All Chapters of A SURROGATE FOR MY SISTER'S ALPHA HUSBAND: Chapter 1 - Chapter 6

Mica povThe day my sister died, she asked me to marry her husband.Not because she stopped loving him.Because she knew she wouldn't live long enough to give him the family they'd dreamed of.I just didn't know that yet.All I knew, sitting in the back row of a lecture hall that smelled like old coffee and dry-erase markers, was that Professor Kane would not stop talking about supply chain elasticity."...and this is precisely why demand forecasting fails when—"I stifled a yawn and glanced at the clock. Four minutes left. I could survive four more minutes of elasticity.My phone buzzed against my thigh, silenced but insistent. I ignored it. Then it buzzed again. And again. A steady, relentless drumbeat against my leg that finally made me slide it halfway out of my bag under the desk.The screen was a wall of notifications.*Missed Call — Ethan.**Missed Call — Ethan.**Missed Call — Nyric.**Missed Call — Aunt Lydia.**Missed Call — Unknown.**Missed Call — Ethan.*My stomach droppe

Mica pov"No pulse!""Start compressions!""One milligram of epinephrine!"The room blurred before my eyes.Doctors swarmed around Ophelia's bed, their voices overlapping until they became meaningless noise.I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. I couldn't do anything except stare."No..." I whispered.A nurse pulled me backward."Miss Hale, you need to step outside.""No! That's my sister!"Another pair of hands caught my shoulders."We're doing everything we can.""Then let me go!"My voice cracked into a scream."Ophelia!"The doors slammed shut between us.I pounded against the glass. "Please!"Every beep from the machines felt like a knife twisting deeper into my chest.Nyric hadn't moved. He stood frozen in the middle of the hallway, staring through the glass as doctors desperately fought for his wife.His wife.The woman he'd loved for ten years. The woman who had taught me that fairy tales could exist.I'd always teased them. Called them disgustingly romantic.Every anniversar

Mica pov"I should go home," I said, even as I didn't move."You should." He didn't move either. "You won't, though."He was right. I hated that he was right.I don't remember deciding to leave the bar with him. I remember the rain on the walk to wherever we ended up. I remember he never asked why I looked like my whole world had ended, and I never told him. I remember thinking, somewhere underneath the numbness, that I didn't want comfort. I didn't want someone to hold my hand and tell me it would be okay.I wanted to feel something that wasn't grief. Just for a few hours.He gave me that.Neither of us said much. Neither of us asked for names. In the dark, he was just a stranger with steady hands and eyes that didn't look at me like I was something breakable — and for one night, that was exactly what I needed.I woke up to gray morning light and an empty side of the bed.For a moment, I didn't remember where I was. Then it came back in pieces — the bar, the rain, his voice low again