The Secret Heir’s Wife: Marriage In Contract

The Beverly Hills courthouse had two sets of doors, and Sienna Shaw had been standing in front of the first set for eleven minutes. Her tote held a birth certificate, a driver's license, a lip balm, and a small spiral notebook she had promised herself she wouldn't open. She opened it. Cab to courthouse: thirty-one dollars . Mine. She underlined Mine twice and shut it. Her phone buzzed. Josie. "Tell me you're not on the steps." "I'm on the steps." "Sienna." "I'm early. Early is a virtue." "Early is a red flag. You're early to marry a man you've never met." "He texted me. Twice." "Saying what?" "'Courthouse. Nine o'clock. Bring ID.'" "That's it?" "He's efficient." "He's a ransom note." Sienna laughed, and it came out thin. "Josie." "Say the word. I'll walk out of work right now. I'll drive over in this apron. I'll hold your flowers." "I don't have flowers." "Then I'll bring flowers and hold them." "No." "Why not?" "Because you'd come." Sienna watched a man in a suit hurry up the steps, phone to his ear. "And then I'd owe you for the gas, and the shift, and the look on your manager's face, and I don't have a number for that." "Not everything has a number, Si." "Everything I've ever needed does." The line went quiet. Behind it, an espresso machine screamed and stopped. "Okay," Josie said, softer. "One promise. If it feels wrong—" "I'll walk out." "You'll call me." "I'll call you." "Say it like you mean it." "I'll call you, Josie." "Good. And don't sign anything you haven't read." "I always read everything." "Then read it twice. Go. I love you." The call ended. Sienna stood a moment longer, listening to the traffic on Rexford and the courthouse clock behind her ticking toward nine. Then she pushed through the first set of doors. The lobby smelled like floor polish and other people's nerves. A speaker crackled overhead: "Department Three, please report to the clerk's window. Department Three." Somewhere to her left, a couple was fighting in whispers. "You said you'd bring the paperwork." "I brought the paperwork." "You brought the wrong paperwork." "Then marry the paperwork, Dennis!" Her phone buzzed again. Laurel. Theo drew you a bookstore. There's a dragon in it. Come Sunday? Sienna's thumbs hovered. A dragon. Her nephew had never once seen a dragon in her shop, and he'd put one there anyway, because that was what he thought the place deserved. I can't this Sunday. Work thing. Kiss him for me. Love you. She sent it before she could soften it. It wasn't exactly a lie. It was a door she was closing very quietly, so nobody would hear the latch. Beep. "Belt, ma'am." "It's a dress. It has a belt." "Take it off." She took it off. The security guard was already upending her tote onto the tray like it was evidence. "Notebook. Lip balm. Birth certificate." He frowned at it. "You here for a marriage license?" "A ceremony." "Congratulations." He said it like a diagnosis. She scooped her things back into the tote: three items and a life that fit around them. She tried not to do the math on what that said. Behind her, the second set of doors swung open, and the room changed. It wasn't loud. It was the sound of a dozen people slightly adjusting their posture. A man in a gray suit walked past the line. Past the scanner. Past her. The guard, who a second ago had been raling her lip balm like a suspect, straightened so fast his keys jangled. "Good morning, Mr. Ra—" "Morning, Hector." It was two words and a look, and the guard's mouth closed. The man didn't slow. Nobody waved a wand over him. Nobody asked about his belt. Sienna watched him cross the lobby, which was strange, because he was the most ordinary-looking man in the building. Plain gray suit. No tie pin. No ring. One thin watch that looked like nothing until it caught the light, and then like something. The suit fit him the way suits do in magazines. Stop noticing things, she told herself. "Ma'am?" Hector was holding out her notebook. "You're free to go." "Thank you." "Hope it's a good one." "Me too," she said, and meant it more than she wanted to. The second set of doors opened onto a marble hall that echoed. Her heels were loud on it. His, apparently, were not, because she didn't hear the man in the gray suit until he spoke. "Sienna Shaw." It wasn't a question. She turned. It was him, the man from the scanner, hands in his pockets, leaning against a pillar like he'd been waiting a while and didn't mind. "Vaughn?" "Reed. Vaughn Reed." He didn't offer his hand. "You're early." "So are you." "I'm always early. It's cheaper than being late." "That's a very specific way to think about it." "It's a very specific way to live." His eyes went to her tote. "That's all you brought?" "You said bring ID." "I did." A pause. "Most people would've brought more." "Most people aren't me." Something moved at the edge of his mouth and was gone. "Fair." She looked past him down the hall. Closed doors, a bench, an old woman asleep with a purse in her lap. "Is anyone else coming?" "A clerk. And my grandmother, who is the witness." A flicker crossed his face. "California requires one. She volunteered before I could stop her. She's been inside since eight." "Margot's here?" "She wanted to give you a minute before she started crying." "She's crying?" "She cries at insurance commercials." Sienna stared at him. Then, because she couldn't help it, she laughed. A real one, short and surprised, that bounced off the marble. He didn't laugh. But he didn't look away, either. "Why are you doing this?" she asked. "Because she asked. And I lose arguments with her." "That's not a reason." "It's the only one you're getting." "Then I won't ask again." "You should." He said it flatly. "You're about to hand a stranger your signature. You should ask a lot." "You're not a stranger. You're two text messages." "That's worse." "I thought so too." "Are you trying to scare me off?" "I'm trying to be honest. It's a new hobby." He glanced at the notebook sticking out of her tote. "What's that?" "A receipt." "For what?" "The cab. I'm paying my own way." "Why?" "Because I don't take things I can't pay back." He was quiet. In the hall, a door opened and closed and somebody's shoes squeaked away. "Everything has a price," he said finally. "I know. That's why I write it down." He studied her the way you study a contract: slowly, for the clause that will hurt you later. She held still and let him. It was the first time in months nobody had looked at her like a bill. Then he pushed off the pillar and walked to the heavy oak door at the end of the hall. The one with a brass plate: Civil Ceremonies. On the bench beside it, the old woman with the purse opened one eye. "Is that the groom, honey?" "Sort of," Sienna said. "Tell him to look happy. They take pictures." "There are no pictures," Vaughn said. "There are always pictures." The eye closed again. "Good shoulders, though. Marry the shoulders." Vaughn looked at the ceiling as if it might intervene. Then he put his hand on the handle and didn't turn it. "Before we go in," he said. "Yes?" "This is the only moment you can leave without it costing you anything." He said it carefully, like he'd practiced it. "Walk away now and nobody lifts a finger. I'll tell my grandmother you changed your mind. She'll sulk for a week. That's all." "That's all?" "That's all. After this door, it isn't free anymore." Free. The word landed somewhere in Sienna's chest. She thought about the couch in her sister's house and the spreadsheet on Brett's laptop with her name in a column. She thought about Laurel's kitchen going quiet every time she walked in, a silence like someone holding their breath. She thought about the word Diane had used at Sunday dinner, over the potatoes, as if she were asking for the salt. *Burden.* "Last chance to walk away," Vaughn said. Down the hall, the courthouse clock began to strike nine. One. Two. Three. She shifted her tote higher on her shoulder. "No," Sienna said. "Think about it." "I did. All night. I'm still here." Four. Five. "Then you should know I'm not a good bet." "Neither am I." Six. Seven. Eight. For a moment he looked at her as though she'd said something in a language he used to speak. Then his face closed again, neat and gray, like his suit. "Nine," he said, quietly, over the last bell, and opened the door. Inside: one desk, one flag, one clerk who didn't look up. Behind them, out in the hall, the old woman began very softly to snore.