Chapter 5

Rosalie's POV

I'm nothing.

I sat on the edge of the bed with the forged certificate still in my fist, and let the word settle into me until my fingers stopped shaking—not because I'd calmed down, but because there was nothing left to shake.

Relax. Breathe. My eyes only just healed. The doctor said to be careful. I bit down hard on my lip. I won't ruin them again over a pair of lying dogs.

The phone buzzed against my knee.

I glanced down, expecting the honeymoon agency again, or Chloe's saccharine voice drifting through the door. It was neither.

Marcus Reid — Family Counsel. Missed calls (4).

Four. I hadn't heard a single one.

The screen lit up a fifth time in my hand.

Marcus never called twice. In all the years he'd handled my grandfather's affairs, he'd sent quarterly statements, formal letters, a card at the New Year. Four missed calls from that man meant the ground was already moving under my feet.

I swiped to answer.

"Rosalie." His voice came fast, clipped, none of its usual dry composure. "Thank God. I've been trying to reach you for the better part of an hour. Are you somewhere you can talk? Alone?"

I looked at the closed door, at the laughter leaking faintly through it.

"…Alone enough. What is it?"

"I wouldn't do this over the phone if there were any other way," he said. "There isn't. The clause in your grandfather's trust—the one we discussed after the funeral, that you told me you'd handle later. There is no later anymore. It's triggered."

My throat went dry. "Triggered."

"Your twenty-fifth birthday is in forty-eight hours." I heard papers shifting on his end, quick and urgent. "Under the trust, you must complete and file a legal marriage registration before that moment. If you don't—" a breath, "—the entirety of the shares, the formulas, all of it, passes automatically to the designated contingent beneficiary. There's no appeal, no grace period. The instant the clock runs out, it's gone."

"Who," I said. Though some cold part of me already knew.

Marcus was quiet for exactly one second.

"Your biological father. Sebastian Vance."

The name struck me like a hand closing around my throat.

My biological father.

Those words were forbidden in our family. I barely remembered his face—he'd left when I was very young, after falling out catastrophically with my grandfather's house.

My mother never spoke of him; one mention and she'd lie awake for entire nights.

My grandfather hated him to his dying breath, gripping my hand and repeating over and over: this company, these formulas—under no circumstances can they fall back into that man's hands.

He never told me what had actually happened. I only knew that because of that man, our family had suffered terribly.

And now, one step away, all of it would be handed to him.

I looked at the forged certificate crushed in my palm, and something cold and clear cut through the numbness.

I'd told Bryce about the trust. Months ago, before the fire, in some soft unguarded moment—the clause, the deadline, the father who could take everything. He'd held my hand and told me not to worry, that he'd marry me long before it ever mattered.

And then he'd fed me a forged certificate.

Not a real one. A fake, read aloud to a blind woman who couldn't check it—so I'd believe the clause was already satisfied. So I'd sit still, safe and grateful, while the countdown burned down to nothing and everything I owned slid out of my hands. He'd never meant to marry me at all. He'd only meant to keep me quiet until I turned twenty-five, blind and useless and out of the way—so he could have Chloe, and whatever came with her, without me ever seeing it coming.

The back of my neck went cold.

I had nothing left. A forged certificate. A man who'd betrayed me. A wedding the whole social circle was already waiting on—invitations sent, congratulations half-written—so that if it fell apart now, it would be me, the jilted bride, whose name dragged the family company through the mud. A lab bleeding money, waiting to be saved. And now, forty-eight hours between me and losing all of it to a man my grandfather had died hating.

The phone buzzed again. Gemma.

And suddenly her strange warning from the car came back to me—if what you see, what you hear, isn't what you expect, call me first.

I swiped to answer.

"Rose?" Her voice rushed at me all at once, tight with worry. "How are you—"

"Gemma." I cut her off, my voice shaking, yet strangely quiet. "You knew, didn't you."

On the other end, a sudden silence, one second long.

That one second was louder than anything.

"…Yes." Her voice sank. "I only just confirmed it. That little bitch Chloe's been flaunting photos of her and Bryce everywhere."

"I saw." I leaned against the window, my throat tightening. "Chloe on his arm, in front of everyone. They all knew, Gemma. Every single one of them." My voice began to break. "Only I didn't. I still came home carrying a bag of lobster, wanting to make him bisque—"

"Rose—"

"In the car. What you wanted to say. It was this."

"I'm a bastard." She said it almost through gritted teeth. "I should've laid it all out then and there—even if I'd been wrong, it'd have been better than letting you walk into that room alone. I'm the one who sent you in, Rose. Me."

I said nothing. The tears fell, one by one, striking the windowsill without a sound.

"Don't move." Her tone changed, cold as a blade. "You're at the apartment? Give me ten minutes. That scumbag Bryce, and Chloe—this little show of theirs, I'll finish it. In front of that whole room watching you like a joke, let's see who's still laughing."

I could almost picture her snatching up her keys.

"Don't come," I said.

"What?"

"Beat him up, claw her face open—and then what?" I pulled the certificate tighter in my fist. "They'll still walk down that aisle. They'll still treat me like some blind, dumped, pitiful thing and laugh behind my back. I don't want that."

"Then what do you want?"

"There's something ten thousand times more important than Bryce right now." I drew a breath, steadying my voice. "My grandfather's trust just triggered. I have forty-eight hours to register a legal marriage—before my birthday—or the company, the formulas, everything he protected with his life, all of it goes to my biological father."

A sharp intake of breath. Gemma understood better than anyone what that name meant—she'd seen my mother in the throes of her breakdowns, seen the coffin at my grandfather's funeral that refused to close.

"…And the marriage I thought I had is fake," I went on. "The certificate is forged. From beginning to end, I was never anyone's wife. Bryce knew about the clause. He gave me a fake so I'd stop worrying and let the clock run out."

"Fuck." The word came out low, thick with anger she couldn't hold. "He even factored this in."

"So beating him does nothing." I spaced out each word. "What I need right now isn't someone to avenge me. It's someone who can register a marriage with me inside forty-eight hours."

A long silence—long enough that I thought the call had dropped. I could hear her breathing, the faint scrape of something being set down.

Then she made a sound, half a laugh, half a curse.

"…God. Rose. I wasn't going to bring this up. Not tonight, not like this." A breath. "But there's my cousin."

"What?"

"He called me last week. His family's been threatening to cut him off if he doesn't marry by the end of the quarter—some inheritance condition of his own. He asked me if I knew anyone who'd sign a contract. No feelings, no interference, purely paper. I told him he was out of his mind." A beat. "He's not out of his mind anymore. He's your answer, Rose. He can save your trust, and you can save his. Mutual benefit—register, and each of you goes your own way."

A contract marriage. A stranger I'd never met.

It was absurd. One moment ago I still thought I was Mrs. Aldridge; the next, I was to marry a man whose face I'd never seen.

"What kind of person is he?" My voice wavered. "How can you be sure he's not just another Bryce?"

"He won't be. That, I'll stake my life on." She was rarely this serious, her voice heavy as iron. "Rosalie—"

For the first time, she called me by my full name.

"I know this is insane. But right now—do you have any other choice?"

I didn't.

I held the forged certificate up to the light, taking one last look at the crooked signature I'd written by feel alone. I'd once thought those few letters had made me someone's wife.

Turns out it was all nothing.

I folded it in half, and in half again, and tucked it into my pocket.

"Rose?" Gemma waited. "Are you still there?"

"Yes." Barely more than a breath. "I don't know if this is right. I'm scared, Gemma. I've never been this scared."

"I know." Her voice softened.

I closed my eyes and breathed—the cedarwood diffuser, the champagne beyond the door, the disinfectant still clinging to my skin. I sorted through it all, layer by layer, until my pulse came back down.

Forty-eight hours. Behind me, the man who made my whole family shudder, watching, waiting. Ahead, a stranger whose face I'd never seen.

Two roads. And one of them was death.

I opened my eyes.

"Send me his file," I said—fingertips still trembling, but every word bitten off clean and clear. "I'll prepare my own documents. And, Gemma—don't let anyone know my sight is back. Not one person."

A pause on the other end. "…Are you sure?"

"No," I said. "But I have no other choice."