13

(Sloane's POV)

The question slipped out before I could stop it.

“What condition?”

Maxwell didn’t answer right away.

He just looked at me—calm, unreadable, like he already knew every answer I would give and was simply waiting for me to catch up.

Last night he promised to help me. He looked me straight in the eyes and said the words without hesitation. Now, barely a day later, he was telling me there was a price.

Help Indeed!

Human beings!

I watched him reach for the file on the table beside him. The movement was slow, deliberate.

He picked it up and held it out across the space between us.

The way he watched me made my stomach twist.

I only know this man for a short time, yet somehow he already felt three steps ahead of everything I thought or felt.

I took the file anyway. The cover was plain. No title. No label. Just thick paper and the quiet weight of whatever was inside.

“What is this?” I asked, my voice quieter than I meant it to be.

“Read it.”

I opened it.

My eyes moved across the first page and stopped.

I read the title again, slower this time, as if the words might rearrange themselves into something that made sense.

A contract marriage.

I lifted my head and stared at him. A short, disbelieving laugh escaped before I could stop it.

“A contract marriage?”

“Yeah.” He said it the same way someone might mention the weather. Casual. Certain. As if he didn't just suggest the most absurd thing I've heard in months.

“You need my help,” he continued, “and I need yours. So I thought we could help each other.”

I stared at him like he had grown a second head. “By getting married?”

“Yes.”

I looked down at the document again. There were a thousand things he could have asked me to do.

I could have worked for him.

Become his assistant.

His housekeeper, anything.

A few hours ago I was desperate enough that I probably wouldn’t have questioned any of it.

But a wife?

Why would he need me to be his wife?

I closed the file slowly. “Why would you think I’m qualified to be your wife?”

His lips twitched, almost a smile. “You’re asking that seriously?”

“Yes, I’m asking seriously.” I leaned back in the chair. “You don’t know me. I don’t know you. We barely know anything about each other, and you’re suddenly asking me to marry you.”

“Does that really matter?”

I held his gaze. “It matters to me.”

He leaned back too, completely relaxed, as if he weren’t asking a woman who had just crawled out of one marriage to walk straight into another.

“We help each other,” he said. “That’s all this is.”

He paused, studying me. “My mother has been pestering me to bring a wife home. She’s been doing it for years. I’ve been avoiding the conversation. Your parents don’t exactly seem interested in protecting you either. They got you married to someone you didn’t even want.”

My fingers tightened around the file. He knew too much. Far too much.

“Fate brought us together at the right time,” he added.

I hated that his words made sense. I hated even more that a small, exhausted part of me wanted to believe them.

“But why me?” I asked.

His eyes settled on mine and stayed there. “You’re beautiful.”

I blinked, the first person to actually really say that like they meant it. I've been the ugly girl and the spare daughter.

“You deserve to be treated right.”

My throat tightened. “I don’t even deserve to be loved.”

The confession slipped out before I could catch it.

His expression shifted. Something quieter moved behind his eyes.

Then he smirked, faint and almost gentle.

“Who said that?”

I looked away.

He pointed at the file. “Don’t change the subject. Everything you need to know is in there. Read the rules. Take your time. If you still refuse, I’ll help you anyway.”

I looked up sharply. “You will?”

“I said I would.”

He stood, adjusted the cuffs of his jacket, and walked out of the room without another word. The door closed behind him with a soft click.

I sat there for a long time with the contract in my hands and a thousand thoughts racing through my head.

I just left a toxic marriage.

Yesterday. And today another man had put a marriage contract in front of me.

What kind of life is this?

I opened the file again and turned the page.

The rules were simple.

We would be husband and wife in public. Nothing more.

There would be no real relationship between us.

No expectations. No emotions.

He would provide everything I needed. In return, I would play the role of his wife whenever it was necessary.

We can not fall in love.

We can not interfere in each other’s private lives.

There would be no boyfriend, no girlfriend, no cheating, and no emotional attachment to anyone else.

There would be no intimate relationship between us.

And after three years, either of us could demand a divorce.

I read the rules twice. That was it. It sounded too easy.

I closed my eyes.

Images of my parents flickered behind my lids. The way they had looked at me when they pushed me into a marriage I never wanted. The way Kaelan had treated me once the door closed and no one was watching. The way my own sister had twisted every story until I became the villain in a life I didn’t choose.

I had nowhere to go. No one was waiting for me. No home left that still felt like mine.

Maybe this wasn’t the worst thing that could happen.

Maybe it was simply a chance to start over on different terms.