No Time To Breathe

The room had gone too quiet after Frederick said it. Three days. That was all the time he was giving them.

Amelia didn’t speak at first. She just stared at him, half expecting him to take it back, to say the anesthesia hadn’t fully worn off and he’d been delirious. But he didn’t blink. He looked at her like a man who’d already made up his mind, and nothing she could say would change it.

She wasn’t surprised he still wanted the wedding. That had been part of the agreement all along. But she hadn’t expected this version of it. Not three days after he almost died. Not while she still felt the echo of his blood under her fingernails. Not while her nerves were still fraying at the edges from everything she had seen and felt in the last twenty-four hours.

Luke looked like he wanted to disappear, but he remained by the wall, phone in hand, trying not to breathe too loudly.

“You’re pushing this too fast,” she said finally, her voice low, steady. “You just came out of surgery.”

Frederick sat up straighter, ignoring the tight pull of stitches and discomfort in his chest. “The longer we wait, the more exposed we are. You think this ends with the crash? It won’t. They’re escalating. And the marriage was always going to happen. We’re just cutting the timeline.”

Amelia crossed her arms. “That’s not the point.”

“Then what is?”

She hesitated. The problem wasn’t the marriage. It was the way he’d thrown it down like a verdict. Like a command. The way he hadn’t even asked if she was ready. The way he didn’t seem to care if she was.

“You didn’t even ask me,” she said.

Frederick didn’t flinch. “Because you already agreed. You signed the contract. This is not a surprise.”

“That contract doesn’t give you the right to bulldoze over my life whenever it suits you.”

“It gives me the right to protect you. This marriage does that.”

Luke’s phone buzzed and he checked it briefly, his expression unreadable. “Legal says if we fast-track the paperwork, you’ll be officially married in three days. They’ll handle the venue, registry, everything. But they’ll need your signatures by morning.”

Frederick nodded once. “Do it.”

Luke glanced at Amelia, as if waiting for her to object, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. The weight of the decision had already been made long ago when she put pen to paper and agreed to step into Frederick Moretti’s world. There was no going back now. Only deeper.

When Luke left the room, the silence that followed was worse. She could feel the heat of Frederick’s stare even without looking at him.

“I’m not ready,” she said, finally turning back toward him.

“You’ll have to be.”

She walked closer, but didn’t sit. She didn’t trust what would happen if she got too comfortable near him. “You really think putting rings on our fingers is going to stop whoever’s behind this?”

“I think it’s one less weakness for them to exploit.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“I’m alive.”

The words cut sharper than she expected. He didn’t say them to wound her, but they landed anyway. Because he was right. He was still here. And he was choosing to fight the only way he knew how — with power, speed, and control.

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “This isn’t what I thought it would be.”

He looked up at her, eyes unreadable. “You thought this would be clean?”

“I thought I’d have time to breathe.”

He reached out and took her hand, not gently, not roughly, just with enough pressure to keep her still. She didn’t pull away.

“There’s no time left for breathing. We move. We marry. We tighten the perimeter and keep everything else out.”

“You don’t even see it, do you?” she said, her voice rising. “You’re treating this like a war strategy. And I’m just a position you need to secure.”

“You’re more than that,” he said quietly. “You’re the one thing I can’t afford to lose.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. Her throat closed around the truth she didn’t want to admit — that some part of her had been waiting for him to say those words, even if he didn’t mean them the way she wanted.

“I need space,” she murmured.

He let go of her hand. “You’ll have it. Until the altar.”

She turned away before he could see the tears building. This wasn’t love. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But it was something. And right now, it was all she had.

Three days.

She whispered the words under her breath as she walked out of the room.

Three days until everything changed.

Three days until she stopped being Amelia Hart and became the wife of a man who made promises with contracts instead of love.

Three days.

And no way out.