Chapter 3: The Wedding

There was no white dress.

Amelia had thought about that more than she expected to in the days leading up to it silly, given everything else she had to think about, but it kept coming back to her at strange hours, usually right before she fell asleep. She'd pictured her wedding exactly once before in her life, years ago, the way most girls do without meaning to, and it hadn't looked anything like this.

What she got instead was a pale gray dress a stylist picked out for her in under an hour, tailored overnight by someone whose name she never learned, delivered to the penthouse the morning of the ceremony in a garment bag with no note attached. It was beautiful. It was also, she couldn't help but notice, the exact color of Damian's eyes.

She wondered if that had been on purpose. She decided it probably hadn't. Men like Damian Blackwood didn't think about things like that. Or if they did, they'd never admit it.

The ceremony itself took eleven minutes.

It was held in a private room at the top of a hotel Amelia had only ever seen from the outside, no more than twenty guests in attendance, most of them people she didn't recognize board members, a handful of Damian's associates, a photographer whose only job was to capture images good enough for the announcement that would run in the business papers the next morning. Her mother sat in the front row in a wheelchair Amelia had rented for the day, dressed in her best blouse, crying before the officiant even started speaking.

"You look so happy," Eleanor whispered when Amelia bent down to kiss her cheek beforehand. "I didn't think I'd get to see this."

Amelia had to look away before her mother could see her face too closely. "I am happy, Mom."

It wasn't entirely a lie. She was relieved. She was terrified. Somewhere underneath both of those things, watching Damian stand at the front of the room in a black suit, unreadable as ever, she felt something else too something she didn't have a name for yet and wasn't ready to look at directly.

Nolan stood near the back, arms crossed, wearing an expression that made it clear exactly how he felt about all of this. He caught her eye once during the vows and gave her the smallest nod, not quite approval, more like *I'm here if you need me.* It was enough to get her through the rest of it.

The vows were simple, generic, clearly chosen by someone in Damian's legal team rather than written for the occasion. Amelia said her lines when prompted. Damian said his in the same flat, even voice he used for everything, like he was reading terms off a contract instead of promising to love someone.

When it came time for the rings, his hands were steady. Hers weren't.

"You may kiss the bride."

It was the one moment neither of them had discussed beforehand, and Amelia realized too late that she had no idea what she was supposed to do. Damian didn't hesitate. He stepped closer, cupped her face with one hand the first time he'd touched her at all since they'd met and kissed her, brief and careful, more performance than passion.

It still knocked the breath out of her.

She told herself it was nerves. She told herself that for a long time afterward, actually, longer than she probably should have.

The reception, if it could be called that, lasted just over an hour. Champagne, small talk, photographs. Amelia smiled until her face ached, answered the same questions from strangers over and over *how did you two meet, how long have you known each other, isn't it just so romantic* with answers she'd rehearsed the night before, half-truths dressed up to sound like the beginning of a love story.

She watched Damian do the same thing across the room, shaking hands, accepting congratulations with the same practiced ease he probably used for closing business deals. He was good at it. Better than she was. It made her wonder how many times he'd had to be someone other than himself to survive in a world like this.

At one point she caught him watching her from across the room while she talked to one of the board members' wives. Their eyes met for a second too long before he looked away. She told herself that meant nothing either.

It was nearly nine that night before Amelia finally sat down, alone, in the enormous bedroom that was now impossibly hers. The penthouse took up the entire top two floors of a building on Park Avenue, more space than she'd ever lived in, more space than she knew what to do with. Her room had its own sitting area, its own bathroom bigger than her old apartment's kitchen, a closet already half-filled with clothes in her size that she hadn't picked out herself.

She sat on the edge of the bed still wearing her wedding dress, too tired to change, and let herself cry for the first time all day. Not because she was sad, exactly. She wasn't sure what she was. Relieved and terrified and lonely and, underneath all of it, strangely hopeful in a way she didn't trust.

A knock sounded at her door around ten. She wiped her face quickly before opening it.

Damian stood in the hallway, jacket gone, tie loosened, looking more human than she'd seen him look all day. He held a folder in one hand.

"I wanted to give you this before tomorrow," he said. "House rules, for lack of a better term. Staff schedules, security protocols, my calendar for the next month so you know what events you'll need to attend." He paused, something almost like hesitation crossing his face. "And I wanted to make sure you had everything you need. Tonight."

"I'm fine," Amelia said, taking the folder. "Thank you."

He nodded once, turned to go, then stopped and looked back at her, his eyes moving briefly to her tear-streaked face before he seemed to think better of commenting on it.

"For what it's worth," he said, "you handled today better than I expected."

"Was that supposed to be a compliment?"

"It was."

He left before she could respond, his footsteps disappearing down the long hallway toward what she assumed was his own room, somewhere in the part of the penthouse she hadn't seen yet.

Amelia closed the door and leaned back against it, the folder still in her hands, and looked around the beautiful, unfamiliar room that was supposed to be her home now.

*One year,* she reminded herself. *Just one year.*

She almost believed it would be that simple.