Chapter 2

The stranger was tall, dark-haired, and dressed like a man who fixed cars for a living—worn leather jacket, scuffed boots, a watch that had seen better decades.

"You were at the party?" I managed.

"Delivery," he said. "Fifty white roses. Nobody signed for them, so I stayed for the show." He tilted his head. "Your husband makes terrible speeches, by the way. He thanked 'the two most important women in his life.' I thought it was clumsy. Turns out it was honest."

A horrible sound escaped me—half sob, half laugh.

"I'm Damian," he said. "Cross. You look like a woman who needs a drink and zero sympathy."

"I look like a woman whose sister is pregnant with her husband's baby."

"Ex-husband," he corrected. "You signed. I watched you through the window. Fastest signature I've ever seen. Very decisive." Something flickered in his eyes—approval, maybe. "Most people beg."

"I don't beg."

"No," he said quietly. "You don't."

He bought me a whiskey at a dive bar three blocks over, and I told a complete stranger everything—two years of lies, the honeymoon, the divorce papers dated before the invitations. He listened without interrupting, without pity, his dark eyes never leaving my face.

"The worst part?" I stared into my glass. "My parents knew. Tomorrow there's a family dinner. My mother texted me an hour ago. You know what it said?"

I showed him my phone.

Elena, don't make this harder than it needs to be. Chloe is fragile right now. Wear something nice and smile. The Hales are important people and we will NOT lose that connection over your pride.

Damian read it twice. When he looked up, his jaw was tight. "Your ex-husband's family. What do they do?"

"The Hales? Old money. Marcus is a rising executive at Sterling Group—biggest company in the city. My parents have been climbing toward that family for twenty years. I was the ladder." I drained the whiskey. "Now Chloe is."

"So tomorrow they'll seat you across from the man who betrayed you and expect you to applaud."

"Tomorrow they'll expect me to apologize for making it awkward."

Damian was silent for a long moment. Then he said the most insane thing anyone has ever said to me.

"Marry me."

I choked. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me." He wasn't smiling. "You need armor for that dinner. Nothing humiliates people like that more than watching you not be destroyed. Walk in tomorrow with a husband on your arm, and you take away the only thing they have—your grief."

"You're insane. I met you two hours ago. I don't even know what you do."

"I work for a big company. Boring stuff." He shrugged. "Look. Paper marriage. Six months. You get a shield. I get..." He paused, choosing words carefully. "I have my own reasons for wanting a wife right now. Family pressure. You wouldn't be the only one benefiting."

"You could marry anyone."

"I don't want anyone. I want someone who signs divorce papers without begging." His eyes held mine, dark and unreadable. "So. Elena Hart. Want to ruin their dinner?"

Every rational cell in my body screamed no.

But I kept seeing Chloe's hand on her stomach. My mother's text. Wear something nice and smile.

Twenty-eight years of being the good daughter, the patient wife, the reasonable one. Twenty-eight years of swallowing it.

"City hall opens at nine," I heard myself say.

Damian smiled then—slow and dangerous, and for one strange second, he didn't look like a delivery driver at all.

He looked like a man who had just moved a chess piece exactly where he wanted it.