The contract was forty-seven pages long. Elara sat in the office of Julian's lawyer, a sharp-eyed woman named Victoria Sinclair who treated the document like it was a sacred text, and tried to understand the legal implications of what she was about to sign.
The marriage would last exactly one year from the date of the ceremony. During that time, Elara would be Julian's wife in public, attending events with him, presenting the image of a happily married couple. In private, they would maintain separate bedrooms and separate lives. Julian would pay off all of Elara's debts, provide her with an allowance of fifty thousand dollars per month, and ensure that the gallery remained financially stable. At the end of the year, they would divorce, and Elara would receive a settlement of five million dollars.
Five million dollars. The number was so large that it felt unreal.
"Are you sure about this?" Victoria asked, her tone suggesting that she thought Elara was making a terrible mistake.
"No," Elara said honestly. "But I'm doing it anyway."
The wedding took place in a small, exclusive chapel in Manhattan, with only a handful of witnesses present. Elara wore a simple white dress that she had bought at a department store, and Julian wore a tailored suit that probably cost more than her entire apartment. There were no flowers, no music, no romance. It was a transaction, pure and simple, conducted with the same efficiency that Julian applied to all his business dealings.
When the judge asked if Elara took Julian to be her husband, she hesitated for just a moment. This was her last chance to back out, her last moment of freedom before she signed away a year of her life. Then she thought of her father, of the gallery, of everything she stood to lose if she said no.
"I do," she whispered.
When Julian kissed her at the end of the ceremony, it was brief and perfunctory, a performance for the witnesses rather than an expression of any genuine feeling. But even that brief contact sent a jolt of electricity through Elara's body, a reminder that despite everything, she was physically attracted to the man she had just married. It was a complication she hadn't anticipated, and it terrified her.
That night, Elara moved into Julian's penthouse. Patricia, his assistant, had arranged for her belongings to be transported from her apartment, and a room had been prepared for her on the opposite side of the penthouse from Julian's master suite. It was a beautiful room, decorated in soft grays and whites, with a view of the city that took her breath away. It was also completely impersonal, like a hotel room rather than a home.
She unpacked her things slowly, trying to make the space feel like hers. She hung her favorite paintings on the walls, arranged her digital art equipment in the corner, and placed her books on the shelves. By the time she was finished, the room looked slightly less like a hotel and slightly more like a place where a person might actually live.
There was a knock on the door around nine o'clock. Elara opened it to find Julian standing in the hallway, still dressed in his suit, looking as controlled and composed as he had at the altar.
"I wanted to make sure you were settled," he said, his tone formal and distant.
"I'm fine," Elara replied, equally formal. "Thank you."
"We have a charity gala tomorrow night," Julian continued. "You'll need to be ready by seven. Patricia will arrange for a stylist to come by in the morning. You'll need a dress."
"Okay," Elara said.
"And Elara?" Julian's voice softened slightly, though his expression remained unchanged. "Welcome to your new life."
After he left, Elara sat on the edge of the bed and allowed herself to cry. She had made her choice, signed the contract, married a man she barely knew. There was no going back now. She was Mrs. Julian Thorne, and she had no idea what that was going to cost her.
