Contract Marriage With The Wrong Billionaire

Chapter One

The doctor's mouth kept moving but I stopped hearing anything after "two years."

Two years.

I stared at the chart on the wall behind him and watched his lips form words that didn't register anymore because my brain had shut down somewhere between "progressive" and "terminal."

My hands gripped the edge of the examination table and the paper on it crinkled. I could hear that sound perfectly but nothing else made sense and I wondered if this was what drowning felt like.

"Miss Chen, are you listening?"

I forced myself to focus on Dr. Morrison's face and he looked concerned and I hated that look because it meant this was real and not some nightmare I could wake up from.

"I'm listening," I said and my voice came out steadier than I expected.

"If you want to have children, we're looking at a very narrow window."

He folded his hands on top of my file and the lights over his head made his glasses gleam.

"Three months at most before the treatment protocol becomes too aggressive and pregnancy would be quite impossible."

Three months.

Three months to find someone and convince them to marry me and get pregnant before my body became a war zone.

I nodded slowly and Dr. Morrison continued talking about treatment options and clinical trials and palliative care and each word felt like a small stone being dropped into my chest until I couldn't breathe properly and I had to concentrate on pulling air into my lungs while he explained how I was going to die.

"Do you have any questions, Miss Chen?"

I had a thousand questions but none of them were ones he could answer so I just shook my head and he looked relieved and signed some papers and handed me a folder that felt like it weighed a hundred pounds.

"I'd like you to schedule a follow up appointment within the week," he said. "We need to discuss your options moving forward."

"Of course." I stood up and my legs felt strange and disconnected from my body but they held me upright and I walked out of his office with my head high because I was Vivian Chen and Vivian Chen didn't fall apart in public.

The hallway stretched out in front of me and the fluorescent lights were too bright and everything smelled like antiseptic and despair and I walked past the nurses' station and the waiting room full of people who didn't know their lives were about to end and I kept walking until I found a restroom at the end of the corridor.

I pushed open the door and checked all the stalls and they were empty so I locked the main door and stood in front of the mirror and looked at my reflection.

I looked exactly the same as I had this morning when I'd gotten dressed in my Chanel suit, applied my makeup and pulled my hair into a sleek bun but the disconnect between how I looked and what was happening inside my body made me want to scream.

But I didn't scream because that would be losing control and I'd spent my entire life learning how not to lose control.

Instead I turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on my face and watched it drip down my chin and onto my silk blouse and I didn't care that it was probably ruined because what did it matter anymore.

The tears came then and I pressed my hands against the sink and watched them fall and mix with the water and disappear down the drain and I thought about my father and how I was going to tell him that his only child was dying and there would be no one to take over Chen Industries when he was gone.

My father who'd built an empire from nothing and sacrificed everything to make sure I had every opportunity and never wanted for anything and now I was going to leave him alone with a company worth billions and no heir to pass it to.

I remembered what he'd told me when I was twelve. We'd lost a major contract and the board had called for his resignation. I'd been so terrified that we'd lose everything.

"Vivian," he'd said while we sat in his study and he poured himself whiskey even though it was barely noon. "When you face a situation that seems impossible, you don't panic and you don't give up. You find the solution no one else can see and you execute it perfectly."

"But what if there is no solution?" I'd asked.

He'd smiled at me then and touched my cheek.

"There's always a solution. You just have to be smart enough to find it and brave enough to take it."

He'd kept the company and turned that loss into the biggest win of his career. I'd learned that day that the Chens didn't accept defeat.

So I wouldn't accept this either.

I straightened up and grabbed paper towels and wiped my face and fixed my makeup as best I could and looked at myself in the mirror again.

Two years and three months to have a child.

Dr. Morrison had said I needed to get pregnant soon and that meant I needed a husband and I needed one fast but I couldn't marry anyone from my world because the moment word got out that I was sick, the board would panic and the stock would crash. Then vultures would circle and everything my father built would crumble.

No.

I needed someone who didn't know who I was and who wouldn't ask questions and who I could pay to disappear when this was over. I needed someone poor and desperate.

The solution crystallized in my mind with perfect clarity and I almost laughed because it was so simple yet seems so impossible and so completely insane but it was the only option I had.

I'd leave the country, find some small town somewhere, pretend to be someone ordinary and meet a man who needed money badly enough to marry a stranger. After I get what I needed and come back to deal with the rest.

I unlocked the bathroom door and walked back down the hallway.