C3

"Sign here," the clerk says, pushing a heavy leather-bound register across the wooden counter toward me.

My numb fingers barely hold the silver pen as I trace my name across the blank line.

The ink bleeds into the thick white paper, sealing my life to Christopher Lambert with a single stroke. I don't look at his face. I don't look at the marriage certificate resting beside the ledger. My heart hammers a frantic, terrified rhythm against my ribs while my soaked clothes cling coldly to my skin.

"It's done," Christopher says flatly.

He grabs my upper arm in an unyielding grip, pulling me around before I can even drop the pen.

The moment he pushes open the heavy double glass doors of the registry office, blinding white flashes explode right into our faces.

A wall of news reporters, photographers, and cameramen pushes up the front concrete steps, shoving microphones forward in a wild frenzy. The camera lights glare so brightly into my water-logged eyes that I stumble backward against Christopher's side.

"Mr. Lambert! Is it true you just got married in secret?" a reporter shouts from the front row.

"Who is she, Christopher? Is this a public relations stunt after the financial restructuring?" another voice yells over the chaotic shutter clicks.

My throat closes up completely. I try to pull my face away from the blinding lenses, but Christopher keeps his hand firmly clamped around my wrist, forcing me to stand tall at his side under the glare of a dozen flashing cameras.

"Quiet down," a sharp, smooth female voice cuts through the roar of the media crowd.

A tall woman steps smoothly through the wall of photographers. She wears a tailored white trench coat that looks like it cost tens of thousands of dollars. Her blonde hair falls in sleek, flawless waves around her sharp face, completely untouched by the rain.

It's Elizabeth Vance.

My breath hitches in my chest as I recognise my cousin—the woman who took over my mother's remaining inheritance the week after she died.

Elizabeth doesn't even look at me first. She walks directly up to Christopher on the top step, glides her manicured hands onto the lapels of his black suit jacket, and pulls him down.

She kisses him full on the mouth right in front of every single flashing camera lens.

My blood freezes solid in my veins. My stomach turns over in a sick, violent surge as I watch her lips press against his. Christopher doesn't pull away immediately. He stands there, rigid and unreadable, letting the media photograph every second of the display.

When Elizabeth finally steps back, she turns her blue eyes toward me, a sweet, pitying smile spreading across her face that feels far more vicious than any open insult.

"Oh, you poor thing," Elizabeth says sweetly, raising her voice just enough for the boom microphones hovering overhead to pick up every single syllable. "You don't even know why he chose you, do you?"

"Get back, Elizabeth," I whisper, my knees shaking so hard under my wet dress that I can barely stand.

"Look at the news streams, everyone," a reporter nearby mutters, staring down at his glowing smartphone screen as the live feed comments begin to explode in real time.

The reporter reads the top comments aloud, his voice carrying clearly over the crowd: "'Who is this girl?' 'She looks like a charity stripper.' 'Billionaire's pity project.' 'Look at her hair, she looks like a broken doll pulled out of the gutter.'"

Every single word cuts straight into my chest like a jagged blade.

I stand completely frozen under the brutal heat of the camera lights, my face burning with deep, unforgiving humiliation. The entire city is watching me on live television right now. They are watching me stand next to my powerful new husband while another woman kisses him on the mouth, branding me as an worthless object picked up off the street.

I wait for Christopher to say something. I wait for him to deny it, to push Elizabeth away, to tell the press that I am his wife and demand respect.

Instead, Christopher slowly reaches out his large, warm hand and plants it flat against my lower back.

His fingers press possessively into my spine, pulling my wet, shivering body tightly against his side for the cameras to capture. He looks out over the sea of reporters and smiles—a smooth, sharp, arrogant smile of a man who has just bought something cheap and disposable simply because he had the money to do so.

"She is exactly what I needed her to be," Christopher announces smoothly to the press, his deep voice carrying total control. "Nothing more."

The cameras flash twice as fast. The reporters laugh and scribble down his words like sharks smelling fresh blood in the water.

I can feel the heat radiating off Christopher's hand on my lower back, but inside, I am burning with pure, unadulterated hatred. He didn't just force me into this contract; he dragged me out here to destroy whatever dignity I had left in front of the entire world.

He turns me forcefully toward the waiting black car at the curb. The driver holds the rear passenger door open wide, shielding us from the rain with a huge umbrella.

As Christopher pushes me toward the open door, Elizabeth steps closer, matching my stride on the wet pavement.

She leans her head in close to my ear, her hot breath smelling of expensive perfume as she whispers so softly that only I can hear her over the shouting reporters:

"Enjoy him while you can, Cecelia. He always comes back to me."

A violent shockwave of nausea crashes through my chest. My hands clench into tight fists at my sides, my short nails digging so hard into my bare palms that they break the skin, drawing warm trickles of blood onto my fingers.

I drop onto the leather seat of the car, my whole body trembling with pure, suffocating despair.

Christopher slides onto the seat beside me and slams the door shut, cutting off the blinding camera flashes and the roar of the media. The tint on the windows turns the outside world completely dark.

I stare down at my hands in my lap, watching the red blood mix with the cold rainwater dripping off my fingers onto my lap.

For the first time since this nightmare started tonight, a dark, terrifying thought presses into my mind. I look at the man sitting beside me in the dark, and I wonder if dying in that rainy alleyway would have been far kinder than living through this marriage.