Chapter 5: Mrs. Sterling

I didn't sleep after Julian left my balcony.

I sat on my bedroom floor with an ice pack on my wrist until the sun came up, watching the purple bruises bloom. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw two things: Arthur's hand squeezing my arm, and Julian's hand, warm and careful, covering it.

At 6 AM, I got up, washed my face, and put on the simplest dress I owned. A white silk dress, no brand, no diamonds. No makeup except a little lipstick. If I was going to sign away a year of my life, I didn't want to look like I was going to a funeral.

My grandfather was waiting downstairs. He had been up all night too, from the look of his eyes.

"You are really going to do this?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

I nodded. "It's the only way, Grandpa. Lin Enterprises needs the Sterling name to survive Margaret's tricks."

He looked at my wrist. I had tried to cover the bruises with a thin bracelet. He saw them anyway. His old hands clenched into fists.

"Arthur did this?"

"Arthur won't be able to do it again after today."

He didn't ask more. He just hugged me, tight, like he used to when I was little and my father was working late.

"Your father would be proud of you," he whispered into my hair. "Go. My driver will take you."

The Civil Affairs Bureau opens at 8:30 AM. I got there at 8:15.

And Julian Sterling was already waiting.

He was not in his wheelchair.

My steps faltered at the entrance.

He was standing. Standing tall, straight, leaning only slightly on a black cane. In a perfectly tailored black suit, white shirt open at the collar. His black hair was combed back. The morning light hit his face and made him look like a god carved from ice.

He was not crippled. He was not weak. He was six-foot-three of pure, terrifying power, and he was looking right at me.

"You..." I couldn't breathe. "You can walk?"

Mark, standing two steps behind him with a briefcase, looked like he wanted to disappear.

Julian's black eyes swept over me, from my bare face to my simple white dress. Something softened, just a fraction.

"Good morning, Mrs. Sterling," he said, as if I hadn't just caught the biggest lie in the city. "You are fifteen minutes early. I like punctual women."

"You lied to me," I hissed, walking up to him, keeping my voice low so the few people entering the bureau wouldn't hear. "You said— everyone says you are—"

"Everyone says a lot of things," he said calmly. "Most of them are wrong. And I never told you I couldn't walk. You assumed. Like everyone else."

He leaned down slightly, so close I could smell that cold pine scent again.

"Do you want to annul our contract because I can stand up, Vivian?"

I opened my mouth. Closed it. In my past life, I had never known this secret. I had died thinking he was in a wheelchair. If he could walk...

If he could walk, it meant the rumors were true. He used the chair to fool his enemies. To make them underestimate him. Just like I was using a contract marriage to fool mine.

He was just like me.

"No," I said, lifting my chin. "But you owe me an explanation. Later."

His almost-smile appeared. "Later, my wife."

He held out his hand. His real hand, without gloves. Large, warm, calloused.

After a second, I put my hand in his.

His fingers closed around mine, possessive and absolute. And he led me inside.

The registration was quiet. Too quiet.

Two people in black suits, no family, no friends, no flowers. The clerk at the counter took one look at Julian Sterling's ID and nearly dropped her stamp. Her hands shook so badly she had to stamp our forms three times.

"Do you, Julian Sterling, take Vivian Lin to be your lawful wife?"

"I do," he said, without hesitation, his eyes never leaving mine.

"Do you, Vivian Lin, take Julian Sterling to be your lawful husband?"

My heart was pounding. This was it. One word and I would be tied to this dangerous, beautiful monster for a year.

I thought of the fire. Of Arthur's face when he locked the door.

"I do," I said, my voice clear.

Click. Click.

Two red stamps. Two little red books. Marriage certificates.

Just like that, I was Mrs. Sterling.

Julian picked up both books and slid mine into his suit pocket before I could touch it.

"Hey! That's mine!"

"I will keep it safe," he said, matter-of-factly. "You tend to lose things. Like engagement rings you throw at people's faces."

I glared at him. He looked almost amused.

Mark opened the door for us. "Car is ready, sir. The back exit is clear—"

He didn't finish.

Because the moment we stepped out of the side door, a blinding wall of flashes exploded.

CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK!

"JULIAN STERLING! IS IT REALLY YOU!"

"MR. STERLING! WHO IS THE WOMAN WITH YOU!"

"VIVIAN LIN? THE HEIRESS WHO CANCELED HER ENGAGEMENT YESTERDAY?"

Reporters. At least twenty of them. Cameras, microphones, livestream phones. They came out of nowhere, like sharks smelling blood.

Someone had leaked our registration. Margaret? Arthur? Or maybe Julian himself?

I froze. I had wanted a quiet marriage. This was the opposite of quiet.

Julian didn't freeze. In one smooth motion, he dropped his cane — he didn't need it — and pulled me hard against his side, his arm around my waist, shielding me from the flashes.

"My wife is shy," he said, his voice cold enough to freeze the air. But he didn't let go. If anything, he held me tighter. "Move."

"Your WIFE?" A reporter screamed, nearly dropping her microphone. "Mr. Sterling, did you just get married? To Vivian Lin? Arthur Vance's ex-fiancée?"

Another reporter shoved forward. "Miss Lin! Did you cancel your engagement with Mr. Vance because you were already involved with Mr. Sterling? Is this why you exposed his debts?"

"Is this a revenge marriage, Mr. Sterling?"

The questions were vicious, exactly like the headlines that destroyed me in my past life.

I felt the old panic rise — the urge to hide, to cry, to run. But then I felt Julian's hand on my waist, firm, steady, burning through my thin dress.

I remembered who I was now.

I straightened up in his arms, looked straight into the nearest camera, and smiled. A bright, happy, newlywed smile.

"My husband and I," I said, leaning into Julian, "are very happy. As for my ex-fiancé, I wish him well in paying his debts. I hope he finds a job soon."

Julian looked down at me, surprised for a half-second, then his black eyes filled with something like pride. And something hotter.

He bent down, right in front of all the cameras, and pressed a kiss — a real, possessive, breath-stealing kiss — to my temple.

"My wife is right," he said to the cameras, his voice low but carrying. "And from today, anyone who bothers Mrs. Sterling bothers Sterling Corporation. I hope everyone is clear."

Silence. Then an even crazier frenzy of flashes.

Mark finally pushed through with three bodyguards, shoving reporters aside, getting us into the black Maybach waiting at the curb.

Inside the car, tinted windows finally hiding us, I collapsed against the seat, my heart beating out of my chest.

"Reporters," I panted. "How did they find us? I thought you said the back exit was clear!"

"I did," Julian said calmly, picking up his cane from the floor where he had dropped it. He was watching me, his arm still around me, not moving. "Mark cleared it. Which means someone on your side leaked it. Your stepmother, perhaps. She wants to embarrass you."

He took out his phone and showed me the screen.

In the ten minutes since we left the bureau, the internet had exploded.

#VivianLinJulianSterlingMarried

#RichestBillionaireMarriesExFiancee

#ArthurVanceCuckolded

The photo on top was of us just now — me in his arms, him kissing my temple. We looked... intimate. Like a real couple in love.

The business world was in chaos. Sterling stock was up 8%. Vance Holdings stock had been halted — it crashed 20% in pre-market.

My phone buzzed non-stop. Chloe calling. Margaret calling. Arthur calling. Grandpa calling.

And one new message from an unknown number.

It was a photo of me and Julian kissing, circled in red, with text:

You will regret marrying a monster, Vivian. I will never let you go. — A

Arthur.

Julian saw it over my shoulder. His expression didn't change, but the hand on my waist tightened until it almost hurt.

"My wife seems to have a pest problem," he murmured, taking my phone and turning it off with one swipe. "Don't worry, Mrs. Sterling. I will take care of it."

He looked at me, his black eyes dark and possessive in the dim car.

"Welcome home."

The car drove toward Sterling Tower, toward the mansion everyone said no woman had ever entered and left as Mrs. Sterling.

I had gotten my shield.

But as I looked at the man next to me — this beautiful, dangerous man who could walk but pretended he couldn't, who kissed me for the cameras like he owned me — I realized something that made my blood run cold and hot at the same time.

I had just walked into a different kind of trap.