Chapter 3: The Contract

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• Married to my Arrogant Sponsor    Chapter 30: Her Face, Everywhere

  The morning after the fundraiser started quietly. Too quietly. Until it didn’t. Ava stirred beneath the soft weight of the duvet, sunlight spilling across the bed like a spotlight she hadn’t asked for. The peace was fleeting. Her ears picked up movement downstairs Luisa’s voice, strained and clipped. Then came the words. “It’s everywhere.” That jolted her. Barefoot, robe hastily tied, Ava padded down the spiral staircase, heartbeat quickening with each step. She found Luisa at the kitchen island, her face pale, staring at a tablet screen. “What’s everywhere?” Ava asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Luisa turned the screen toward her wordlessly. And there it was. The headline screamed louder than any crowd at the event the night before. “Ava Sinclair: Wife, Woman, or Wolfe’s Greatest Distraction?” A collage sat beneath it her picture at the podium mid-speech, a still from a campus protest she attended in college, a grainy photo of her and Joe outside Greyline Apartments.

• Married to my Arrogant Sponsor    Chapter 29: Public Love, Private War

  The estate was nothing like Ava expected. It didn’t reek of old money the way she thought it would. No over polished silver, no waiters trailing behind with champagne on gold trays, no women draped in designer fabrics like war medals. Instead, the place smelled of aged wood and blooming roses, of stories passed down in leather-bound journals, not tabloids. A stone manor nestled into a hillside, lined with rose gardens so vivid it looked like nature had written a love letter to silence. It was Grayson’s world just not the version he usually showed her. She wore a champagne colored satin gown, the kind that kissed her shoulders and skimmed her waist like it was stitched to remember her. She didn’t choose it to impress anyone. She chose it because it made her feel powerful. Feminine, but not fragile. The kind of beautiful that didn’t ask for approval. Grayson, beside her, wore tailored charcoal. His tie undone just enough to remind the room that control was his accessory. As they st

• Married to my Arrogant Sponsor    Chapter 28: Letters You Shouldn’t Read

  The morning sun filtered gently through the blinds, scattering warm streaks across the marble floors. The mansion was quiet too quiet, the kind that made thoughts louder and secrets harder to ignore. Grayson stood near Ava’s desk. He hadn’t meant to linger. Not really. He’d come in to grab his cufflinks he was sure he left them somewhere in her room the night before, after tea and soft silences. But when his eyes fell on the leather-bound journal half-open at the corner of her desk, curiosity pulled at him like gravity. He shouldn’t have looked. But he did. The letter was wedged between the pages, the ink slightly smudged, like it had been read too many times or maybe cried over once. It wasn’t the writing that froze him. It was the name. Joe. His eyes moved over the page, even as his conscience whispered for him to stop. If I could go back, I wouldn’t leave you standing in that kitchen alone. You didn’t deserve silence for an answer. You didn’t deserve me leaving without

• Married to my Arrogant Sponsor    Chapter 27: The Name She Buried

  Ava hadn’t meant to return to Greyline Apartments.The building sat quietly in a forgotten corner of the city, surrounded by untrimmed hedges and leaning fences. Time didn’t move here it stalled, like it was waiting for someone to come back and finish the story. The windows were still smudged with the city’s breath, the same way they’d always been. The buzzing neon sign above the door still flickered, blinking like it couldn’t decide whether to live or die.Unit 3B.Her old apartment.The last place she’d been her, without contracts or titles or complicated love. The hallway smelled of old paint and something burnt maybe toast, maybe someone’s forgotten dreams. The dent in the door from the night she left Joe was still there, a shallow echo of a deeper wound.She wasn’t sure why she came. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was guilt. Maybe she just wanted to prove to herself that she had moved on.But the moment she stepped onto the worn welcome mat, her breath caught.There tucked just

• Married to my Arrogant Sponsor    Chapter 26: Stillness isn’t safety

  Chapter 26 Stillness Isn’t SafetyThe sun filtered through the lace curtains in pale slivers, casting ribbons of gold across the marble floor. Ava stood at the window, motionless, watching the clouds drift like whispers overhead. It was too quiet too still. And Ava had lived long enough to know that stillness never meant peace.It meant something was coming.She turned away from the view and glanced around her bedroom lavish, yes, but it never quite felt like hers. Her eyes landed on the shelf by the desk, where her journals were neatly stacked in a leather box. She walked over, reached for the top one only to freeze.Her hand hovered.One was missing.Her most recent journal. The one with pressed flowers tucked between the pages and the ink still fresh from the night she couldn’t sleep. Gone.A chill slid down her spine.She searched again under the bed, behind the nightstand, even in her closet but it was nowhere. It wasn’t like Ava to misplace things. And it wasn’t like this house

• Married to my Arrogant Sponsor    Chapter 25: Too Quiet to Be Safe

  It was the quiet that unsettled her most.The kind of quiet that crept under your skin and sat heavy on your chest like something was coming but it didn’t say when.Ava tapped her pen against the side of her notebook as the lecturer’s voice faded into background noise. Her classmates laughed at something behind her. She didn’t turn around.Since returning to school, she’d worn her invisibility like armor. And somehow, being the girl married to a billionaire only made it easier. People either stayed back out of intimidation or pretended not to see her at all.But today, she felt seen. Not by her classmates by something else.Or someone.She’d spotted it again. That same black SUV parked near the campus gate, tucked between a laundry shop and a vending kiosk. It wasn’t unusual except it had been there three times this week. Same dark tint. Same stillness. No driver ever stepped out.Coincidence? She wasn’t sure she believed in those anymore.When class ended, Ava stepped into the sunlit