TRAPPED IN A MARRIAGE WITH THE BILLIONAIRE

Chapter Two: Desperation

The photograph stared back at me.

Ivy and I.

I went completely still.

We took the photo then, our last real outing before her condition got worse.

I remembered that day with painful clarity.

The way she had laughed, loudly and without reservation, running across the grass as if nothing in the world could touch her.

The way she had grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the swings. The way she had looked at me was like I was the safest place she knew.

Someone had been there that day.

Watching us.

I lifted my gaze slowly.

"Have you been stalking me?" I asked.

She didn't flinch. "No, Ann."

I wasn't convinced, but I moved to the document beneath the photograph.

The language was formal and dense, but one thing cut through everything else clearly —

I would get help.

I looked up. "What is this for?"

She leaned back, composed as ever. "I'll take care of your daughter's hospital bills. All of them. Your debts, too."

My fingers tightened slightly around the paper.

"In exchange," she continued, "I just need you to do one favor for me."

Before I could respond, my phone rang.

The sound alone made my stomach drop.

I didn't need to check the screen. I already knew.

She gave a small nod.

I answered the call.

"Hello?"

The voice on the other end was flat and cold.

"You have forty-eight hours to clear what you owe. Don't make us come looking for you."

The line went dead.

I set the phone down slowly.

The café noise carried on around me, cups, voices, the hiss of the coffee machine, but it all felt muffled now, like I was hearing everything from underwater.

I blinked back at the moisture gathering in my eyes.

"What favor?" I asked quietly.

"A small one," Kristy said. "Something that won't hurt you."

I studied her face.

"I want to introduce you to someone." She paused.

"It's a marriage arrangement. A two-year contract. Nothing harmful, I promise."

For a moment, I just looked at her.

Then she slid another photograph across the table.

I picked it up.

The man in the photo was strikingly tall, handsome , sharp-featured, with the kind of presence that didn't need a room to feel it.

Even in a still photograph, he felt…present, like he could walk out of it if he wanted to.

His jaw was tight, his eyes giving nothing away. He didn't look like someone who tried to be in control — he looked like someone who had never needed to try.

He was handsome — annoyingly so, the kind that made you look twice, even when you didn't want to.

I realized I had been staring.

I set the photograph down.

"Who is he?"

"Someone you'll meet soon," she said.

"The man you'd be entering this arrangement with.

He's a billionaire, Ann." She held my gaze.

"He is your solution."

I was quiet for a moment.

Then I exhaled.

"I don't mean to be rude," I said, keeping my voice even, "but are you serious right now?"

She didn't respond.

"You've approached me with a marriage contract to a man I've never met, shown me a photograph, and you expect me just to agree?"

I shook my head. "And you've been calling my name since we sat down. What's yours?"

She said nothing.

I reached for my bag and pushed back my chair.

"If we're done here," I said, "I'd like to leave.

"I stood up. "As for my daughter's bills — I'll find another way."

"What way, Ann?"

Her voice was quiet, but it stopped me cold.

"Maybe by the time you find this other way," she continued, her tone shifting just slightly, "you'll be planning a funeral instead."

I turned back slowly.

Her eyes didn't waver.

"And those people calling you," she added, "They are not patient men. You know that better than I do."

The words settled into me like stones dropping into still water.

The confidence I had been holding onto started to loosen.

I stood there for a moment, caught between pride and reality, and reality was winning.

I walked back to the table. Sat down.

"Why me?" I asked. My voice was quieter now. "Out of everyone — why me?"

She looked at me steadily. "My name is Kristy."

A pause.

"And Ann, no help is ever completely free.

But this won't cost you what you think it will." She folded her hands on the table.

"Just see it as saving your child. See it as doing what any mother would do."

Ivy's face came to me immediately.

Her small body in that hospital bed.

The IV line was taped to her little arm.

The way she still managed to smile when I walked through the door, like seeing me was enough to make everything okay.

She was five years old and fighting for her life.

And I was sitting in a café arguing about pride.

I looked down at the contract again.

Two years.

I read through the terms slowly, my fingers not quite steady.

Two years are not forever. Two years was manageable.

Two years meant Ivy got her transplant.

Two years meant she had a chance.

I reached for the pen.

And stopped.

Something still sat uneasily in my chest — a quiet voice I couldn't quite silence.

A feeling that once I signed this, there was no taking it back.

I stayed like that, pen in hand, caught between the two loudest things inside me.

Then my phone rang again.

The hospital.

My heart seized.

I answered before the first ring finished.

"Hello?"

"Miss Ann, please come in right away." The nurse's voice was urgent, careful.

"It's Ivy."

I was on my feet before she finished the sentence.

"I'm coming," I said and ended the call.

I looked at Kristy. "I have to go."

I didn't wait for a response.

I moved through the hospital corridors quickly, my heart loud in my ears.

A nurse met me before I reached the doctor's office.

"Miss Ann." She paused in a way that made my chest tighten immediately.

"How is she? Is Ivy okay?"

She hesitated again, like she didn’t want to say it out loud.

"She is not responding the way we hoped. Things have gotten worse”

The doctor came a moment later, already pulling off his gloves, his face tight.

"Miss Ann, we've been trying to reach you. We can't delay the transplant any further.

If we don't act now," he stopped. The rest didn't need to be said.

I nodded once. Then I walked past the doctor to Ivy's room.

She was lying so still beneath the white blanket that, for a moment, my feet stopped moving.

The machines beeped steadily beside her.

Her face was pale, her breathing shallow, but her lashes rested softly against her cheeks, and she looked, in that moment, so small.

So unbearably small.

I crossed the room and sat beside her.

Took her hand in both of mine.

"Ivy," I whispered.

She didn't stir.

"Mummy's here." I pressed her hand gently against my lips.

"And I'm not going to let anything happen to you.

You hear me?" My voice cracked on the last word, just slightly.

"I'm going to fix this."

I sat with her for a long moment, just breathing.

Then I stood up, smoothed the blanket over her, and walked out.

I didn't let myself cry in the corridor. I didn't have time for that.

I was almost at the exit when I saw Kristy walking toward me through the hospital doors. She must have followed.

She opened her mouth to speak.

I didn't let her.

"I'll sign it," I said.