Two Year Wife

CHAPTER 1: SIGN HERE

Jolene's POV

The pen was cold against my fingers. It sat on the glass table like it was waiting for me to make a mistake. It reflected the harsh white ceiling lights back into my eyes until they started to tear up.

I refused to blink.

Across from me, Reid County had not looked at me once since I walked into his office. He was staring at his watch instead, the way a man looks at something when he believes he owns every second of it.

He wore a black suit with no tie, and everything about him was sharp and calculated—from the line of his jaw to the way he sat completely still, like moving would be a waste of energy.

This was Reid County. He built Bryson Cars when he was twenty-three. He became a billionaire by twenty-five. And now, at twenty-eight, he owned half of downtown California.

Next to me, Aunt Lin was falling apart in slow motion.

I could smell the coffee on her breath and the cheap perfume. Her dyed auburn hair was damp against her temples because she was sweating through her makeup.

Her manicured nails kept tapping against the armrest of the chair.

“Jolene,” she whispered, leaning in close enough that I could feel her breath on my ear. “You have to listen to me. I owe him two point three million dollars. I lost it at his private card table two nights ago. If we don’t pay it back in forty-eight hours, I’m going to prison, and the bank is going to take the shop.”

The shop.

Ming’s Fresh Clean. The paint on the sign was peeling, and the light above the door buzzed at night. It was the last thing my parents had ever given me.

I had been standing behind that counter folding other people’s shirts since I was sixteen years old, and my hands still had calluses from ten years of hot water and detergent.

“Gambling,” I said quietly, because I did not want my voice to shake in front of him. “That is all you do now, Aunt Lin.”

Her face crumpled as if I had hit her. “I did it for us. I did it for the shop. I thought I could win enough to save us.”

“You did it for yourself,” I said. “You always do.”

That was when Reid finally looked at me.

His eyes were dark in a way that did not feel human. They moved over me slowly, from my worn flats to my one good dress to the ink stains on my fingers from printing receipts at the shop.

He was studying me the way he probably studied companies before he decided to buy them.

“Do you have a question, Ms. Ming?” he asked, and his voice was low and even and completely without warmth.

“Yes,” I said, and I forced myself to hold his gaze. “I want to know why you chose me.”

“Because you are desperate,” he said, like he was stating a fact about the weather. “And desperate people do not break contracts.”

The lawyer pushed a thick folder across the table toward me, and my name was printed on the tab in black ink.

MARITAL CONTRACT

PARTY A: REID COUNTY

PARTY B: JOLENE MING

TERM: TWENTY-FOUR MONTHS

Twenty-four months.

Two years of being his wife on paper.

Two years of standing next to him at events and smiling for cameras and bearing his last name.

And then I could walk away, and the debt would be gone, and the shop would be safe.

“The terms are straightforward,” the lawyer said in a tired voice, like he had read this out loud a hundred times before. “Mr. County will clear the two-point-three-million-dollar debt that is owed to County Credit. In exchange, Ms. Lin Ming will not face prosecution. Ms. Jolene Ming will enter into a two-year marriage with Mr. County. Public appearances will be required. A legal name change will be required. No personal involvement is expected outside of those obligations.”

“No love,” Reid added, and he said it like he was reminding himself as much as he was reminding me. “No s*x. No touching unless there are cameras present. In two years, we file for divorce. The debt is cleared, and you get to keep your shop.”

My throat closed up, but I swallowed past it.

I thought about the red eviction notice that was taped to the shop door when I opened this morning.

I thought about Aunt Lin in an orange prison jumpsuit.

I thought about my mother’s handwriting on the old price list behind the register.

I hated Aunt Lin in that moment with a kind of rage that made my hands go numb.

I hated her for the gambling and the lying, and for making me the solution to a problem she had created.

My hand shook once when I reached for the pen.

So I gripped it harder until the shaking stopped.

Aunt Lin grabbed my wrist before I could sign, and her fingers dug in too tight. “Jolene, baby, please think about this—”

“Do not touch me,” I said, and I pulled my arm out of her grip.

Then I signed my name: J-o-l-e-n-e M-i-n-g.

Each letter was neat and controlled and furious. The sound of the pen scratching across the paper was the loudest thing in the room.

Reid did not smile. He did not thank me. He did not react at all.

He only slid a black credit card across the table until it stopped in front of me.

“This is for appearances,” he said. “Buy clothes. Get your hair done. Do not embarrass me.”

Then he stood up. “The driver is waiting outside. We are going to the mansion now.”

Aunt Lin tried to hug me, and I could see the tears starting in her eyes. “My baby, you saved us, you saved—”

“Do not,” I said, and I stepped back out of her reach. My chest felt tight and heavy. “How could you do this to me? How could you agree to sell me in order to pay off your gambling debt, Aunt Lin? Why would you do that?”

“Because I did not have any other choice—”

“You always have a choice,” I said.

Reid stepped between us before Aunt Lin could answer.

“Lin,” he said. “Go to her apartment. Pack her belongings. Clothes. Documents. Nothing sentimental. Have it delivered to the County estate by eight o’clock tonight.”

Aunt Lin nodded too quickly and hurried out of the room, her heels clicking too fast down the hallway.

The lawyer gathered his folders and left.

The room went quiet except for the low hum of the air conditioning.

Reid walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows and stood with his back to me, looking out over the entire city like it belonged to him.

I stayed in my chair for a moment longer because I was afraid my legs would give out if I stood up too fast.

“Are you coming, Mrs. County?” he asked without turning around.

Mrs. County.

The name landed on me like a weight.

The car ride was silent except for the sound of Reid typing emails on his phone.

The leather seats were cold, and the city blurred past the windows until I could not tell where one building ended and the next began.

After about ten minutes, he spoke without looking up from his screen. “You hate me.”

“No,” I said. “I do not hate you. I hate what she did. I hate that I had to sign that paper.”

“That is the same thing,” he said.

“No,” I said, and I looked down at my hands in my lap. “I hate what she did. I resent you for being the price that I had to pay.”

He stopped typing.

For a few seconds he just looked at me, like I was a problem he could not solve with money.

“Two years,” he said finally. “Then you leave. That is the agreement.”

The words came out before I could stop them.

“What if I do not want to leave?”