The Billionaire's Stand-In Bride

My sister left me her wedding dress and her debt. I found out at seven in the morning. I was standing in the hotel corridor still in my bridesmaid dress, holding a note in my hand. Nora's handwriting. Small and neat, the way she wrote everything, like even her letters were trying not to take up too much space. “I'm sorry. I can't do it. Please don't hate me.” That was all, no explanation, no number to call. Just a wedding starting in four hours and a bride who was already gone. I stood there for a while. Then I folded the note, put it in my pocket, and went downstairs. I told the wedding coordinator the bride was missing. The woman's face went through about five different expressions in two seconds. Then she picked up her phone and said she needed to reach Mr. Ashford. I had met Roman Ashford exactly twice before that morning. Once at the engagement dinner. Once at the rehearsal. Both times he had looked at me the way people look at furniture, briefly, without interest, and then away. I was Nora's older sister. The quiet one. The one with the sensible shoes and the bookkeeping job and the talent for not causing trouble. Nora was the beautiful one. People have said it around me my whole life like they were stating the weather. I always agreed because it was true and because making a face about it would have made me seem small. He came down in twelve minutes. I counted because I had nothing else to do with my hands. Roman Ashford was thirty-four and looked like someone had built him specifically to make a room feel smaller. Dark hair, dark eyes, a jaw sharp enough to cause problems. He walked through the lobby like the space had been expecting him, and people moved without knowing why. His eyes found me right away. "Where is she?" Not a question. "Gone." I held out the note. He read it once. His face didn't move, no anger, no hurt. Just a kind of stillness, like something clicking shut behind his eyes. He folded the note and put it in his jacket pocket. "Guests arrive in three hours," he said. "I know." "My merger contract with Halcyon Group depends on this marriage happening today. If I'm not married by the end of business, I lose the deal." He looked at me. "Your sister knew that." I felt something ache in my chest for him. I didn't want to but I did. "I'm sorry. I don't know why she…." "How old are you?" I blinked. "Twenty-six." "Criminal record?" "No." "Currently married or engaged?" "No, but…." "Then listen to me." He took one step closer. He wasn't threatening. He was just large in a way that had nothing to do with size. "I need a bride today. You're Nora's sister, which means the paperwork can be adjusted fast. The marriage would be contractual. Twelve months. There's a settlement at the end that would mean you never have to think about money the way you currently do." The lobby was very quiet around us. "You looked up my finances," I said. Probably not the most important thing to focus on. "I looked up everything about your family the day Nora said yes. That's how I work." No apology in his voice. "I protect what matters to me." "And right now what matters is finding someone to stand at that altar." Something shifted in his face, fast. The first real thing I'd seen there. "You're more direct than your sister." "My sister avoids hard conversations. I've been having them for her since we were teenagers." The words came out before I thought about them and I felt the familiar guilt right after. I pressed my mouth shut. Roman watched me do it. "You just defended her," he said quietly. "After this morning." I didn't answer. He was quiet for a moment. "I won't be a difficult husband. I'm rarely home. I won't get in the way of your life. Twelve months and then you walk away financially free." A pause. "I know what I'm asking. I'm asking anyway." I looked down at Nora's note still in my hand. I thought about my apartment. The radiator hadn't worked since October. The loan I took out to cover Nora's dress and her engagement party and all the small costs of becoming Roman Ashford's fiancée somehow became my problem. I thought about twenty-six years of being the one who stays and handles it and asks for nothing. Maybe it was time I got something back. "I need the terms in writing," I said. "Of course." "And my own room." "Already planned." I took a breath. "Okay." He looked at me for a long moment. I still couldn't read his face. "The dress will need alterations," he said. "You're taller than Nora." "I know. I always have been." The corner of his mouth moved. Just barely. Gone before I could be sure it was real. He turned to the coordinator. "Get the lawyers down here." Then he looked back at me once more. "What's your name?" "Claire. Claire Voss." He nodded slowly, like he was putting it somewhere specific in his mind. "Claire," he said carefully, like he was checking the weight of it. "Don't run." Three hours later, I was standing at an altar in my sister's dress. The man sliding a ring onto my finger was a stranger. What I didn't know yet was that by midnight he would be looking at me differently, like something in him had recognized something in me without his permission, like a door h He hadn't known it had existed somewhere inside him, and he didn't know yet what to do about it. Neither did I.