Chapter 3: I'll Never Divorce Him

Leah's POV

"You don't need to know much," he said, his voice low and carrying an edge of quiet danger. "All you need to know is that from this moment on, you belong to me."

I wanted to argue. I wanted to pull away. But my body refused to cooperate, locking me in place while my mind spun in frantic, useless circles. This was insane. None of it made any sense. And yet—what choice did I actually have?

My father's worn, hollow face floated up before me, followed by the image of the company teetering on the edge of collapse, and then Elias's smirk from the night before, ugly and self-satisfied. Maybe—just maybe—this was an opportunity. A way out of everything closing in around me.

I was still wavering when Matto moved. He slid one arm around my waist, took hold of my hand, and guided it to the pen lying on the table. His palm was warm and unyielding as it closed over mine, and together—though the word "together" felt like a lie—he walked my hand through every letter of my name, signing it across the final page of both copies of the agreement. I pushed back, but his grip left no room for resistance, and I could only watch as "Leah Carter" appeared in ink, twice, making it real.

Williams gave a satisfied nod, gathered the documents, offered a polite "Congratulations to you both," and left the room without ceremony. The moment the door clicked shut, I shoved Matto away and stared at my own hand as though it had betrayed me. "You forced me to sign that. It doesn't count."

"It counts where it matters," he said simply, "legally."

He straightened his cuffs, reached into his pocket, and held out my phone. "I have business to take care of. Wait here. I'll be back to take you home."

"Wait—" I took the phone, scrambling for something to say, some foothold in this conversation. But before I could find one, the screen lit up with an incoming call.

Lyra Sheff. My stepmother.

With Matto watching from across the room—doing nothing, saying nothing, yet radiating a pressure I couldn't explain—I answered.

Lyra's voice came through taut and hurried. I started to reach for an excuse, but one glance at Matto stopped me. I swallowed the lie before it formed. "I just… I just signed a marriage agreement."

A beat of silence. "A marriage agreement? What are you talking about? Elias was shot last night—he's in the hospital, he hasn't even woken up yet. Who did you marry?"

I let out a slow breath and gave her the short version: catching Elias in the act, his threats afterward, what he'd tried to arrange for me, and the man who'd stepped in. I hadn't had a choice. But it wasn't without its benefits—what Matto was willing to give me each month was more than enough to keep my father's company from going under.

I was about to say exactly that when Lyra's tone shifted, sharpening into something I had never once heard from her in twenty years. "He saves you and you just marry him? Elias did wrong, fine—but does that make you any better? Are you that desperate? Can't you go a single second without a man inside you?"

I went still. "What did you say?"

I thought I had misheard. Since my mother died when I was five, since Lyra had come into our lives with her daughter Mia and married my father, she had never spoken to me like this. She had always treated me as her own. And now, for Elias's sake, she was saying this to me.

She repeated herself, slower, each word deliberate: "I said—are you that starved for it? You didn't know that Elias was going to invest in the company after the wedding? You've gone and married some stranger, and now what happens to your father's business? How could you be this selfish?" Her voice rose with every sentence. "I'm giving you one last chance. Go get that divorce, come back, take care of Elias, and make sure his family doesn't think you're ungrateful. If you don't—don't ever come back. You're no family of mine."

The cold hit me all at once, starting in my chest and moving outward. My hand was shaking so badly I could barely hold the phone. Tears came before I could stop them.

When I didn't answer, Lyra's voice cracked through the line again: "Do you hear me?"

"Yes," I said. "And my answer is no."

I wiped my face with the back of my hand and matched her tone, word for word: "I am not getting a divorce. Not for Elias. Not for you. Not for anyone. Even if he were a homeless man on the street, I would still stay married to him."

I ended the call before she could say another word.

A moment later, Matto appeared beside me with a folded tissue and began, without asking, to dry my tears. I had assumed he'd already left—I hadn't heard him move—but there he was.

"If I weren't here," he said, a faint, dry amusement in his voice, "how would I know my wife was being put through hell? And called me a homeless man, on top of it." He let out a short, quiet laugh. "That's a first, for the record."

"That slipped out," I muttered, turning my face away. "I wasn't thinking." He was obviously not homeless—no one who signed over a million dollars in monthly spending money without blinking could be—and I'd only said it because I was too angry to think straight.

"In that case," he said, settling back as though the decision had already been made, "let's raise it to two million a month."

I stared at him. "That's—that's too much."

"Is it too much to make my wife smile?" He gave my back a light, steadying pat. "If two million isn't enough, say the word."

"It's enough," I said quickly, cutting him off before he could add anything else. Another figure like that and I'd pass out before he finished the sentence.

He held my gaze for a moment, then said, quietly but with a certainty that left no room for argument: "What they said doesn't matter anymore. From now on, I'm your family. Rest here. When I come back, I'll take you home—our home."

He pressed a brief, light kiss to my cheek, and then he was gone.

I sat there staring at the closed door, unable to move. The woman who had raised me for twenty years had called me worthless over a man who'd tried to have me assaulted.

The man I'd known for less than twenty-four hours had given me money, given me dignity, and kissed me like I was someone worth protecting. None of it made sense. I had never met Matto before last night—I was certain of that—so why did he seem to know exactly what I needed, exactly when I needed it?

The exhaustion caught up with me before I could find any answers, and somewhere between one thought and the next, I fell asleep on the couch.

I woke to another call. The room had gone dark around me; it was already evening.

The name on the screen read Mia Sheff—my stepsister, Lyra's daughter.

I hesitated, remembering Lyra's voice, but Mia and I had grown up side by side, and more than once she had put herself between me and whatever was coming. I answered.

"Leah? Have you filed for divorce yet?"

The hope I'd been holding onto dissolved. She sounded exactly like her mother.

"No," I said.

"Elias is awake. He's asking for you." Her voice dropped, taking on a confiding, almost excited pitch. "He said he can forgive you. Mom already apologized to him, and he said if you come now, he'll let the whole thing go. Once he's out of the hospital, he'll sign the agreement, invest in the company—and he's even willing to add another hundred thousand on top of what he originally promised."

The more she talked, the more animated she became, as though she could already see the outcome she wanted.

"I've already said it," I told her, and I made myself speak slowly and clearly, because I wanted her to understand that I meant every word. "I'm not getting a divorce. And I'm not marrying Elias. If the two of you keep pushing me on this—then do what Lyra said. Cut ties. Because I won't change my mind."