MARRIED TO THE BILLIONAIRE IN A COMA

Chapter 2

Emily POV

Three Weeks Earlier

My alarm went off at five thirty, the way it did every morning, and I hit it without opening my eyes. For a few seconds, I let myself believe I could go back to sleep. Then I remembered the bills sitting on my kitchen counter, and sleep stopped being an option.

I got up. I made coffee I could not really afford but drank anyway, because some mornings you need one small thing that feels like a choice. Then I got dressed for a job that paid just enough to keep me one step ahead of falling behind, but never far enough ahead to feel safe.

The store where I worked sold shoes nobody in my part of town could easily buy. I spent most of my shift folding boxes and smiling at customers who barely looked at me. By the time my break came, my feet already hurt, and it was not even noon.

I sat in the back room and pulled out my phone. Three missed calls. One text.

Sandra: Sunday dinner. Do not be late this time.

I stared at the message longer than it deserved. Sandra never asked. She told. And she never cared if I was late unless she needed something from me.

I typed back, I will try, then deleted it and wrote, I will be there, because trying had never once satisfied her.

My phone buzzed again almost right away. A call this time. I answered without thinking.

"Emily." Sandra's voice always sounded like she was already annoyed with me before I said a word. "You are coming Sunday. I already told everyone you would."

"I said I would come," I said. "Why do you sound like I already said no?"

"Because you always find a reason," she said. "Do not disappoint me this time. It matters."

"Why does it matter more than usual?"

There was a pause. A pause from Sandra was rare enough that it made my stomach twist a little.

"It just does," she said. "Be there." Then she hung up before I could ask again.

I sat there staring at my phone, feeling that same old tiredness settle into my chest. With Sandra, there was always something underneath the words. I just never knew what until it was too late to prepare for it.

My shift ended at six. By the time I stepped outside, the sky had gone that soft gray it turns before it gets fully dark. I pulled my jacket tighter and started walking home, counting the blocks the way I always did, like counting them made them shorter.

That was when I noticed the car.

It was parked across from my building, black, clean, the kind of car that did not belong on my street. I had seen the same car yesterday too, sitting in almost the same spot. I remembered thinking then that someone must be visiting a neighbor. Two days in a row felt different.

I slowed my steps without meaning to. Part of me thought about walking past quickly and pretending I had not noticed. Another part of me, the more tired and more suspicious part, thought about pulling out my phone in case I needed to call someone.

Before I could decide, the car door opened.

A woman stepped out. She looked like she belonged in a completely different life than mine, the kind of woman who probably never once worried about a heating bill. Her coat alone probably cost more than I made in a month.

"Emily Hart?" she said.

My whole body went still. "Who is asking?"

"My name is Eleanor Cross," she said, like that should mean something to me. It did not. "I would like a few minutes of your time, if you could spare them."

"I do not know you," I said. "And I am not really in the habit of talking to strangers who wait outside my apartment."

"That is fair," she said, and to my surprise, she did not look offended. "I would feel the same way. But I promise you, this is worth five minutes."

I glanced at my building. Warm light in a few windows. My own apartment somewhere up there, empty and waiting, with nothing but more bills and more silence.

"Five minutes," I said. "Right here."

She nodded, like that was exactly what she expected me to say.

We stood near the steps of my building. She did not sit, even though there was a low wall she could have used. She stood the way people stand when they are used to being the one people wait for, not the other way around.

"I will be direct," she said. "I am looking for a woman to marry my son."

I actually laughed. It surprised me more than her. "I am sorry, what?"

"I understand how that sounds."

"Do you? Because it sounds like the start of a scam, and I do not have money for you to steal."

"This is not a scam," she said, her voice calm and even. "And you would not be losing money. You would be gaining a significant amount of it."

"For marrying a man I have never met."

"Yes," she said simply.

I shook my head, already turning to walk up the steps. "I am going to go inside now."

"There would be no romantic expectations," she said quickly, before I could leave. "No expectations of any kind, beyond what we would discuss formally. This would be an arrangement. Nothing more."

I stopped with one foot on the first step. I do not know why I stopped. Maybe it was the strange calm in her voice, like she said things like this every day. Maybe it was something smaller, something in me that was simply too tired to keep pretending my life did not need fixing.

"An arrangement," I repeated.

"A generous one," she said.

She reached into her coat and pulled out a small card. She held it out to me. I almost did not take it. Almost.

When I looked down at the number written under her name, my breath caught in my throat. It was not just generous. It was the kind of number that could erase every debt my father had left behind, every letter from collectors, every night I had lain awake doing math that never came out right.

"This does not make sense," I said quietly, more to myself than to her.

"It will, once you hear the rest," she said. "But not tonight. Think about it. I will call you."

"Wait," I said. "Who is your son? What is wrong with him that he needs someone to marry him like this?"

She was already turning back toward the car, her heels clicking evenly against the sidewalk.

"He will not be a problem," she said, without turning around. "Not in the way you imagined."

She got into the car before I could ask what that was supposed to mean, and it pulled away, leaving me standing on the steps of my building with a card in my hand and a hundred questions I did not know how to ask.