Loving The Billionaire’s Cold Heart

Nora's Pov "Sign it and everything goes away. The debt, the hospital bills, all of it. One signature, Nora. That's all." Helena slid the folder across the kitchen table like it was nothing. Like she was passing me the salt. I stared at it without touching it and tried to find the part of this conversation that made sense. It didn't. "You're telling me a billionaire wants to marry me." I said it flat. No question in it because it wasn't really a question. It was me waiting for her to admit she was joking. Helena didn't smile. "Ethan Blackwood needs a wife for business reasons. Your family's holdings satisfy a legal requirement his company has. The marriage is contractual. Six months minimum, possibly a year. You live in his house, you attend events when required, you don't cause problems. At the end of it, you walk away with the debt cleared and a settlement that will cover your mother's care for the next ten years." I looked at the folder. Then I looked at my aunt — this woman who had been in my life since I was seven, who sat at my mother's bedside three weeks ago and held her hand while the doctor explained what the next stage of treatment would cost. I had watched Helena's face that day. I thought the tightness around her eyes was grief. Now I wondered if it was a calculation. "Why me," I said. "Out of every woman he could choose." "Because you're available, you're uncomplicated, and your family name is attached to the right assets." She said it without flinching. "This isn't romantic, Nora. It's a transaction. You're smart enough to understand the difference." I was. That was the problem. My mother's name was Grace Lane and she had worked herself into the ground for twenty years keeping us afloat after my father left. Two jobs, sometimes three. She never complained. She just got up every morning and did what needed doing and I had watched her do it so long that I learned the same thing, you don't ask for better. You just survive what's in front of you. What was in front of me right now was a folder with my name on it and a debt figure on the first page that made my stomach drop. I picked it up. I read it slowly, every clause, every condition. The language was clean, cold, and precise. I was to be referred to within the household as Mrs. Blackwood. I would attend no fewer than two public events per month. I would not discuss the terms of the arrangement with any outside party. I would maintain the appearance of a functioning marriage for the duration of the contract. There was a clause near the bottom that stopped me. “The contracted party acknowledges that the primary party may maintain personal relationships outside the scope of this agreement provided discretion is observed.” I read it twice. Then I set the folder down. "He has someone else," I said. Helena didn't deny it. "That's not your concern." "I'm going to be his wife." "You're going to be his contracted wife. There's a difference." She folded her hands on the table. "The woman in his life knows about the arrangement. Everyone involved understands what this is. You won't be walking into something hidden." I almost laughed at that. I almost laughed because the thing Helena did not seem to understand was that knowing about the humiliation in advance does not make it less humiliating. It just means you walk into it with your eyes open. But then I thought about my mother. I thought about the way she looked the last time I visited — smaller somehow, like the illness was slowly taking up more space than she was. I thought about the stack of bills on her nightstand that she tried to hide under a magazine when I came in, as if I hadn't already seen them, as if I didn't already know. I picked up the pen. I told myself it was just paper. That paper didn't have to mean anything unless I let it, That I had survived worse than a cold marriage to a man who didn't want me. I signed my name. Helena exhaled. Just slightly. Just enough for me to notice. And in that exhale was something I couldn't name yet, relief that was a little too sharp, satisfaction that was a little too quick. I filed it away without knowing why. "The signing is tomorrow," she said. "I'll send a car." The Blackwood building was the kind of place that made you feel small before you even walked through the door. All glass and steel and the kind of silence that money buys. I wore my best dress which wasn't saying much and I kept my chin level because that was the only thing I could control. The conference room was on the thirty-second floor. There were lawyers. There were documents. There was a man at the head of the table who did not stand when I walked in. Ethan Blackwood looked at me once. Just once, a single sweep from my face to my hands to the door behind me, like he was already calculating the exit. Then he looked back at the documents in front of him and did not look at me again. I sat down. I kept my hands flat on the table. I did not let my face do anything. We signed in silence. His lawyer spoke. My aunt spoke. Ethan said three words the entire time — yes, correct, and fine, and none of them were directed at me. When it was over he stood, buttoned his jacket, and walked out without a word. I sat there for a moment after everyone else had started moving. The lawyer was gathering papers. Helena was talking to someone near the window. Nobody was looking at me. His wedding band was still on the table. He had left without it. I picked it up. I turned it over in my fingers. The weight of it was surprising, heavier than something that meant nothing should be. A woman appeared in the doorway. Tall, polished, wearing the kind of effortless beauty that took significant effort. She looked at the ring in my hand and then she looked at me and she smiled slowly. "You must be the paper wife," she said. "I'm Camille. Just so we're clear, he came to me last night. And he'll come to me tomorrow."