All Chapters of HIS CONVENIENT BRIDE: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Cara had expected an office.Not this.Blackwood Industries occupied the top four floors of a glass tower in Canary Wharf that looked like it had been designed specifically to make people feel small. The lobby alone was larger than her entire flat, all marble floors and high ceilings and staff who moved with the quiet confidence of people who had never worried about an electricity bill in their lives.She had worn her best outfit. Dark trousers, a cream blouse she had ironed twice. It felt insufficient the moment she walked through the revolving doors."Cara Bennett," she told the receptionist. "I have an appointment with Ethan Blackwood."The woman smiled pleasantly and made a call.Cara stood very straight and pretended she belonged there.His assistant — a composed woman named Claire who moved like she had been professionally trained to be calming — led her to a private lift, up to the thirty-second floor, and into a corner office with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Thame

The car Ethan sent was a black Mercedes with a driver who didn't make small talk, which Cara appreciated more than she expected.She watched London blur past the window as they crossed the river toward Richmond. The neighbourhoods changed gradually — narrower streets giving way to wider ones, terraced houses becoming detached ones, everything getting incrementally quieter and greener until the car turned into a tree-lined road and stopped outside a house that was large without being ostentatious.Warm light in every window.A wreath on the door that hadn't been taken down from last Christmas, or possibly the one before.Cara took a breath and stepped out.Ethan was already at the door when she reached it. He must have arrived separately. He looked at her outfit — dark green dress, simple, nothing borrowed or performed — and gave a single nod."Ready?" he said quietly."Ask me that again and I'll leave," she replied.Something moved at the corner of his mouth.He rang the bell.Eleanor

The Blackwood house in the Cotswolds was exactly what Cara had expected and nothing like she had prepared for.Stone walls. Ivy climbing the front. A garden that had gone slightly wild in the way expensive gardens were allowed to. The kind of house that had been in a family long enough to stop being a property and start being a place.She stepped out of the car and stood for a moment in the cold morning air.Ethan appeared beside her."Alright?" he said quietly."Don't ask me that.""I'm not asking if you're nervous. I'm asking if the drive was alright."Cara glanced at him."Fine," she said. "The drive was fine."Eleanor was at the door before they reached it."You came." She said it directly to Cara, like Ethan's presence was assumed and hers was the one that mattered. She pulled her into a hug that lasted long enough to be genuine.Cara went still for half a second.Then she hugged her back.Inside, the house smelled like woodsmoke and old books. The dog from Richmond was somehow a

They left the Cotswolds on Sunday afternoon.Eleanor hugged Cara at the door for a long time. Long enough that Cara had to concentrate on her breathing to stay composed. Sophie waved from the window. The dog sat at Eleanor's feet and watched the car until it disappeared around the bend in the road.James stood on the front steps with his hands in his pockets.He didn't wave.The drive back to London was quiet for the first hour.Ethan worked on his phone. Cara watched the countryside flatten gradually back into motorway and then into suburbs and then into the familiar grey press of the city reassembling itself around them.She had been thinking about James since breakfast."Your brother knows something is off," she said.Ethan didn't look up from his phone."James always thinks something is off.""This is different." She turned from the window. "He wasn't just suspicious. He was calculating. Running through something specific in his head."Ethan set his phone down."What makes you say

He was still there in the morning.Cara saw the car from the kitchen window at five forty-five while the kettle boiled. Same spot. Same black Mercedes. She stood very still for a moment with her hands wrapped around an empty mug.Then she pulled on her coat over her pyjamas, pushed her feet into her shoes without untying them, and went downstairs.The cold hit her at the door. Proper November cold now, the kind that meant business.She knocked on the passenger window.It came down.Ethan looked at her. Hair slightly dishevelled for the first time since she had known him. Collar open. The particular stillness of someone who had been awake a long time and had made peace with it."You slept in your car," she said."I didn't sleep.""Ethan.""James's man was parked two streets over until one in the morning," he said. "I wanted to make sure he didn't come back."Cara stared at him."You sat outside my building all night.""Yes.""Because of James's photographer.""Yes."She looked at him f