The Worst Contract, The Perfect Match

Zara Fox's POV The Fox Family believes in predestined love with the same faith as we believe in God. In my family, love isn't something you search for; it simply arrives. And I had waited twenty-six years. Twenty-six years of hearing my mother say, "When it's your turn, Zara, you'll just know." Twenty-six years of feeling like my heart was an empty operating room waiting for the right surgeon. **** The plane landed in New York with a slight jolt. Outside, the city bustled, oblivious to my arrival. I clutched my phone to my chest; it was still off. It had been like that for almost eight hours, since the plane took off from London, and I knew that if I turned it on, I'd find over a hundred missed calls from my father, Asher Fox, and several messages from my mother that would say something like: "Zara, please talk to us. Don't do anything you'll regret." Too late for that. For the first time in my life, I had disobeyed my father. For the first time in twenty-six years, I stopped being the girl who ate her vegetables without complaint, the one who got straight A's, the one who patiently waited for fate to deliver love on a silver platter. Now I'm in New York. I've left everything behind for a man I've known for two months. For a man who kissed me once on a rooftop and then had to return to his country. He's a cardiovascular surgeon, a New Yorker visiting London for a three-month mini-residency. I was on my pediatric ER rotation. Our paths crossed in one hallway, then another, then in the cafeteria, then in my dreams. The kiss came like an unexpected diagnosis: suddenly, without warning, and without any possibility of refusal. "I can't stop thinking about you, Dr. Zara Fox," he said against my lips, and his New York accent transformed my name into something I'd never heard before. Something that sounded like a promise. I, who had never been in love, surrendered in that instant. I didn't tell him I was coming. I wanted it to be a surprise. The taxi dropped me off right where Henry had told me he lived when he drew me a map on a paper napkin during our last coffee. “If you ever come to New York,” he said, his hand brushing against mine on the table, “this is where you’ll find me.” I put the napkin away. I still have it. Crumpled, with a coffee stain in the corner. The building was elegant. I rang the doorbell of his apartment, my fingers trembling. In my other hand, the suitcase containing my entire life for the next three months. The door opened. And the universe, that accomplice my family had trusted for generations, showed me its true face. It wasn’t Henry who answered. It was a woman. A woman with dark hair pulled back in a messy bun, wearing a man’s shirt—his shirt, I recognized the cut, the brand he used to wear—and a steaming cup of coffee between her fingers. On her left hand, a wedding ring caught the New York sunlight and threw it directly into my eyes. “Yes?” She said, raising an eyebrow. My brain, trained to assess patients in seconds, processed the information with a speed I both appreciated and hated. “I’m looking for Henry Black,” I said, holding her gaze with a certainty that brooked no doubt. The woman slowly looked up. Her eyes scanned my face, then down to the suitcase beside me, and back again, more attentive. “Who’s looking for him?” she asked, this time with a hint of caution in her voice. I gently gripped the suitcase handle, without looking away. “Zara Fox,” I replied. “Ah,” she said, and her mouth curved into something that wasn’t a smile. "You're little Dr. Fox, aren't you?" Little Dr.? The word hit me like a ton of bricks. It wasn’t the title I had worked so hard to earn; I wasn't Dr. Fox, as my patients call me. Nor was I Zara, the name reserved for those who care for me. I was "little doctor." A diminutive. A term of contempt. A label. She knew who I was. Henry appeared behind her at that moment, his torso bare, his hair disheveled, his expression shifting from sleepiness to panic in less than a second. The three of us stared at each other in the doorway, forming a triangle with me at the other vertex. He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again, unsure how to speak. And in his eyes, I saw something that broke me more than his shirt draped over her shoulders, more than the wedding ring, more than the word "little doctor." I saw a hint of calculation in his gaze. He wasn't afraid of having hurt me. He was assessing how much damage I could inflict on him. On his reputation. On his marriage. On his career. The scholarship he won in London depended, in part, on my father's connections. My father. The man I disobeyed for the first time in my life. For this. For a damned lying man. "Zara," he finally said, and the sound of my name on his lips tasted like infected stitches. "This isn't what it looks like." At that moment, his wife let out a short laugh that sounded like bone breaking. "Seriously, Henry? You're going to do this? You're going to look her in the face and lie?" She turned to me and this time she did smile. A smile that pierced me. "I'll tell you what it is, little doctor..." She paused, then continued with contempt. "You're a means to an end. A lever. He never loved you. He was interested in your last name. Your father's connections. The letter of recommendation your uncle can sign. You were the consolation prize, the backup plan in case he couldn't get what he wanted the right way." Something inside me broke. Henry's wife looked me up and down, assessing the damage with satisfaction. "Get out. You were the easiest Fox to fool..." she spat, each word landing on her finger. "And I'm warning you: don't you ever go near my husband again." Her eyes scanned my face with contempt before she added, almost in a venomous whisper: "Unless you want to keep behaving like what you already are. A homewrecker... A common mistress." The door slammed in my face. And with it... everything I thought was real. The stupidest mistake of my life wasn't getting on that plane. It was looking at Henry Black and swearing, with blind and ridiculous faith, that my destiny lay there... when in reality it was the abyss disguised as a promise.