MARRIAGE SWAP CONTRACT

Chapter 5

~ Alex~

I was alone in the office, elbow deep in a stack of contracts no one but me could parse without falling asleep, when a voice I could have mapped by tone cut the silence.

“Why did I think you’d be home, cuddling your darling wife instead of burying your head in those books?”

I looked up and found Josh leaning in the doorway like he belonged there like he hadn’t just crashed three private jets and stolen a seat in my life. He still had that same ridiculous grin from university, the one that made people think he was about to sell them something they didn’t need. Dark hair forever untidy, sleeves rolled up, tie loosened, the sort of man who smelled faintly of espresso and trouble. He wore expensive clothes like casual decisions, and I’d always loved him for that: how effortless his charm made success look when I knew the work beneath it.

“Josh,” I said, because his presence always felt like a quiet dare. “You of all people know I don’t do domestic.”

He sauntered across my office and flopped into the chair opposite me like he owned the thing. We met at university two kids who pretended business lectures were optional and ended up building this absurd life anyway. I’d always admired how he leaned into everything, how he celebrated other people’s wins like they were his own. I was happy he was in my circle; he made victories feel lighter.

“You, of all people,” he shot back, “ought to appreciate the irony. One day you’re single, the next you’re signing someone’s name with a ring of ink you didn’t choose.”

He watched me the way my grandfather used to: patient, amused, waiting for the c***k to show.

“You remember the dinner?” I said, before I could stop myself. Saying it out loud was cleaner than chewing it over in silence. “Grandfather never pushed. Never mentioned marriage. Ever.”

Josh hummed. “Yeah?”

“He asked me out of the blue,if I planned to settle down. I said if I ever saw a woman worth giving up my life for, I’d know. I thought it was a joke. He didn’t even blink. Then he stood, went to the sideboard, and tossed me a brown envelope like it was a takeaway menu.”

I rubbed my temple. “He threw it at me, just tossed it. Then Sat down like he’d finished dinner and wanted a biscuit.”

Josh actually laughed. “That man with the biscuit routine.”

“I opened it,” I said. “It was old. Yellowing paper. A contract. A. Hale signed. My grandfather’s name on the other line. ‘The Hale heir is to marry the Carters daughter.’ No first names. No photos. Antiquated nonsense.”

“You were furious,” Josh reminded me, voice softening. “You came back from that dinner looking like someone had flicked you with a wet towel.”

“I excused myself.

Avoided him for weeks.” I swallowed. “Until he started “The word tasted wrong. “—pressuring me. Not threats, exactly. Guilt. ‘Would you let me die without grandchildren?’ he said. I was raised by him after my parents” the memory tightened, but I let it sit there, true and ugly. “He’s the only family I’ve got.”

“You caved,” Josh said without malice. “Because you love him. Because it was easier than watching him shrink.”

“I didn’t cave,” I corrected. “I negotiated. I agreed to look into the family. I told myself it was research.”

My hands found a paper weight, and I turned it over, feeling the weight of that night. “My investigators came back and” I let out a breath. “They sent a file with a face. Blaire’s face. High fashion, clubs, flights, credit cards the size of postcards. No mention of siblings. No mention of anything that made me think ‘soul mate’. If anything, she was the sort of woman who lived at full volume.”

“And you thought she’d refuse,” Josh said.

“I did. I thought she’d be insulted enough to run. I avoided every arranged meeting because I convinced myself the easiest solution would be: she says no, problem solved.”

Josh nodded, as if he’d known that was my plan all along. “You hoped for chaos by omission.”

“Hope,” I said sourly. “Hope is a luxury if you’re not in someone else’s house.”

“But she didn’t refuse,” I finished. “She accepted. And then avoided the rest never showed. I assumed she’d get tired of being hunted down. I assumed”

“You assumed a lot,” Josh cut in, but there was sympathy in the cut. He always cut in soft places.

That aside, Let’s get to work.

We buried ourselves in files; deals telescoped into deadlines. We finalized a transfer, discussed a partnership that would keep our names glued to headlines, and decided London would be the stage for signatures. Business is tidy in its own way: numbers mean less ambiguity than family.

Later, on the drive home, the city had that late night, indifferent glow. I dropped Josh at his place and reached my house at 1:30 a.m., the kind of hour that makes every hallway sound like a rumor. I went upstairs, intending to shower and sleep and pretend the last few weeks were an inconvenient dream. The house hummed with the leftover echoes of a life I maintained like a well pruned bonsai: precise, scheduled, quiet where it needed to be.

And then something shifted.

I saw movement in the bed.

Not a ghost, not the trick of moonlight. An actual ripple of fabric, a small, hesitant sound like someone testing whether the world was still awake.

I stood frozen at the doorway, pulse a slow drum. The office had felt distant less real than whatever was happening in that moment. My hands were empty; my mouth was dry.

I took a step forward, then another, the carpet muffling my approach. The movement paused, as if whoever it was had felt me.

I drew closer, every careful thought stripped to bone.

I went closer and..

I froze before I touched her. One stray curl of hair had fallen across the pillow, a dark thread I didn’t expect in my otherwise orderly world. Then a face turned sleep smudged, confused, utterly human and the sound that slipped out of her was a high, sharp whoop of fright that might as well have been a burglar alarm.

Her mouth opened before she could think, and for half a second I saw everything that was wrong with this picture: a stranger in my bed. My brain did the tidy, reasonable thing and shouted intruder, while my instincts old, useless and a little ridiculous went straight to damage control.

I moved fast. One hand clamped over her mouth, soft and careful, because I did not want to break anyone’s teeth on my watch. The other reached blindly for the lamp and flipped it on.

Light flooded the room like a question.

The person in the bed blinked awake, eyes narrowing in sleepy confusion.

“Alex!” She blurted before her brain could catch up. “What are you doing here?”

She pushed himself up on one elbow, hair sticking out in every direction, voice still thick with sleep.

“What am I doing here?” My brows knit together as I I looked around the room, then straight at me. “The real question is….”I paused, utterly baffled, “why are you in my bed?”