BOUND BY NECESSITY

Chapter 3: A Marriage On Paper

[SELENE'S POV]

I made up my mind before Crane even finished his sentence that whatever he had to say, I was going to take it standing up straight with no apologies, because I had done nothing wrong that night.

"A business proposal?" I repeated, folding my arms. "Let me guess. The candle thing, and you want to dock my fee."

"This has nothing to do with the candle," Crane said, as calm as ever. "It has to do with what I watched you do with that client this afternoon. The way you didn't flinch or raise your voice and still walked away with every dollar he owed you."

"Okay," I said slowly, because that was not where I expected this to go. "And?"

"And I need something from a woman exactly like that," he said.

"Look, my grandfather gave me an ultimatum that I marry before the end of this quarter, or my cousin inherits the company I've spent my whole life building. Every share and every project is gone to a man who's never designed a single building in his life, just because he already has a fiancée and I don't."

Now hearing him say it out loud made me feel cheap, and at the same time, I also felt pity and disbelief. This was a man with more money than I would see in ten lifetimes, standing in front of me and talking about losing everything the same way I talked about losing my visa, and for one strange second, the gap between us didn't feel as wide as it usually did.

"That's a pity though," I said. "But I still don't see what that has to do with me."

"I want to marry you," he replied as I let out one ugly laugh, because my brain refused to believe what my ears had just heard. "What the freak are you saying? Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

"No, I heard something, but I don't think it was that, because that would mean you just stood outside a hotel and asked a woman you barely know to marry you, like this is some kind of joke."

"It's not a joke, Selene," he said. "And it's not really about you. It's about what you can do for me and what I can do for you in return."

"So you think because I'm broke and scared, you can just buy me? Is that it? You saw a woman with a problem and figured she'd take any deal you threw at her?"

"I think you're a woman with a problem I happen to have the solution to," he said calmly like we were discussing paint colors and not my entire life.

"It is just one year of marriage with separate finances, separate bedrooms, and no strings attached beyond what's written down. I pay you well, and you help me keep my inheritance, and nobody gets hurt."

I could have laughed again, except nothing about it actually felt funny anymore.

He got to stand there offering me a way out of my life like it was a business memo, because for him, this was just numbers on a page.

But for me, it was everything because it has to do with my worth.

"Somebody always gets hurt in arrangements like that," I said, and I turned to walk away from him, because standing there listening to him made it sound almost reasonable, and that scared me more than the offer itself.

"Selene."

He called immediately as I turned to leave. I stopped walking, but I didn't turn around right away.

"I can't marry a stranger for money," I said, still facing away from him. "I mean, that's fraud, and that's real jail time if anyone finds out, on top of everything else I'm already dealing with and even if it wasn't, I'm not signing up to be some rich man's secret, hidden away until he's done needing me."

"It wouldn't be a secret," he said. "It would be public. So that my family, your case, and everyone would see exactly what they need to see."

"That's worse," I said, finally turning to face him.

"Worse if the whole world watches me pretend," I replied, still backing out of his plan.

Then finally he didn't argue with me but just nodded like he'd expected that answer and walked off without another word, leaving me standing there with my heart pounding for a conversation that had barely lasted two minutes.

"Unbelievable," I muttered to nobody, and I meant it.

****

Then the next morning, right up, my phone rang, and I saw it was my supervisor.

"Selene, I'm sorry, but the corporate confirmed it this morning," she said.

“Confirmed what?” I asked with my eyes wide open.

"We're not renewing your sponsorship, and it has already been submitted, and there's nothing I can do about it from now on." She said as the call hung up.

I didn't cry because that is not even the best option.

I just sat down on the edge of my bed and stared at the wall for a long time, doing the math over and over in my head, and every version of that math ended the same way and that is to give in to the worst decision I could ever make.

I picked up my phone and dialed Cranes' contact.

"I want to see the contract," I said, before he could even say hello.

He didn't sound surprised. "I'll have it sent to you tonight."

The contract was long, longer than I expected, and it covered things I hadn't even thought to worry about yet.

Both our public appearances, where we'd live. What we'd say to his family, and what we'd never say to mine.

There was even a way of saying how the whole thing would end after one year, no drama, no fight over money either side hadn't already agreed to.

He'd planned for everything, and that should have made me feel safer. Instead, it made my skin crawl a little, because a man doesn't plan a fake marriage down to the last detail unless some part of him has done this kind of thinking before.

I met him two days later at his office to go through it line by line, and I didn't let a single page pass without pushing back on something.

"This says I need approval before speaking to the press," I said, tapping the page hard enough.

"But no. I answer for myself on this part. There will be no lying to each other about anything that could actually hurt one of us. I need to know when something is coming before it lands on me."

"Fine," he said and wrote it in himself, right there, with no argument.

"No touching," I said next. "Not unless we both say it's fine, every single time. I'm not signing away my own body because it looks good for photos."

"Agreed," he said, and wrote that down too.

"You don't get a say in my job, and you don't get a say in who I'm friends with. Not Maya, and obviously not with anyone."

"Fine."

"And nobody, especially not your grandfather, gets to frustrate me and no falling for each other, not for one second."

For the first time since I'd sat down, he looked up from the page, instead of down at it and then said again.

"Agreed."

He agreed to all of it so easily that it made the hair on my arms stand up. A man who plans this carefully doesn't just hand over every condition without a fight, not unless he already knows exactly how this story ends, and I didn't like that I couldn't read which ending he had in mind.

We signed on the last page at the same time, our pens moving side by side across the paper, and when it was done, he reached his hand across the desk toward mine.

I took it, the way you shake on any deal, as his hand stayed wrapped around mine before he caught himself and pulled it back into place.

Standing there with my hand still caught in his, I understood, for the first time since he'd made his offer outside that hotel, that this arrangement might cost me a lot more than my dignity.