The Billionaire's contract bride

"I need a wife." The words dropped into the silent boardroom like ice. I stared at the man behind the massive mahogany desk, sure I had heard him wrong. Adrian Russo. Billionaire. CEO of Russo Industries. The man whose face was on every business magazine in the city. And he was looking directly at me. "Excuse me?" My voice came out as a whisper. He leaned back in his leather chair, his cold grey eyes scanning me from head to toe. "You are Elena Carter, right? 24. Broke. Your mother is in St. Mary's Hospital. You need eighty-seven thousand dollars for her surgery by Friday." My blood ran cold. "How do you know that?" "I make it my business to know," he said, sliding a black folder across the desk toward me. "Inside is a contract. Marry me for one year." I laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Is this some kind of sick joke?" "It's business." He stood up, towering over me in his perfectly tailored black suit. "My grandfather's will states I must be married to inherit the entire company. My family is pressuring me. I need a wife in three weeks for the shareholders' gala. You need money." He opened the folder. A cheque was already clipped to the top. Fifty thousand dollars. Per month. "For one year, you will be Mrs. Elena Russo. You will live in my penthouse, attend events with me, and act like my loving wife. In return, I will pay your mother's hospital bills and pay you fifty thousand a month. After one year, we divorce. You walk away with six hundred thousand dollars." My hands trembled. Six hundred thousand dollars. That would save my mother, pay my debts, start a new life. "Why me?" I asked. "You could have any woman in this city." "Exactly," he said, his eyes hardening. "Every woman in this city wants my money and my name. You just want to save your mother. That makes you... manageable. And you have no family, no boyfriend to cause complications. You are perfect." "And if I say no?" "Then your mother doesn't get her surgery on Friday." He said it so calmly, so coldly, that I knew he wasn't threatening. He was stating a fact. I looked at the cheque. Then at him. His face was like stone, but there was something broken behind those grey eyes. Something lonely. "One year?" I whispered. "One year. No love. No s*x unless you beg for it. Just a contract." My cheeks burned. "I would never-" "We'll see." He picked up a gold pen and held it out to me. "Do we have a deal, Elena Carter?" I thought of my mother lying in that white hospital bed. I thought of the eviction notice on my apartment door. I took the pen. "What do I have to do first?" A slow, dangerous smile spread across his lips for the first time. "Tomorrow, you move in with me. Tonight, you learn how to be a billionaire's wife."