Chapter 1 No.1

The silence in St. Patrick's Cathedral wasn't peaceful. It was heavy. It was a physical weight, pressing down on Stella's shoulders, heavier than the twenty pounds of silk and lace dragging from her waist.

She stood alone at the altar.

Three hundred people were watching her back. She could feel their gazes like tiny pinpricks, itching against her skin. The officiant, a kindly old man with bushy eyebrows, cleared his throat. The sound echoed off the vaulted ceilings, a sharp crack that made Stella flinch.

Buzz.

The phone clutched in her white-knuckled hand vibrated. It was the third time in two minutes.

Stella didn't want to look. She knew. Somewhere in the deep, primal part of her gut that processed fear before her brain could catch up, she knew. But her thumb moved anyway, sliding the screen unlock.

Bryce: I can't do this. Monica needs me. I'm sorry.

The world didn't stop. It didn't spin. It just... sharpened.

The smell of the lilies on the altar suddenly became cloying, smelling like a funeral home. The marble floor beneath her heels felt like ice. A wave of nausea rolled through her stomach, hot and acidic.

Monica. Her maid of honor. The woman who had zipped up this dress three hours ago and told her she looked beautiful.

"Stella?"

The voice came from the front pew. Mrs. Dalton. Bryce's mother.

Stella turned. Her movements were stiff, mechanical, like a doll with rusted joints. Mrs. Dalton was rushing toward her, her face arranged in a mask of performative concern, but her eyes-her eyes were cold. Hard.

"Oh, honey," Mrs. Dalton whispered, loud enough for the first five rows to hear. She reached out, her manicured claws digging into Stella's bare arm. "He called me. He said he felt... suffocated. Maybe if you hadn't been so focused on that little career of yours..."

The words hit Stella like a physical slap.

Suffocated?

She had worked two jobs to pay for the deposit on their apartment. She had built his portfolio. She had ironed his shirts this morning while he was allegedly "getting ready with the guys."

Rage, sudden and white-hot, replaced the nausea.

Stella looked at the hand gripping her arm. She looked at the crowd-the whispers were starting now, a low hum of gossip that would be all over the Upper East Side by dinner.

"Let go of me," Stella said. Her voice was low, unrecognizable to her own ears.

"Don't make a scene, Stella," Mrs. Dalton hissed, her smile tightening. "We'll handle the press. You just need to-"

Stella ripped her arm away. The friction burned her skin.

She reached up and grabbed the intricate lace veil pinned to her hair. It had cost two thousand dollars. It had taken three fittings to get right. She tore it off. Pins scraped against her scalp, drawing a tiny bead of blood, but she didn't feel the pain. She only felt the need to breathe.

She threw the veil onto the pristine marble floor. It landed in a heap of white tulle, looking like a dead ghost.

She grabbed the microphone from the stunned officiant's stand. The feedback squeal made the guests cover their ears.

"The wedding is off," Stella said. Her voice boomed, bouncing off the stained glass. "The groom is currently comforting the maid of honor. The drinks at the reception are on the coward who ran. Enjoy them."

She dropped the mic. It hit the floor with a thud that felt like a gavel strike.

Stella turned and marched down the aisle.

Head high. Chin up. Don't blink. If you blink, the tears will fall, and you will not give them that. You will not give them a single drop of salt water.

Her heart was hammering against her ribs, a frantic bird trying to break out of a cage. Thump. Thump. Thump.

She burst through the heavy bronze doors of the cathedral and out onto Fifth Avenue.

The cool October air hit her flushed face. The noise of the city-taxis honking, tourists chatting, the rumble of a bus-washed over her. It was chaotic. It was indifferent. It was perfect.

She took one step down the concrete stairs and stumbled.

The hem of her dress, the train she had lovingly picked out, caught under her heel. Gravity took over. She pitched forward, bracing her hands for the impact of the concrete, for the scrape of skin against stone.

"Watch your step."

The voice was low. Baritone. Gravel and ice.

Stella caught herself on the railing, wrenching her shoulder. She looked down.

Sitting in the shadow of a stone pillar, away from the flow of tourists, was a man in a wheelchair.

He was striking. That was the first thing her brain registered. High cheekbones, a jawline that looked like it was carved from granite, and hair the color of midnight. But his eyes were what stopped her breath. They were gray. Storm-cloud gray. And they were watching her with a detached, clinical assessment.

He wore a tuxedo. A black tie. He was dressed for a wedding, but he was sitting outside like an exile.

She recognized him. Vaguely. From the gossip columns she pretended not to read. Julian Sterling. The "Cursed Son." The Sterling family outcast who had been paralyzed in a mysterious accident five years ago and subsequently hidden away like a dirty secret.

He looked at her dress. Then at her face. He didn't offer pity. He didn't offer a tissue.

"Rough day?" he asked.

Stella let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. She wiped a smudge of mascara from under her eye with the back of her hand. "You could say that. My fiancé is currently sleeping with my best friend."

Julian's expression didn't change. He adjusted the cuff of his jacket. "Efficient of him."

Stella stared at him. The sheer callousness of the comment should have offended her. Instead, it grounded her. He wasn't looking at her like a victim. He was looking at her like a variable in an equation.

A chaotic, insane idea formed in her mind. It was born of spite. It was born of the adrenaline flooding her veins. It was born of the fact that she had just lost her apartment, her savings, and her dignity in the span of ten minutes.

She crouched down, the tulle of her dress pooling around her on the dirty steps. She looked him in the eye.

"Are you single?" she asked.

Julian paused. His hand, resting on the wheel of his chair, went still. He looked at her-really looked at her-for the first time. He saw the smear of makeup. He saw the trembling of her lower lip that she was fighting to control. But mostly, he saw the fire.

He signaled slightly with his left hand-a tiny, almost imperceptible motion. A burly man in a suit standing ten feet away stopped approaching.

"I am," Julian said slowly. "And as it happens, I'm in need of a wife. My family is threatening to enact a competency clause. They want to institutionalize me. Unless I can prove I have a stable home life."

It was a lie. A smooth, calculated lie. He wasn't at risk of being institutionalized; he owned half the skyline she was looking at. But he needed a shield. He needed a distraction to keep his uncle's spies away while he finalized his takeover. And this woman-this beautiful, shattered, furious wreck of a woman-was perfect.

"I need a husband," Stella said, her voice shaking. "I need to save my dignity. I need to show them I didn't lose."

"A marriage of convenience," Julian mused. "Transactional. Cold. I like it."

"I'm serious," Stella said.

"So am I." Julian pointed a gloved hand toward the street. "The City Clerk's office is in Lower Manhattan. It closes in an hour. We'll need a cab."

Stella stood up. She looked at the cathedral behind her, where her life had just imploded. Then she looked at the stranger in the wheelchair.

She reached down, grabbed the heavy fabric of her train, and ripped. The expensive silk tore with a satisfying shhh-rip sound. She bunched the fabric up, freeing her legs.

She walked behind his wheelchair and gripped the handles. The metal was cold.

"Let's go," she said.

She pushed him to the curb and hailed a taxi with the ferocity of a native New Yorker.

The ride down to Worth Street was a blur of motion and silence. Stella stared out the window, watching the city streak by, her heart still racing. Julian sat stoically, checking his watch, calculating the traffic.

They arrived at the City Clerk's office just as the security guard was locking the doors. Stella practically threw herself at the glass, pleading with her eyes until he let them in.

The office smelled of floor wax and boredom. The clerk, a woman with cat-eye glasses, looked up from her crossword puzzle. She looked at Stella's torn designer dress. She looked at Julian's tuxedo.

"License?" she asked, popping her gum.

They filled out the paperwork in silence. The pen felt slippery in Stella's sweaty hand.

Name: Stella Quinn.

Name: Julian Sterling.

When it was time to sign, Julian's hand was steady. He signed with a flourish, a sharp, angular signature that commanded space on the page.

They exchanged rings bought from the counter for twenty dollars each. Cheap gold-plated bands that would turn their fingers green in a week.

"By the power vested in me by the State of New York," the clerk droned, "I pronounce you husband and wife."

No kiss. Just a nod.

They walked-and rolled-out of the building into the twilight. The city lights were flickering on.

Stella stopped on the sidewalk. The adrenaline was fading, replaced by a bone-deep exhaustion. She looked at the man she had just legally bound herself to.

"So," she said, her voice sounding very small in the big city. "Where do we live?"