Stranger At The Altar

Celeste – POV

The courthouse reeked of old wood polish, cold marble, and a kind of silence that didn't comfort, instead it wrapped its fingers around my neck and squeezed. Every heel that clicked across the glossy floor echoed like a gavel, each sound reinforced the finality of what I was about to do.

My fingers trembled around the pen as I signed my name on the last line of the marriage certificate.

Celeste Grace Whitmore.

Black ink dried quickly on the thick paper, more efficient than I'd ever been allowed to be with my own life.

A breeze slipped through the cracked window, stirring the lace veil pinned in my hair. It was modest, vintage maybe. One of the very few things I'd been allowed to choose. Though calling it a choice was generous. A stylist had handed me three options: lace, satin, or tulle. I chose lace because it was the least see-through. The irony didn't escape me. I,d been completely transparent from the start, too readable, too vulnerable, and far too easy to control.

"Congratulations," the officiant muttered, his voice as wooden as the bench he sat on.

Across the long mahogany table, Adrian Westwood barely acknowledged me. He stood tall and still, a commanding presence in a finely tailored charcoal-gray suit that fit like it was sculpted onto him. The fabric clung to broad shoulders and a narrow waist with the kind of effortless precision only private tailoring could provide.

His black hair was combed back in clean lines, his jaw defined and clean-shaven, his cheekbones like something cut from glass. Cold. Sharp.

The only color on him was a dark green silk tie, a small, deliberate rebellion against the otherwise grayscale world he inhabited.He didn't smile. He never did.

Not in any of the three times we'd met before. The first had been the negotiation, where I was treated more like a clause than a person. The second was for formal photographs no one would ever see. The third was this morning, ten minutes of silence in a car with leather seats and tinted windows.

Now I was his wife. A Westwood, by law. A pawn, by design.

"You'll receive a detailed schedule tonight," Adrian said, adjusting the silver cufflinks on his wrist without looking up. His voice was calm, clipped, businesslike, like he was delegating a task to his assistant, not speaking to the woman he'd just legally bound himself to.

"Pack lightly. My driver will collect you tomorrow by seven."

I wanted to ask why I wasn't going with him now. I wanted to ask why I had to be part of this farce to begin with. But mostly, I wanted to ask who he became when the mask came off, because I knew this couldn't be all there was.

Instead, I stood.The hem of my ivory dress, custom-sized, altered by hands I'd never seen, brushed the polished floor as I walked to the exit. I passed men in expensive suits and women in heels who nodded politely, completely unaware that my entire identity had just been erased and replaced with a signature.

Outside, the sky hung low and gray, like it, too, wanted to cry.

My heels clicked against the concrete as I stepped into the waiting car. The backseat smelled like new leather and pine, cold and calculated, like everything else Adrian Westwood touched.

I pressed my head against the window, watching the city blur into long lines of steel and shadow. Rain began to fall, light at first, then heavier. By the time I reached my apartment, no, my former apartment, I was soaked in more ways than one.

I stepped inside and locked the door behind me.

Then I slid to the floor. My wedding day had come and gone. There was no cake, no flowers, no dancing.

Just a contract.

And a ring too heavy for my finger.

Later that evening, I sat in front of the mirror in my bedroom, brushing the damp tangles out of my hair. I hadn't lived in it very long, banana boxes were still stacked near the door, full of relics from my old ordinary life back home. So much for moving out and starting a new life.

The soft yellow glow from the table lamp did nothing to hide the hollowness in my face. My eyes were dull. My lips too still. I looked like someone in mourning, and maybe I was.

I opened the ring box resting on the dresser. Inside, the platinum band with an emerald-cut diamond sparkled like it meant something. It was elegant, expensive, but ultimately lifeless.

I hadn't worn it yet. It didn't feel right, putting something so permanent on skin that still felt like it belonged to someone else.Three quick raps on the door broke the silence. Surprise, surprise it was my father.

"Come in," I called, standing quickly and smoothing my blouse.

He entered without hesitation, like he always had. His once-imposing frame seemed smaller now, his shoulders stooped under a weight he refused to name. His gray hair was combed neatly, but his skin looked drawn, his eyes shadowed by exhaustion, or by guilt? You never knew with him.

"Well?" he asked.

"Well what?"

He rolled his eyes like my confusion was an inconvenience. "Did you sign?"I didn't answer, he didn't need me to.

He nodded to himself, then crossed to the desk and picked up the thick folder of documents, the financial reports, legal statements and letters of intent. His salvation and my prison.

"You did good, Celeste," he said, patting the folder like it was his child.

"This buys us time."

I stared at him, bile rising in my throat.

"You mean it buys you time," I said quietly.

His smile faltered.

"You don't understand what he's capable of," I continued, my voice trembling now.

"Adrian Westwood doesn't marry. He acquires. And you-"

"-You're his wife now," he cut in, not unkindly, but firmly.

"Which means you're safe. We're all safe."I turned away before he could see the tears in my eyes.

I wanted to scream. To throw something. To burn this entire deal to the ground.

Instead I just stood there, stiff and silent. Ever the good girl.

There's only so many times you can shout and have no one listen.He left without another word and I was alone again.

That night, I couldn't sleep, so I sat on the floor by the window, knees pulled to my chest, watching the soft glow of headlights drift across the ceiling.

I couldn't stop replaying the way Adrian had looked at me during the ceremony, as though I were a memo he needed to initial, not a woman agreeing to bear his name.

CEO of Westwood Industries.Billionaire. Strategist. A man rumored to ruin companies before breakfast and charm boardrooms by noon. He was the kind of powerful that didn't need announcing.

The kind that moved pieces behind glass walls and never let anyone close enough to see the blood on his hands, and now I belonged to him.

I didn't exist to him, not as a person, not as a woman. Just a name on a dotted line, a placeholder.

But the thing about placeholders? Sometimes they stay longer than expected.

Sometimes... they learn to bite.

I picked up the ring again and held it up to the moonlight, thin and pale behind streaks of rain clouds, and stared at the reflection until I couldn't anymore.