THE BILLIONAIRE’S TEMPORARY WIFE

Chapter 3:The Contract Wife

Zara's pov

The man I spent one unforgettable night with wasn't a stranger. He was Ethan Vance, the billionaire whose name appeared on every business magazine in the country.

I found that out three days before I ever stepped into that conference room, when a woman named Miss Reyes from something called the Wickford Group called my cell phone and asked whether I'd be interested in a confidential business arrangement that paid better than anything I'd ever seen in my life.

"I'm listening," I told her.

"A client of ours requires a temporary wife. Six weeks. Full compensation up front, all debts cleared, a settlement at the end of the arrangement generous enough to change your circumstances permanently. In exchange, you'd need to convincingly play the role of his spouse in public. Nothing more is expected of you privately."

I laughed at her. "You're asking me to marry a stranger for money."

"I'm asking you to consider it," she said, unbothered. "The client is discreet, respectful, and this is strictly business. Think about it. Call me back."

"And if I say no?"

"Then I thank you for your time and we never speak again. Just an opportunity most people would kill for."

I hung up fully intending never to call her back. Marrying a man I'd never met for money sounded like something out of a bad movie.

Then I sat down at my kitchen table with my brother's tuition statement in one hand and my hospital bill from the pregnancy confirmation in the other.

I called her back the next morning and agreed to one meeting. Just one. I promised myself that much.

"Smart choice," Miss Reyes said when I told her. "He'll have his assistant send the address. Ten o'clock. Don't be late… he isn't a patient man."

"Noted," I said dryly. "Anything else I should know about him?"

"You'll learn everything you need to know when you meet him."

I arrived at the company ready to meet a stranger but saw Ethan standing by the window with his back to the door.

He turned around and for a full three seconds neither of us said anything.

"You," he said finally, shocked.

"You," I repeated, because apparently that was the best either of us could manage.

I felt heat crawl up my neck and humiliation, my first instinct was to turn around and walk straight back out, taking a step toward the door.

"Wait." His voice cut through the room, steadier than his face looked. "Please."

I stopped with my hand still hovering near the door handle.

"You're the client," I said, not quite a question.

"And you're the woman Reyes told me had already agreed." He set down the folder he'd been holding. "I didn't know it was you. I want that on the record before anything else."

"Does it matter? Records, arrangements, is that all you people talk in?"

"It matters to me," he said, quieter than I expected. "I'm not in the habit of dragging people I know into arrangements like this."

He gestured toward the chair across from him like none of that history existed at all.

"This works in our favor, actually," he said, already reaching for a folder on the table. "Since we're familiar with each other, there's less risk of the arrangement looking rushed or artificial to outsiders."

I stared at him. "Familiar with each other."

"The terms are straightforward." He slid the folder toward me without quite meeting my eyes now. "Six weeks of marriage, legally binding, dissolved cleanly at the end of the period. Public appearances as required, full compensation transferred at signing, remainder at completion."

"You're talking about the night we spent together like it's a line item."

"I'm talking about a business arrangement." He finally looked up. "What happened before doesn't need to complicate what happens now."

"You really believe that. That a night can just be filed away and forgotten because it's inconvenient now."

"I believe people move forward," he said. "That's all I meant."

Something in my chest went cold and hard. "It's not complicated to you at all, is it. You just found a convenient shortcut."

"I found someone who already knows what she's agreeing to," he said. "That's not a shortcut. That's efficiency."

"Efficiency," I repeated. "Is that what we're calling it now."

"What would you call it?"

"Cold," I said. "I'd call it cold."

"If the number isn't sufficient," he said, bored, reaching for a pen, "I can adjust it."

He wrote a new figure on the paper in front of him and turned it toward me. My breath caught despite myself. It was enough to erase every debt I had twice over. It was enough that I hated how badly I wanted it.

"The problem isn't that your offer isn't enough," I stood up fast. "The problem is that you think everything has a price."

"Doesn't it?" he asked.

"Not everything," I said, and walked out.

I didn't wait around to watch him figure it out. I stood outside the building for almost twenty minutes.

I thought about my brother, Noah, who still didn't know how close he was to losing his spot at school, and about the tiny miracle growing inside me who was going to need diapers, doctors, and a roof that wasn't at risk of disappearing the moment I missed a paycheck.

Pride didn't pay rent. Pride didn't buy prenatal vitamins.

I turned around and went back inside before I could talk myself out of it a second time.

Ethan didn't gloat when I walked back into that conference room. He just watched me sit down, something careful in his eyes, like he wasn't sure if I'd come back to fight or to agree.

"I said something wrong," he admitted.

"You said something honest. That's different from wrong."

"Does that mean you're staying?"

"It means I haven't decided yet." I nodded at the folder. "Talk me through it again. Slowly this time."

He didn't argue with that. He just slid the folder toward me again, and this time, he walked me through every line without once looking away.

"I have conditions," I told him once he'd finished.

"I'm listening."

"When this ends, it ends clean. No dragging it out. No making it messy for either of us." I met his eyes and made myself hold them. "We walk away like none of it happened."

Something flickered across his face. "Agreed."

"Is there anything else I should know," Ethan asked, watching me, "before we make this official?"

My hand moved, just slightly, toward my stomach, before I caught myself and stilled it against the edge of the table instead. "No," I said. "Nothing…”