Chapter 2: Terms and Conditions

The building where Blackwood Industries kept its headquarters didn't look real from the street. Amelia stood on the sidewalk at eight forty in the morning, looking up at sixty floors of black glass that seemed to swallow the morning light instead of reflecting it, and told herself that turning around was still an option.

It wasn't, really. She knew that. But it helped to pretend for a second.

Inside, the lobby was quiet in a way that felt expensive. Marble floors, no clutter, a security desk manned by two people who looked at her like they already knew she didn't belong there. She gave her name. A woman in a gray suit appeared almost instantly, as if she'd been waiting just for Amelia, and led her to a private elevator without a single wasted word.

The ride up was smooth and silent. Amelia watched the numbers climb and tried to breathe normally.

By the time the doors opened on the top floor, her hands were cold.

Damian Blackwood's office took up the entire corner of the building, floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides, the city spread out below like something small enough to hold in one hand. He was standing when she walked in, not sitting behind the desk the way she'd pictured, and for a second all Amelia could do was look at him.

The photograph in Patricia's folder hadn't done him justice, and somehow that made things worse. He was tall, dressed in a dark suit that fit like it had been made for exactly this moment, and his face held the same stillness it had in every picture she'd ever seen of him. Nothing about him looked warm. Nothing about him looked like a man who needed anything from anyone.

"Miss Hart." He didn't offer his hand. He gestured instead to the chair across from his desk. "Sit down."

She sat. He didn't sit right away, choosing instead to stand by the window for a moment longer, looking out at the city like he was finishing a thought that had nothing to do with her. Then he turned, walked around the desk, and sat down across from her.

"I assume Patricia explained the basic terms," he said.

"She gave me the outline. Not the details."

"Then let's cover the details." His voice was even, businesslike, the kind of voice that made her feel like she was sitting through a job interview instead of discussing marriage. "One year. We marry publicly, live together, attend the events my position requires. In exchange, I clear any debt in your name, and I place a settlement in an account for your mother's care, effective immediately upon signing, regardless of what happens after."

"Regardless of what happens?"

"If you leave before the year is finished, the money stays where it is. I'm not interested in games, Miss Hart. If you agree to this, I expect you to see it through."

Amelia studied him for a long moment. There was something strange about hearing terms like this said so plainly, without any attempt to make them sound kinder than they were. She'd expected him to try to sell her on it. He wasn't trying to sell her on anything.

"Why me?" she asked. "You don't know me. You could have anyone."

Something flickered behind his eyes, gone before she could name it. "I don't need to know you. I need a wife who understands the arrangement is temporary and won't mistake it for something it isn't."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one you're getting today."

She sat with that for a second, feeling the first small spark of irritation cut through her nerves. It steadied her, a little. "I want it in writing. Everything. What happens to the money if my mother needs more than what's in the account. What happens if you decide to end things early instead of me. I'm not signing something I haven't read three times."

For the first time since she'd walked in, something in his expression shifted not quite a smile, but close to respect. "Good. I'd have been concerned if you agreed without asking."

"I haven't agreed to anything yet."

"No," he said. "You haven't."

He had his assistant bring in the paperwork twenty minutes later, thick as a small book, and Amelia read through as much of it as she could while Damian sat across from her, working on something on his laptop like her presence in the room was an afterthought. She noticed he didn't rush her. She noticed, too, that every clause she questioned, he answered directly, without the vague reassurances she'd expected from a man like him.

"What happens after the year?" she asked, near the end. "Divorce, I assume."

"Divorce," he confirmed. "Clean. No further obligation on either side."

"And during the year? Are there " She hesitated, unsure how to ask it. "Expectations. Beyond appearances."

He looked up at her then, and for the first time she saw something almost like amusement in his face, cold and brief. "This isn't that kind of arrangement, Miss Hart. You'll have your own room. Your own life, within reason. I require a wife for the public. Nothing more."

Relief loosened something in her chest that she hadn't realized was tight.

"One more thing," she said. "My mother can't know the truth. Not the real terms. She's sick. If she thinks I married someone for money instead of—" Amelia stopped herself, embarrassed by how close she'd come to saying something that sounded almost hopeful. "She just can't know. It would break her heart."

Damian studied her for a moment, unreadable again. "Agreed. As far as anyone outside this office is concerned, we're a couple who married quickly and happily. What you tell your mother is your business."

Amelia looked back down at the papers in her lap, her father's debts listed out in black and white, the number that had been keeping her up at night reduced to a single line item that would disappear the moment she signed her name.

She thought of Ferris's voice, calm and terrible. She thought of her mother, asleep in the chair by the window, thinner every week. She thought of Nolan's face, worried and honest, telling her to be careful.

Then she picked up the pen.

"If I do this," she said, "I need you to promise me something that isn't in the contract."

Damian raised an eyebrow slightly, the closest thing to curiosity she'd seen from him yet. "I'm listening."

"Don't lie to me. About anything that actually matters. I can handle a fake marriage. I can't handle being made a fool of."

Something passed over his face then, quick and unreadable, gone before she could figure out what it meant. For a moment he didn't answer at all, and Amelia wondered if she'd asked for the one thing he couldn't give her.

"You have my word," he said finally.

She would think about that moment many times in the months that followed the stillness in his face when he said it, the way his voice hadn't wavered at all, even though, as she would later learn, it was the first lie he told her.

Amelia signed her name at the bottom of the page.