the driver was lost.
This was not a house. It was a castle.
Gates that opened by themselves, a lawn bigger than her whole town square, and a mansion with so many windows she couldn't count them.
The housekeeper looked at her dusty shoes in disgust. "You are Amara? Come. Don't touch anything. Mr. Kingsley does not like rural girls who leave fingerprints."
Inside, everything was white marble and cold silence. Amara was too scared to sit.
Then she heard him.
Jonathan Kingsley walked in, tall, broad, in a perfect black suit. Handsome like a movie star, but cold like ice. His grey eyes looked at her from her cheap ponytail to her shaking hands.
"You're late," he said.
"The bus broke down in New Jersey..." she whispered.
"How old are you?"
"Twenty, sir."
"Ever had a boyfriend?"
"No, sir! Never. I was raised in church."
He walked closer, lifted her chin with one cold finger. Amara shivered. She could smell expensive cologne and power.
"Have you ever been kissed?"
"No..."
"Perfect."
He let go.
"Listen, Amara from Tennessee. Tomorrow, you will be Amara Kingsley, my fiancée. My grandmother is threatening to give my empire to my cousin if I don't marry. You will be my fiancée for one month. On paper. After that, we divorce, I give you $150,000, your mother lives, and you go back to Tennessee rich."
$150,000. Amara's knees went weak.
"But I don't know how to be a rich man's fiancée... I don't know how to eat with all those forks..."
"You don't need to know. You just need to be exactly what you are - pure, innocent, untouched. My family expects a Manhattan model. I will give them you. It will shock them into silence."
He stared at her lips for a second too long.
"One rule. Don't fall in love with me."
"I won't," she said fast, even though her heart was pounding so loud she thought he could hear it.
"Good. Because girls like you always do. And I don't love anyone."
He turned to leave.
"Oh, and Amara... from now on, when my family is watching, you call me 'my love'."
She stood alone in a mansion bigger than her school, about to become the fake fiancée of Jonathan Kingsley, the coldest billionaire in New York.
She had no idea that one month would become forever.
