Chapter Four

OLIVIA'S POV

“What did you just say?” My mother's voice rang at the other end of the phone.

"I got married. Last night. In Vegas. To someone who isn't Marcus."

"You did what?" Her voice climbed several octaves.

"Are you insane? Do you have any idea what this will do to our family's reputation?"

"I don't care about the reputation." I was surprised by how bold I sounded.

"I care about not spending my life with someone who doesn't love me."

She started yelling. About duty and family and how I'd ruined everything. About how selfish I was being. About how I'd embarrassed her.

I pulled the phone away from my ear. Let her scream into the void. I looked at Ethan who was staring at me with wide eyes.

Then I hung up. I just pressed end and cut her off mid-rant.

My hands were shaking. My heart was racing. But I felt something else too. Something that might have been relief.

"You just told your mother we're married," Ethan said slowly.

"I did." I looked at the phone in my hand. At the flood of new messages already coming in.

"I really did."

"We were about to get this annulled."

"I know."

"Your family is going to lose their minds."

"Probably." I sat down on the edge of the bed. The adrenaline was fading. Reality creeping back in.

"Oh god. What did I just do?"

Ethan put his phone down. His lawyer was apparently still talking but he wasn't listening anymore. He was looking at me with an expression I couldn't read.

"You just told your family you married a stranger to get out of marrying your cheating ex."

"Yeah." I laughed. It sounded slightly hysterical.

"That's exactly what I did."

We sat there in silence. Two strangers. Legally married, both of our lives imploding in real time.

Then Ethan spoke.

"My lawyer says annulment takes time. Divorce takes longer. And I need to be married now to meet my grandmother's deadline."

I looked at him with wide eyes.

"What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking maybe we don't annul this right away." He picked up the marriage certificate.

"I'm thinking maybe we use this. For both of us."

"Use it how?"

"You need protection from your family. From their expectations. From having to marry someone who betrayed you." He met my eyes.

"I need a wife to secure my inheritance. We're already married. Maybe we stay that way, at least for a while."

My brain tried to process this. Tried to find the flaw in the logic. But I was too exhausted and hungover and overwhelmed to think straight.

"You're suggesting we stay married. On purpose."

"For six months. That's all I need. Then we can divorce quietly and go our separate ways."

"That's insane."

"Is it?" He gestured at the certificate.

"We're already married. Already stuck with each other until the paperwork goes through anyway. Why not make it work for us instead of against us?"

I should have said no. I should have laughed in his face. Should have run back to New York and dealt with my family's fury and figured out my life without tying it to a complete stranger.

But I didn't. Because somewhere in my alcohol-soaked brain, an idea was forming. A terrible, brilliant, completely insane idea.

I looked at Ethan. At this stranger who was legally my husband. At the marriage certificate that proved I'd already made the worst decision possible.

And I thought about Marcus. About my mother, about Sophia. About everyone who'd hurt me and expected me to just accept it.

I thought about how much power I could have if I actually used this disaster instead of running from it.

My mind started racing. Possibilities unfolding. A plan taking shape.

"What?" Ethan asked.

"What are you thinking?"

I smiled a very mischievous smile.

"I'm thinking you might be right. I'm thinking maybe we don't annul this just yet."

"Really?"

"Really." The plan was getting clearer.

"But if we're going to do this, if we're going to stay married, I want something more than just six months of protection."

"What do you want?"

I looked him straight in the eye. Let him see the determination replacing the panic.

"I want revenge.”

"I can make them pay."

Ethan's words hung in the air between us. Simple. Direct. Exactly what I needed to hear.

I looked at him. This stranger who was legally my husband. This man I'd known for less than twenty-four hours. This person who somehow understood exactly what I wanted without me having to explain.

"You can help me destroy them?" My voice came out steadier than I expected.

"Marcus. Sophia. My mother. All of them?"

"I have resources, money, connections." He said it like he was listing groceries.

"I can make their lives very difficult. Very publicly. If that's what you want."

What I wanted was to watch them suffer the way they'd made me suffer. What I wanted was for them to feel a fraction of the humiliation I'd felt walking in on my fiancé with my sister. What I wanted was revenge.

"Yes." The word came out fierce.

"That's exactly what I want."

Ethan held out his hand.

"Then we have a deal. Six months. We stay married. I help you get revenge. You help me keep my inheritance. Then we divorce and go our separate ways."

I stared at his hand. This was insane. Agreeing to stay married to someone I didn't know, planning revenge like some kind of villain in a movie.

But Marcus had betrayed me. Sophia had betrayed me. My mother cared more about appearances than my happiness. And I was done being the good daughter who took everything quietly.

I shook his hand.

"Deal."

His grip was firm.

"So how do we do this?" I asked.

"How do we convince our families this marriage is real?"

"We need a story. Something believable."

He let go of my hand and started pacing.

"Something that explains why we got married so suddenly."

I thought about it. About what would make sense. What my mother might actually believe.

"We could say we met months ago. That we've been seeing each other in secret."

"Why keep it secret?"

"Because of my engagement to Marcus." The pieces were falling into place.

"We couldn't go public while I was still with him. But when I caught him cheating, I ran to you. And we eloped because we couldn't wait anymore."

Ethan nodded slowly.

"That could work. Where did we meet?"

"An art gallery." I said it without thinking.

"Six months ago. You were there for some charity event. I was there because I actually like art. We started talking and hit it off immediately."

"What kind of art do you like?"

"Modern, abstract. Anything that makes you feel something." I paused.

"What kind of art do you like?"

"I don't." He said it honestly.

"But I'll learn. What else do I need to know about you?"

This was surreal, learning about my husband after marrying him instead of before.

"My favorite flower is peonies. I hate coffee but drink it anyway. I wanted to open a bakery but my family said it wasn't appropriate for someone of my status."

The words kept coming.

"I speak Mandarin fluently. I'm terrible at golf even though Marcus made me take lessons. I cry at sad movies even when they're badly written."

Ethan was listening. Making mental notes like this was important information he needed to remember.

"What about you?" I asked.

"What do I need to know?"

"I take my coffee black. Two sugars when no one's watching because I'm not supposed to like sweet things." A small smile formed on his lips.

"I built my company from nothing. My family hated that I didn't join the family business. I haven't spoken to my parents in ten years. My grandmother was the only one who supported me and now she's gone."

The pain in his voice when he mentioned his grandmother was real. I recognized it because I felt the same way about losing my father.

"I'm sorry." I meant it.

"About your grandmother."

"Thank you." He cleared his throat.

"We should practice our story. Make sure we get the details right."

For the next hour, we sat in that Vegas hotel room creating a relationship that never existed. We decided I'd been to three of his charity galas. He'd taken me to a restaurant in SoHo that we both actually knew. We'd kept things quiet because my family would never approve of me dating while engaged.

"Your family is going to hate me," Ethan said.

"They already hate everyone. You'll fit right in." I tried to smile but i couldn't.

"When do we do this? When do we face them?"

"As soon as possible. The longer we wait, the harder it gets."

My phone buzzed again. More messages from my mother, from Sophia, from Marcus. All of them demanding explanations.

"My mother wants to meet you." I looked at the latest message.

"Tonight. Dinner at her house. She's not asking. She's demanding."

"Then we go tonight." Ethan stood up.

"We face them together. Show them this marriage is real."

"We need to go back to New York first."

"I'll have my assistant book flights. We can be there by this afternoon."

I nodded. I tried to ignore the panic crawling up my throat. This was happening. I was actually doing this.

"Ethan?" He looked at me.

"Why are you helping me? You could just keep the marriage quiet. Use it to get your inheritance without getting involved in my family drama."

He was quiet for a moment.

"Because I know what it's like to have a family that treats you like a chess piece. And I know what it's like to want revenge on the people who hurt you."

Something in his voice told me there was a story there. Something painful. But I didn't push. We were strangers playing at being married. We didn't need to know everything about each other.

Not yet anyway.