CHAPTER FIVE

Emma's Pov 

The wedding dress arrived at six a.m., three days before the ceremony. I stared at it hanging in my room, white silk, simple and elegant, exactly what I would have chosen for a real wedding. That made it worse somehow.

Patricia appeared in my doorway with coffee and a tablet. "Good morning. We have final preparations today. Hair and makeup trial at nine, photographer meeting at eleven, and Alexander wants to rehearse your vows at two."

"Rehearse vows?" I took the coffee gratefully. "I thought we were doing standard vows."

"You are, but you need to practice saying them without looking like you're being held hostage." Patricia's tone was brisk. "The press will be watching for any sign this isn't real. Sterling's team is already spreading rumors."

"What kind of rumors?"

Patricia hesitated. "That you're an escort Alexander hired. That the marriage is a green card situation. That you're after his money. The usual ugliness when a wealthy man marries someone unknown." She set the tablet down. "Ignore it. Focus on your role."

But I couldn't ignore it. After Patricia left, I googled myself and immediately regretted it. The articles were vicious. Gold digger. Nobody. Opportunist. One tabloid had found my father's obituary and was speculating I'd targeted Alexander specifically because I was desperate.

They weren't wrong, which made it hurt more.

"You're reading about yourself."

I jumped. Alexander stood in my doorway, hair damp from a shower, wearing a suit that probably cost more than my car used to be worth before the bank repossessed it.

"How did you know?"

"Because I'm reading about myself too. They're calling me a fool for believing a woman like you could actually love someone like me." He walked in, took my phone, and set it face down. "Don't read the comments. They're designed to hurt."

"A woman like me," I repeated. "What does that even mean?"

"Poor. Unknown. Normal." He said it without judgment, just stating facts. "My world doesn't trust normal. They assume everyone wants something."

"I do want something. Two million dollars."

"At least you're honest about it." Alexander sat on the edge of my bed, and I realized this was the most casual I'd ever seen him. "David still hasn't found the mole. Whoever's feeding Sterling information knows we're looking now. They've gone quiet."

"Do you think it's me?"

The question hung in the air. Alexander looked at me for a long moment.

"No."

"Why not? I'm the newest person in your life. I have the most obvious motive."

"Because you can't lie to save your life, Emma. You wore your heart on your face at dinner with Margaret. If you were working for Sterling, you'd be better at hiding it." He stood. "Get ready. We have a long day ahead."

The vow rehearsal was torture. We stood in Alexander's home office while Patricia played a recording of wedding music from her phone, and I had to look into his eyes and promise to love him forever while knowing it was all fake.

"I, Emma, take you, Alexander, to be my lawfully wedded husband." My voice cracked on the word husband. "To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do us part."

"You're crying," Alexander said quietly.

I touched my face, surprised to find tears. "Sorry. It's just that my dad used to say these vows were the most important promise two people could make to each other. He said you should never say them unless you mean them with everything you are." I wiped my eyes. "This feels wrong."

Patricia made a note on her tablet. "We'll need waterproof mascara for the actual ceremony. Tears are good, very believable."

"Patricia, give us a moment," Alexander said.

She left, and suddenly we were alone in the heavy silence. Alexander pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to me. The gesture was so old-fashioned and unexpected that I almost laughed.

"Your father sounds like he was a good man."

"He was the best man." I dabbed at my eyes. "He would hate this. He would hate that I'm making a mockery of something he believed in."

"Then why are you doing it?"

"Because he also taught me that survival comes first. That you do what you have to do to protect yourself and the people you love." I looked up at Alexander. "He had a year of experimental treatments that insurance wouldn't cover. I sold everything, worked myself into the ground, made promises I couldn't keep, all to buy him a few more months. He died anyway, and the bills remained. So yes, this feels wrong, but wrong is better than being homeless."

Alexander was quiet for a moment. "My father taught me that love was a weakness. He was drunk the night he died, driving home from a business dinner where he'd been celebrating a major deal. My mother was in the passenger seat. I watched them leave, watched him stumble to the car, and I didn't stop him because I was fifteen and angry about something stupid I can't even remember now."

My heart clenched. "Alexander"

"Harold told me at the funeral that my father's emotions made him weak. That if he'd been stronger, more controlled, he wouldn't have gotten drunk. He wouldn't have crashed. He wouldn't have killed my mother and himself." Alexander's voice was flat, emotionless. "So I learned to be strong. I learned to control everything, feel nothing. And it worked. I built an empire. I never made mistakes driven by emotion."

"But you were alone."

"Alone is safe."

I stood and walked to him, close enough to see the walls in his eyes. "What if I told you that you don't have to be alone anymore? That this doesn't have to be just business?"

"I'd say you're confusing the performance with reality."

"Am I?" I reached up and touched his face, feeling him tense under my hand. "When you kissed me at the press conference, you felt something. I know you did."

"Emma." His voice was a warning.

"I'm not asking you to love me. I'm just asking you to stop pretending you're made of ice." My thumb brushed his cheekbone. "You're allowed to feel things, Alexander. Your uncle was wrong."

For a moment, I thought he might kiss me. His eyes dropped to my lips, his breath quickened. Then his phone rang, shattering the moment. He stepped back, answering it.

"What? When?" His face went pale. "I'm on my way."

"What happened?"

"Sterling just held a press conference. He's claiming he has proof the marriage is fake, copies of our contract, recordings of conversations, everything." Alexander grabbed his jacket. "He's giving the media until tomorrow morning to prepare their stories. By tomorrow afternoon, the world will know we're frauds."

"What do we do?"

"We move the wedding up. We get married tonight, before he can stop us. If we're legally married, it's harder to prove fraud." He was already texting rapidly. "Patricia can get an emergency license. David will arrange a venue. We'll have a small ceremony with just essential witnesses."

"Tonight? Alexander, that's insane".

"Do you want your two million dollars or not?" He looked at me, and the vulnerability from moments ago was gone. The ice was back. "Because if Sterling exposes us before we're married, the contract is void. You get nothing, and I lose everything. So yes, we're getting married tonight, and yes, it's insane. Welcome to my world, Emma. Nothing about this has ever been sane."