The lawyer slid the envelope across the table like it was routine.

Nothing about this was routine.

I was sitting in a conference room on the forty-third floor of the Vale Group headquarters, trying not to notice that the chair I was in probably cost more than my rent. Trying not to notice the view. Trying, specifically, not to notice the man on the other side of the table who had the kind of face that made you want to look at it and the kind of expression that made you wish you hadn't bothered.

Sebastian Vale. Twenty-nine. Heir to the Vale Group and, apparently, to the problem I was about to become part of.

"Open it," said the lawyer.

I opened it.

Twelve pages of contract, single-spaced, in the specific font that legal documents use when they want to be as uninviting as possible.

I read the first page.

Then I read it again.

"You want me to be his wife," I said.

"Contractually," said the lawyer.

"For one year."

"Potentially extended, with mutual agreement."

I looked at Sebastian Vale.

He was looking at the window. Not at me. At the window, as if the city below required his personal supervision.

"Mr. Vale," I said.

He looked at me.

His eyes were the kind of grey that sounds like nothing until you see it — not cold, just unreadable, like weather before it decides what it's going to do.

"My grandfather is dying," he said. "He has approximately five months. He wants, before he dies, to see me married." He delivered this like a business briefing. "I need someone credible. My grandfather is not easily fooled."

"Why not find someone real?" I said.

"I've tried." He said it with the flatness of someone reporting a logistical failure. "The women I've dated in the last five years have either wanted more than I intend to give or have already sold a story to the press. Neither is useful."

"And me?"

"You were referred by a mutual contact. You're an artist. You're in significant debt from your mother's medical bills. You're—" He paused, the smallest pause. "Credible. You have the kind of quality that my grandfather would respond to."

"What kind of quality is that?"

He looked at me directly.

"Real," he said. "You look like someone who means what she says."

I looked at the contract.

The number on page four was substantial enough that I read it three times to make sure I hadn't added a zero.

I had not added a zero.

"There are conditions," the lawyer said. "Public appearances when required. Residence at the Vale estate during family events. Separate rooms — this is on page seven. No personal disclosure during or after the contract period."

"And after a year?"

"Amicable divorce, non-disclosure agreement, the payment released in full upon signing and completion." The lawyer folded his hands. "Mr. Vale has been very clear that the arrangement is strictly contractual."

I looked at Sebastian Vale.

He was looking at the window again.

*Strictly contractual.* Said by a man who would not make eye contact with the woman he was asking to fake-marry him.

"I have a question," I said.

The lawyer looked at me.

"Not for you," I said. "For him."

Sebastian Vale turned from the window.

"Does your grandfather know it's an arrangement?" I said.

A pause.

"No," he said.

"So I'd be lying to a dying man."

"You'd be giving a dying man something he wants." His voice was even. "He wants to know I'm not alone. That's not complicated."

"It is if he's perceptive enough to see through it."

"He is," he said. "That's why I need someone real."

I looked at the contract again.

At the number on page four.

At my mother's hospital bills, which had been sitting in a folder on my kitchen table for three months, getting more specific about what happened if I didn't address them.

"Page seven," I said. "Separate rooms."

"Guaranteed," said the lawyer.

"And if your grandfather dies before the year is up?"

"The contract completes on the anniversary of signing regardless," Sebastian said. "You'll receive the full amount."

I looked at him.

He looked back at me, with those grey eyes that had decided what kind of weather they were: clear. Clear and watching.

"All right," I said.

I picked up the pen.

I signed.

He didn't look at the window this time. He watched me sign, with an expression I couldn't read, and when I set the pen down he said, very quietly:

"Thank you, Nora."

First name. Not Ms. Cassidy.

Something about that should have warned me.

But I was looking at page four, and the number, and thinking about my mother, and I wasn't paying close enough attention.