Sold to the Man I Hate

The Contract

“Sign here.”

Julian slid the paper across his desk like he was closing a business deal. Because to him, that’s exactly what this was.

Ava stared at it. Thirty pages. Her name typed in a dozen places, next to his, like they belonged together on paper before they’d ever belonged together anywhere else.

“What happens if I refuse?”

“You won’t.”

“Try me.”

Something flickered in his eyes — not anger. Interest, again, the same look he’d given her yesterday. Like she was a problem he hadn’t solved yet and secretly didn’t want to.

“Your father’s company defaults Friday if this isn’t signed by tonight.” He leaned back, arms crossed. “Three hundred jobs. Gone. You want that on your conscience instead of a signature?”

She grabbed the pen.

“I want it on record,” she said, “that I hate you.”

“Duly noted.” He didn’t even blink. “Sign anyway.”

She signed. Her hand shook on the last letter of her name, and she hated that he saw it.

“Congratulations,” Julian said, sliding the contract into a drawer like it was nothing. Like her whole life hadn’t just changed with the scratch of a pen. “You’re engaged.”

“Don’t say that like it’s good news.”

“It’s not.” His voice dropped, quieter now. “It’s necessary. There’s a difference.”The wedding was set for three weeks out. Ava learned this from a wedding planner, not from Julian — a woman named Renata who showed up at the Cross estate two days later with a binder thick enough to stop a bullet and a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Mr. Cross wants everything finalized by Thursday,” Renata said, flipping through fabric swatches like Ava’s wedding was a merger. “Venue, dress, guest list. He’s very particular.”

“I’m sure he is.”

“He said you’d say that.” Renata’s smile flickered, almost sympathetic. “For what it’s worth, Miss Bellamy — I’ve planned a dozen weddings for men like him. This is the first time I’ve seen one actually pay attention to the details instead of just the check.”

Ava’s stomach twisted. “What does that mean?”

“It means he asked what flowers you’d like. Personally. Before he asked me anything about the guest list.” Renata shrugged, moving on to the next swatch like she hadn’t just planted something dangerous in Ava’s chest. “Most men in his position don’t care. He did.”

Ava didn’t know what to do with that information, so she buried it and moved on to the next swatch too.She found him three hours later on the terrace, alone, a glass of something amber in his hand, staring out at the city like it owed him something.

“You asked about flowers.”

He didn’t turn. “Renata talks too much.”

“Why does it matter to you? This isn’t a real wedding.”

“No.” He finally looked at her, and something in his face had gone tired in a way she hadn’t seen since the day she signed that contract. “But it’s still going to be photographed, published, dissected by every business rival I have. It needs to look real, Ava. Which means the details matter, whether either of us wants them to or not.”

“So it’s about optics.”

“Everything with me is about optics.” He said it flatly, but something underneath the words sounded almost like an apology. “That’s the world I live in. I don’t have the luxury of caring about things just because I want to.”

“Then why did you ask about the flowers?”

He didn’t answer right away, and the silence stretched long enough that Ava felt something shift in the air between them — the same shift from that night in his office, the one neither of them had named.

“Because for one hour,” he said finally, “I wanted to make a decision about this wedding that had nothing to do with strategy. Call it a mistake if you want.”

“I don’t think it was a mistake.”

His eyes moved to hers, sharp and searching. “Careful, Miss Bellamy. That almost sounded like sympathy.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

A ghost of a smile crossed his mouth — the second one she’d seen from him, and it did something to her chest she refused to examine too closely.

“I won’t,” he said. “I know better than to get used to anything you give me freely. Nothing about this arrangement was ever freely given.”

The words landed harder than she expected. She turned to leave before he could see it register on her face.

“Ava.”

She stopped at the door.

“For what it’s worth,” Julian said quietly, “I am sorry. For the part of this that isn’t strategy. For the part that’s just — you, losing choices you should have had.”

She didn’t trust herself to answer that. She walked back inside instead, and behind her, she heard him exhale like a man setting down a weight he’d been carrying since the moment he’d first said her name.