Chapter 4

I had been proposed to exactly zero times in my life. Zero. Twenty-four years on this planet, four years of nursing school, countless double shifts, one broken heart in college, yet somehow nobody had ever looked at me and thought, ‘Yes, that's the man I want to marry.’

Dates with girls would either end in “It’s not you, it’s me.” which I know is a massive lie, or they’d just stop responding after the first date.

Then, somehow, on a random Tuesday evening, one of the richest women in New York had walked out of a bank with me and asked me to marry her.

Life was really funny like that. Similar to how getting hit by a bus is funny.

I unlocked the door to my apartment and immediately regretted coming home.

The kitchen light was still on. That means one thing.

That meant my mother was awake.

Wonderful.

“You're late.”

There we go. That’s my mom. I hadn't even taken my shoes off yet.

“Good evening to you too, my dearest mother.”

She sat at the tiny dining table, bills scattered in front of her like she was trying to solve a puzzle designed by Satan himself. I recognized every envelope from across the room.

Electricity.

Water.

Rent.

Student loans.

The lawsuit.

My favorite collection. Matter of fact, I’d want all of those papers buried with me in my coffin.

“You went to the bank?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

I sighed.

How exactly was I supposed to explain this?

No loan, Mom. But don't worry. A billionaire proposed to me in the parking lot.

"Didn't work out."

She sighed and rubbed her temples.

"We're running out of options, Sawyer."

I knew. Out of everyone in this family, I knew it the most.

I saw it every morning when she thought nobody was looking. The way she'd stare at our refrigerator and mentally calculate how many meals we still had left before payday.

I saw it when she lied and said she wasn't hungry.

I saw it when she quietly Googled second jobs at midnight.

Trust me.

I knew.

“I'll figure something out.”

My mother laughed bitterly.

“You always say that.”

Because I always had. It’s not like I have a lot of choice.

My father was a deadbeat. Nursing school wasn’t as expensive as other programs but it still made me loan a significant amount of money. My nursing job doesn’t even pay enough for me to settle that loan while providing for bills. Figuring something out had become my personality out of survival.

The problem is I’m starting to doubt that.

I walked into my room and closed the door behind me.

Calling it a room was generous. It was barely big enough for a bed, a desk, and the mountain of laundry currently judging me from the corner.

I sat on the mattress and pulled Eleanor Ashford's business card from my folder.

The white cardstock practically screamed money.

Eleanor Marie Ashford. Chief Executive Officer. Ashford Links.

I turned it over for what had to be the fiftieth time.

Nothing changed. It was still absurd.

The woman was beautiful, sure. Terrifyingly intelligent. Possibly insane.

But beautiful.

No sane person walks up to a stranger and says, "I need a husband."

Then again, no sane person carries around a folder labeled Lawyer because he punched someone's grandson at a hospital.

Maybe we were both losing our minds. Insanity is a common ground.

I dropped backward onto my bed and stared at the ceiling.

“Give me a number.”

What number was I even supposed to give her? Ten thousand dollars?

Twenty?

Fifty?

How much money was enough to legally tie yourself to a stranger? More importantly, how desperate was I?

I glanced toward the folder sitting on my desk.

Student loans due in two days.

Three unpaid bills.

A court hearing in four weeks.

The lawyer I'd spoken to that morning wanted a retainer f*e that was larger than my bank account.

My phone buzzed.

G****e News. The Annual Social Ball is in three days, apparently. I heard that it's the Met Gala of the business world. Like the Met Gala isn’t enough business and capitalism themed enough.

Wait.

Three days. Three days?

Eleanor Ashford needs a husband in three days.

Could it be because of this event?

My brain keeps on repeating it.

Eleanor Marie Ashford. Chief Executive Officer. Ashford Links.

The Eleanor Ashford.

The woman whose face appeared in financial magazines every other month. The woman people online called the Ice Queen of Wall Street despite the fact that she barely looked old enough to have graduated college.

And somehow, the woman looked at me and decided we’re both desperate enough to take each other.

I snorted to myself. Those words shouldn’t even be forming one sentence. At least not one that made sense.

None of this makes sense.

I thought back to Eleanor standing outside the bank.

The confidence in her voice.

The exhaustion in her eyes.

“You need money. I need my freedom.”

It hadn't sounded manipulative. If anything, she'd sounded desperate. Just like me.

My phone rang.

Marcus.

I answered on the third ring.

“Adrian,” he started, “Tell me the bank hopping was successful.”

Silence. Mostly because I don’t know if I’m gonna tell him that the last bank I went to almost lost me my principles.

“It wasn’t. Something else happened.”

“What do you mean it wasn’t? You asked for a day off and nothing happened?” my best friend asked with an exasperated voice, “Wait, what else happened?”

“The CEO of Ashford Links asked me to marry her.”

For three glorious seconds, I thought he'd finally been left speechless.

Then—

"Are you high right now?"

“You think I can buy weed with the balance that I have on my bank account right now?”

Another pause.

“Sawyer, please. It's Tuesday.”

“I know.”

“It's seven in the evening.”

“I'm aware.”

“And you're telling me that Eleanor Ashford herself walked up to you and proposed marriage?”

“Contract marriage.”

Marcus burst out laughing.

Not normal laughter. The kind of laughter that made me question why we'd been friends for fifteen years.

“You absolutely got scammed.”

“She gave me her business card.”

That shut him up.

For about two seconds.

“Okay, explain.”

I sighed and recounted the entire story.

The loan.

The teller.

The parking lot.

The proposal.

The business card.

By the time I finished, Marcus was unusually quiet.

“You're serious.”

“I've been serious for the last ten minutes.”

“Dude.”

“I know.”

“No, I don’t think you do.”

I threw myself backward onto the bed.

“Thank you for that insightful contribution.”

“Sawyer, this is either the greatest opportunity you've ever been given or the opening scene of a true-crime documentary.”

I stared at the cracks in my ceiling.

“What would you do?”

Marcus didn't answer immediately.

“Honestly? I'd think about it.”

I frowned.

“You would?”

“You're drowning, man,” he pointed out like I didn’t already know, “Actually, if I were you… I would’ve said yes right away. You need the money.”

That sentence hit harder than I expected.

Because he wasn't wrong.

Bills.

Loans.

The lawsuit.

Mom.

Everything was piling up at once, and for the first time in my life, hard work alone didn't seem like enough.

Marcus sighed on the other end.

“Look, I'm not saying marry a stranger. That's insane.”

“Comforting.”

“But you're telling me that the richest woman in New York needs something from you just as badly as you need something from her.”

I thought back to Eleanor standing outside the bank.

The confidence in her voice. The exhaustion in her eyes. The contrast is loud.

"You need money. I need my freedom."

It hadn't sounded manipulative. If anything, she'd sounded desperate.

Just like me.

“I don't know.”

“Then think about it.”

“I've been doing nothing but think about it.”

“Good. Keep doing that.”

I laughed quietly.

“You're useless.”

“That's what friends are for.”

After hanging up, I did what any rational human being would do after being proposed to by a billionaire.

I Googled her.

The search results were immediate. Eleanor Ashford closes billion-dollar expansion deal. Ashford Links announces record-breaking profits. The youngest CEO in company history.

Pictures after pictures after pictures.

Business conferences.

Magazine covers.

Charity galas.

Interviews.

In every single one, she looked composed.

Perfect posture. Perfect smile. Perfect answers.

The woman I'd met outside the bank was nowhere to be found.

There were no photos of Eleanor who'd stood in front of me and admitted she was terrified of losing her freedom.

For some reason, that made me sad.

I clicked on an interview from six months ago.

The interviewer had asked where she saw herself in ten years.

Her answer was simple.

"Hopefully somewhere peaceful."

Peaceful.

That was her answer. Not richer. Not more successful.

Peaceful.

For the first time that evening, I found myself smiling.

Because suddenly, Eleanor Ashford felt less like a billionaire and more like a person. A very strange person, ut a person nonetheless.

I glanced at the clock on my nightstand.

9:43 p.m.

My eyes drifted back to the business card on my desk.

Tomorrow. I'd promised her an answer tomorrow.

I picked the card up again, tracing my thumb over the embossed letters.

This was insane. Absolutely insane. Every instinct in my body was screaming at me to run in the opposite direction.

But another voice—quieter, more desperate—kept whispering the same thing.

What if this is your way out?

I hated that voice.

Mostly because I couldn't tell whether it belonged to hope or desperation.

For the first time in years, I had no idea which one was winning.

My phone lit up in the darkness.

Unknown Number.

For a ridiculous second, I thought it was Eleanor.

It wasn't.

It was a member of the hospital’s legal team.

“Sawyer, we have a problem.”