MARRIED TO THE BILLIONAIRE IN A COMA

Chapter 1

Emily POV

"Do you take Alexander Cross as your lawfully wedded husband?"

I did not answer right away. The room was too quiet for that. Only the machine beside the bed made a sound. Beep. Beep. Beep. Slow and steady, like it had all the time in the world.

I looked at the man lying there. His eyes were closed. His chest moved up and down, but only because a tube was helping it. He did not know I was standing there. He did not know any of this was happening.

"Emily," Mrs. Cross called my name softly, but it was not a soft warning. It was a push. "Say it."

"I do," I said.

My voice came out small. Too small for a wedding. But this was not really a wedding, was it? A wedding is two people choosing each other. This was one woman standing next to a man who could not choose anything at all.

The old man holding the Bible, Father Doyle, looked up from his notes. He had not looked surprised once during the whole thing. I think he had done this kind of job before. The kind where you do not ask questions. You just get paid and go home.

He turned to the bed. "And do you, Alexander Cross, take this woman..."

He stopped. His mouth stayed open for a second too long. Even a man who does not ask questions could not stop his own face from asking one.

Mrs. Cross stepped in fast. "He consents," she said. "We have the papers for that."

Papers. That was the word she used. Not love. Not yes. Papers.

I looked down at Alexander's hand. It was pale and still. A nurse came forward and lifted it for me. She held his fingers open so I could put the ring on. His skin was cold. Colder than I thought a living person's skin could be.

The ring slid on. Just like that, I was married.

"You may kiss," Father Doyle started to say, then stopped himself. He looked at Mrs. Cross like he was asking permission.

"That will not be necessary," she said.

Nobody laughed. Nobody clapped. It was the strangest wedding I had ever imagined, and I had never even imagined a wedding like this before, because who could?

That was when I saw the camera.

It sat in the corner of the room on a small stand. A young man in a gray suit stood behind it. I had not noticed him come in. Maybe he had been there the whole time, standing so still I mistook him for part of the room.

"Got it," he said. "Should I get one more? For the file?"

For the file.

Something about those words made my stomach turn. A file is not for a marriage. A file is for something you might need to prove later. Something you might need to defend.

I turned to Mrs. Cross. "What file?"

She did not answer me straight away. She checked her watch first, made me feel like my question could wait, but her schedule could not.

"Smile," she said. "The lawyers need this to look real."

I felt my face go cold.

"Look real?" I said. "Are you saying it is not?"

"Emily." Her voice was calm, but her eyes were not. "You knew what this was. Do not act surprised now."

"I knew I was marrying a man in a coma," I said. My voice was getting louder now, and I did not care. "I did not know I was being filmed for a court case."

"It is not a court case," she said. "Not yet."

Not yet.

Those two words hit me harder than anything else in that room. Harder than the ring. Harder than his cold hand. Not yet meant this could still turn into something worse. Not yet meant there were more surprises waiting for me, and she was not going to warn me about them until she had to.

"What does that mean?" I asked. "Not yet?"

She finally turned to face me fully. For the first time since I met her, she did not try to hide what she really was. Her face was not warm anymore. She was not even pretending to be kind.

"It means," she said, "that if my son wakes up and decides to fight this marriage in court, we need proof that everything was done properly. Proof that you agreed. Proof that he agreed too, even if he could not say the words himself."

My mouth went dry. "You think he will fight it?"

"I think," she said slowly, "that my son has never done a single thing in his life that someone else told him to do. And this was the biggest decision anyone has ever made for him without asking."

I looked back at Alexander. At his closed eyes, at his still hands, one of them now wearing my ring.

Somewhere inside that quiet, unmoving body was a man who did not know he had a wife. A man who, if he ever woke up, was going to open his eyes and find his whole life changed without his permission.

And when that happened, I was going to be the first person he saw.

"He is not going to just accept this," I said quietly. It was not really a question.

Mrs. Cross picked up a folder from the chair beside her. She held it out to me, along with a pen.

"No," she said. "He is not. Which is why you need to sign this too. Before he wakes up."

I stared at the folder. My hand did not move to take it.

"Before he wakes up," I repeated. "Why does it matter when I sign it?"

She did not blink. "Because once he is awake, Emily, everything changes. And I need your name on this page while you still believe you can walk away."

I looked down at the folder in her hands.

I had already said "I do" to a man who would wake up one day hating every second of this.

Now she wanted me to sign something else. Something she needed to be done before that day came.

My hand was shaking when I finally reached for the pen.