Chapter 5: Marriage

Vivienne

For several seconds, I could only look at Lucian because there were too many sensible responses competing in my head, and none of them seemed appropriate for a man who had just proposed matrimony as though he were restructuring debt.

“You cannot be serious.”

“I would not have said it otherwise.”

“You have known me for two days.”

“I have known companies for less time before investing hundreds of millions in them.”

“I am not a company.”

“I am aware.”

“Are you?”

Lucian folded his arms, apparently prepared to wait until I finished objecting.

I pressed my fingertips against the edge of the conference table. “I walked away from Damien yesterday morning.”

“And by yesterday afternoon, he was already attacking your family.”

“That does not make marrying another man reasonable.”

“No. It makes refusing to consider every available option unreasonable.”

I gave him a look. “That sounded better in your head, didn’t it?”

“Not particularly.”

The answer was so dry that I almost laughed, which annoyed me enough to keep my face straight.

“Explain it.”

Lucian pulled the board email back onto the nearest screen.

“Damien wants your father isolated. He wants the market to believe Sterling is unstable, your lenders to become nervous, and the board to decide that restoring negotiations with Ashford is safer than trusting Richard.”

“I know what he wants.”

“A normal partnership with Vale gives him room to argue that your father panicked and ran to a competitor. A marriage removes some of that argument because it turns cooperation between Sterling and Vale into a long-term alignment rather than an emergency arrangement.”

“You are talking about public perception.”

“I am talking about leverage.”

“And what happens when Damien claims I left him for you?”

“He will.”

“You sound pleased.”

“I am not responsible for whether Damien enjoys the explanation.”

I studied him.

He had not asked whether I cared about the scandal. Damien would have started there. He would have explained what the newspapers might say, what society would think, what embarrassment I would cause everyone around me.

Lucian only seemed interested in whether the arrangement worked.

That should not have made him easier to trust.

It did not.

“What do you get?”

“Information.”

“You already have information.”

“I have whatever you decide to tell me when you decide to tell me. A formal alliance requires formal obligations.”

I shook my head. “I will tell you about future events that directly threaten Vale or Sterling. You are not getting every memory I have.”

“Why?”

“Because they belong to me.”

He did not immediately answer.

“I spent five years with a man who treated my privacy as disloyalty,” I continued. “If I asked a question, I was suspicious. If I kept something to myself, I was hiding things. If I wanted time alone, I was being dramatic. I am not signing another contract that gives a man the right to examine every corner of my life because he decided it might be useful.”

Lucian’s attention remained on me.

“Then we write limits into the agreement.”

I had expected negotiation, but the easy acceptance made me more suspicious.

“My father keeps control of Sterling.”

“I cannot guarantee what your board does.”

“You can guarantee that you do not use the marriage to acquire Sterling.”

“Yes.”

“You do not take voting control through me.”

“Agreed.”

“My existing assets remain mine.”

“Yes.”

“My accounts remain separate.”

“Yes.”

“If the marriage ends, you do not claim Sterling shares, family trusts, or anything connected to my inheritance.”

“Yes.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Do you ever argue?”

“When I disagree.”

“That is irritating.”

“I have been told.”

“And you do not decide where I go.”

“That one requires qualification.”

“There it is.”

“You told me Damien stood over a burning car while you were trapped inside it.”

“In another life.”

“He threatened your family less than twenty-four hours after you rejected him in this one. If we marry, you will have security.”

“Security is not permission to control me.”

“I did not say it was.”

“Then the agreement says exactly that.”

“It can.”

I looked away from him for a moment.

There was another condition, and I hated that saying it aloud made my palms feel damp.

“Separate bedrooms.”

Lucian’s mouth moved slightly.

I pointed at him. “Do not.”

“I have not said anything.”

“You were going to.”

“I was going to ask whether you meant privately or publicly.”

“The press is not inspecting our bedrooms.”

“Then privately.”

“And there will be no intimacy requirement.”

“Agreed.”

He answered without hesitation.

I watched him more carefully. “That was quick.”

“I do not require a contract to obtain consent.”

“Put it in writing.”

“I will.”

My phone rang.

I answered immediately. “What happened?”

“The board meeting has been moved.”

“To when?”

“Six.”

I checked the time. “That is less than four hours.”

“I am aware.”

“Who requested it?”

“Patterson, Vance, and Howard. They are claiming the lender freeze creates an emergency governance issue.”

All three names were on the list Lucian had just shown me.

“How many votes do you have?”

My father took long enough to answer that I already knew.

“Not enough.”

I closed my eyes briefly. “Do not concede anything.”

“I was going to tell you the same thing.”

“I am coming back.”

“Vivienne.”

“Yes?”

"Do not promise anything you cannot give.”

I looked at Lucian.

He had turned away far enough to give me the appearance of privacy, although there was no chance he could not hear.

“I will not.”

My father ended the call.

Lucian turned back.

“You have less than four hours.”

“I know.”

“I can announce a credit facility large enough to neutralize the board’s stated concern.”

“They will invent another concern.”

“They probably will.”

“Then your guarantee does not stop them.”

“No.”

I crossed my arms. “And we are back to marriage.”

“We never left it.”

“You are enjoying this far too much.”

“I am trying to keep your father in control of his company.”

“You could at least look inconvenienced.”

“I am inconvenienced.”

I stared at him.

He added, “I had other plans this afternoon.”

That time, I did laugh, and Lucian’s eyes remained on me long enough to make me regret giving him the reaction.

I cleared my throat. “What is the term?”

“One year.”

“Why one?”

“Long enough to survive the immediate war. Short enough that neither of us is trapped indefinitely.”

“No automatic renewal.”

“Agreed.”

“Independent lawyers.”

“Obviously.”

“Sterling legal reviews everything.”

“Yes.”

“And if I read the contract and decide I cannot do this?”

“You walk away.”

“Without consequences?”

“From me.”

The qualification was deliberate.

“Damien will still be waiting.”

“Damien is not part of the contract.”

I studied him for another moment. “Call your lawyer.”

Lucian pressed the intercom.

“Elias.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Have legal prepare a one-year marital agreement between me and Vivienne Sterling. Vivienne Sterling and me, corporate noninterference, independent finances, security provisions without personal authority, confidentiality, public representation requirements, separate private bedrooms, and no compelled physical intimacy.”

The pause on the other end lasted barely a second.

“Understood.”

I stared at the speaker after the call ended.

“Does nothing surprise that man?”

“He has worked for me for nine years.”

“That does not answer the question.”

“It answers enough of it.”

My phone vibrated with a news alert.

Damien’s photograph filled the screen beneath a headline about instability at Sterling Holdings.

He wore the expression he used when he wanted strangers to believe he was concerned about me.

“He is already building the story.”

Lucian glanced at the article. “Then stop letting him write it alone.”

“How?”

“Come to the board meeting with me.”

“That will make the rumors worse.”

“Only if the rumors hurt you.”

“And if they say I canceled my wedding because I was sleeping with Damien’s rival?”

“Were you?”

“No.”

“Then they are wrong.”

“That has never stopped the press.”

“No, but frightened people defend themselves. People with power give everyone else something new to discuss.”

I folded my arms. “What exactly do you want them discussing?”

“That Damien Ashford lost his bride to the one man he has spent years trying to defeat.”

“That will make him furious.”

“I can live with that.”

“You really hate him?”

Lucian’s face became more controlled.

“One day, you may understand the difference.”

Before I could ask what that meant, the doors opened.

Elias entered holding a tablet.

“There is another problem.”

Lucian took it from him. “What?”

“Ashford’s attorneys filed an emergency injunction against Sterling Holdings twenty minutes ago.”

I stepped closer. “On what grounds?”

“They are alleging that Miss Sterling disclosed confidential merger information to a direct competitor.”

Lucian glanced at me. “Vale.”

“Yes.”

“What can they freeze?” I asked.

“Accounts specifically tied to the proposed merger until the court reviews the claim. The hearing is tomorrow morning.”

Damien was learning.

Every decision I made showed him who I had become, and he was adjusting before I could settle into the advantage of remembering him.

Lucian handed the tablet back to Elias.

“Get the contract ready.”

Elias nodded and left.

I looked at Lucian. “You still think marriage solves this?”

“No.”

“Then why are we doing it?”

“Because a solution ends a problem. We are not dealing with one problem.”

He took the board email from the table and handed it to me.

“We are building a position from which you can fight several.”

My phone vibrated again.

A message from an unknown number.

I opened the message: You think Vale can save you?

Before I could decide whether to respond, another arrived.

Ask him what happened to his father.

I lifted my eyes to Lucian.

“What?”

I turned the screen toward him.

His hand stopped halfway toward the phone.

He read the message once, then again.

“Where did you get this?”

“An unknown number.”

“Who knows you are here?”

“Damien.”

Lucian placed my phone on the table carefully.

I had come to Vale Tower because I knew Damien hated Lucian.

Until that moment, I had never asked myself why.

“What happened to your father?”

Lucian did not answer.

And for the first time since he proposed marriage, I wondered whether the most important clause in our agreement was the one neither of us had thought to write.