Chapter 4

Laya didn’t sleep, not really. She spent the night tangled in her sheets, limbs heavy and restless, her mind endlessly circling back to the chapel and Cybil Ashcroft’s voice: smooth, composed, and razor sharp beneath its warmth.

“Is it worse than watching everything fall apart for the both of us?”

The words slithered into her thoughts like a vine wrapping around the trunk of a dying tree: quiet, steady, and unshakable.

The very idea of marrying a man on the verge of death, one she barely knew, was grotesque in theory: cold, calculated, transactional — everything she had never been.

Yet, every time she tried to dismiss it, Kyle’s face surged to the front of her mind: pale, fragile, with that quiet smile he reserved only for her, the one that never stopped being protective even as his own body betrayed him. She saw him as a child, curled in their father’s lap, arms wrapped tight around John Kerrigan’s neck as if he’d never let go.

She remembered the first time she had met him. Laya, a scared eleven-year-old with no parents and too many walls up, stood awkwardly in the Kerrigan foyer while John introduced her as “our new family.”

Kyle, nine years old and missing his two front teeth, grinned up at her and said, “Don’t worry, I don’t bite. Much.”

He had been her first real friend.

She had been adopted, but John never made a distinction between biological and chosen blood. They were his children, his legacy, his everything.

When the diagnosis came: ALS - Lou Gehrig’s disease, the words fell from the doctor’s mouth like a death sentence. The months that followed blurred into hospital visits, feeding tubes, wheelchairs, and silence. So much silence. Eventually even John’s voice failed him.

His spirit, however, remained unbroken.

He taught Laya everything he could while he still had the strength to guide her hands across company ledgers and legal filings. He made it clear from the beginning that Henry would handle the bulk of the business and Laya’s role was to protect Kyle.

“He’ll need you, sweetheart,” he told her once, his fingers trembling as he typed into the speech device. “He’s strong, but he’s not invincible. You’ll carry each other.”

She promised him and had not broken that promise, even as everything unraveled: the company funds vanished overnight and the last remaining hope for Kyle’s recovery came with a price tag large enough to make the gods laugh.

She stared at the ceiling as the hours ticked by, gray light slowly blooming at the edges of the curtains. Her stomach tightened, her throat dried, and her entire body felt like it belonged to someone else, a stranger holding too much weight.

How had it all come to this?

Laya closed her eyes and finally, mercifully, drifted into sleep, though it was not peaceful. She dreamed she was underwater, arms heavy as lead, breath caught in her lungs. A blurry shape, Kyle, floated just out of reach, eyes wide with silent pleading.

She kicked, thrashed, reached, but the deeper she swam, the farther he slipped away.

When she woke, gasping, sunlight leaked into the room and her cheeks were wet with tears. That was the moment she knew she was going to hear Cybil Ashcroft out.

Laya sat at the edge of her bed, fingertips resting against her temples. The hotel room felt impossibly quiet, a stale stillness left behind by the ghosts of last night’s thoughts. She reached for her phone on the nightstand and opened her messages.

There were three unread ones from Henry:

• HENRY: Board meeting postponed. Legal is in a frenzy. Will update.

• HENRY: How is Kyle? Do you need me at the hospital today?

• HENRY: Let me know if you’re okay. Still looking into alternate funding options.

She stared at the screen for a long moment. Henry was doing everything he could; they both were. Some things, however, couldn’t be solved with strategy, they needed miracles or very well-structured contracts.

Laya stood and walked to the mirror. Her reflection looked tired. Dark hair hung loose over her shoulders, her eyes shadowed with exhaustion. Yet there was something else, resolve.

It did not take long to find Cybil Ashcroft. The woman moved like royalty even in a hospital, always impeccably dressed, always unshaken, with a sense of command.

She was seated in the private waiting lounge just outside the ICU, sipping what looked like green tea from a porcelain travel cup that Laya suspected cost more than her entire wardrobe.

Laya approached slowly.

“I assume you’ve had the night from hell,” Cybil said without looking up.

Laya managed a breath. “You could say that.”

Cybil finally looked at her. Her sharp eyes softened just slightly.

“I meant it when I said I’d understand if you said no.”

Laya sat down across from her. “I didn’t say no.”

Something flickered across Cybil’s expression, surprise, perhaps, though it disappeared quickly.

“I came to listen,” Laya said, “to understand what exactly you’re proposing. No promises.”

“Of course,” Cybil replied, folding her hands. “I wouldn’t expect any.”

The air between them shifted, becoming crystalline and deliberate, businesslike with a faint undercurrent of strategy masked by civility.

“I won’t insult your intelligence,” Cybil said. “This would be a contractual marriage, legal, with no expectation of emotional intimacy. When he passes,” her voice caught briefly, “you would be his widow. And with that comes the estate.”

Laya did not speak, Cybil continued.

“I’ve already spoken with our lawyer, hypothetically of course. There are ways to expedite legal marriage in cases like this. Witnesses, notaries, all can be arranged within twenty-four hours.”

Laya swallowed. “Would Daniel agree to this?”

“He’s unconscious,” Cybil said quietly. “But his living will gives me power of attorney while incapacitated. He trusted me to make decisions in his best interest. I believe, given the stakes, he would understand.”

Laya’s heart twisted. It felt wrong, everything about it, but it also felt like a way forward.

“Aren’t you worried what people will say?”

Cybil’s expression hardened slightly. “I stopped caring about whispers the day I buried my husband. The world doesn’t get a say in how we survive it.”

Laya looked down at her hands and thought of Kyle again, the machines, the quiet beep of his heart monitor, the way he squeezed her fingers in the night when he was lucid enough to know she was there. She thought of John, his voice, his final wishes, and she thought of herself, alone, sinking deeper each day, trying to save everyone with nothing but air in her lungs.

This felt like air or something close enough, a lifeline wrapped in thorns.

She cleared her throat. Her voice was low. “Tell me exactly what it entails. No fluff. No ambiguity.”

Cybil did not hesitate. “You marry Daniel. Immediately. Today, if possible. I’ll arrange everything, a magistrate, legal witness, expedited paperwork.”

Laya’s fingers tightened around each other in her lap.

“As soon as the marriage is legally binding,” Cybil continued, “Kyle’s medical treatments will begin. Every cost covered in full, with no delays.”

Laya closed her eyes for a moment. That alone felt like a miracle. She knew, however, that it was not the end.

“There’s more, isn’t there?”

“Yes,” Cybil said, her eyes locking with hers. “Once you’re married, we move to the second part of the agreement. Daniel’s sperm was frozen years ago on the advice of our family physician after his first health scare. You’ll undergo artificial insemination.”

Laya’s breath caught.

Cybil pressed on, her tone steady. “The doctors are convinced Daniel will not recover. He’s on life support. I don’t expect him to wake up. Legally, medically, ethically, he is still viable as a biological father. If you conceive and carry his child, the estate is secured. Our lawyer has drawn the papers accordingly.”

“And if I don’t get pregnant?” Laya whispered.

“You’ll have as many tries as medically allowed, with our full financial support for fertility treatments, IVF, hormone therapy, whatever it takes. If after all efforts it’s not possible, the contract is void and you’ll walk away. Kyle’s treatment would stop.”

It was a line in the sand, a ticking clock.

“And if I do?” Laya asked.

“If you do,” Cybil said, her eyes steady, “you’ll be free the moment the child is born. The estate will be protected, Daniel’s legacy secured, and as promised, Kyle’s care guaranteed for life. A trust fund will be established, fully legal, untouchable, bulletproof. Your role will be finished. What you choose to do after is entirely up to you.”

The silence that followed was thick, drowning the hospital hum beyond the walls.

This contract was soaked in desperation, a gamble with flesh, blood, and heartbreak. Yet it was also the only option left that did not end in slow, irreversible loss.

Laya opened her mouth to speak, then stopped. She stared down at her hands, which were no longer trembling. For the first time in weeks, they were steady.

“I want a copy of the contract,” she said quietly. “I want to read every word and have my own lawyer look it over.”

“Of course,” Cybil said.

“And,” Laya added, “if I agree to this, I’m not doing it for you or Daniel. This is for Kyle.”

Cybil inclined her head. “As it should be.”