Flash Marriage To The Secret Billionaire CEO

The white daisies felt cool against Erin Mueller's clammy hands. She navigated the narrow grass paths, her eyes scanning the endless rows of weathered stone. Green-Wood Cemetery was a city of the dead, and she was hopelessly lost.

Her mother's directions had been vague at best. "Eleanor Vance. Somewhere near the big oak tree." Every tree here was a big oak tree.

Finally, her eyes landed on a simple, lichen-spotted headstone. Eleanor Vance.

A wave of relief washed over her. She knelt, the damp earth seeping through the knees of her jeans, and placed the daisies at the base of the stone.

"Hi," she whispered to the silent grave. "I'm Erin. My mom said we're related, somehow. Sorry it took me so long to visit."

The silence that answered was heavy, profound. It mirrored the silence in her apartment, in her life.

A lump formed in her throat. "Things are... not great," she confessed to the stone. "My design studio is barely breaking even, and my last date told me my ambition was 'intimidating.' So." She let out a humorless laugh.

She looked up at the sky, a flat, gray canvas. "If you have any pull up there," she said, the words a half-prayer, half-joke, "I could really use a win. Maybe send a good man my way? A kind one. And if it's not too much to ask, could he be a pilot?"

"What are you doing at my grandmother's grave?"

The voice was deep, resonant, and so close it vibrated through the soles of her feet.

Erin's heart leaped into her throat. She scrambled to her feet, spinning around so fast she almost lost her balance.

He was tall. Impossibly tall, dressed in a black suit so perfectly tailored it seemed molded to him. His face was all sharp angles and shadows, his eyes a startling, piercing blue that seemed to strip away every one of her defenses.

The kind of man she actively avoided. The kind who owned buildings, not rented apartments. The kind who never had to wish for anything.

"I-I'm so sorry," she stammered, her cheeks burning with a humiliating heat. "My mom, she said... Eleanor Vance..."

"This is Eleanor Vance's grave," he confirmed, his voice devoid of warmth. His gaze flickered from her face to the daisies, then back. The coldness in his expression thawed, just a fraction.

A knot of confusion tightened in her stomach. His grandmother? Was she at the wrong grave? But the name was right, and it was near a large oak, just as her mother had said. Maybe there were two.

He looked at the headstone, a strange, unreadable emotion in his eyes. "My grandmother had a dying wish," he said, his voice low and even. "She wanted me to marry the first kind girl I found placing flowers on her grave."

Erin stared at him. The world tilted on its axis. She must have heard him wrong. Or maybe he was a very handsome, very well-dressed lunatic. She took an instinctive step back.

"I never break a promise to my family," he continued, as if her shock was a minor inconvenience.

He reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket. Her mind screamed gun, knife, run, but all he produced was a small, black velvet box.

He opened it.

Inside, nestled on a bed of white satin, was a simple, elegant platinum band.

Then, in the middle of a Brooklyn cemetery, under a gray sky, this impossible man got down on one knee. The fabric of his expensive trousers pressed into the damp earth.

"Erin Mueller," he said, and the sound of her own name from his lips sent a jolt through her entire body. "Will you marry me, and help me fulfill a promise?"

Her brain was a blank slate. White noise. All she could focus on was the way he looked at her, his gaze so intense it felt like a physical touch. Her fingernails dug into the palm of her other hand, a desperate, silent attempt to ground herself.

A wild, desperate impulse flared in her chest. Her life was a repeating loop of disappointments. This... this was not that. This was something else entirely.

The question tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop it. "What... what do you do?"

He rose to his feet in one fluid motion, his eyes never leaving hers. "I'm a man who flies around a lot."

The vague answer hit her like a lightning strike. A pilot.

She looked into his deep blue eyes and saw not a stranger, but a bizarre, terrifying kind of destiny.

She took a deep breath, the air thin and cold in her lungs.

"Yes," she heard herself say, the voice trembling and unfamiliar. "I will."

A flicker of something-triumph, relief?-crossed his face, so fast she might have imagined it.

He took the ring from the box and slid it onto her finger. It was cool against her skin, a perfect fit.

He took her hand, his grip firm and warm. "We'll go to City Hall now."

It wasn't a question.

She followed him, her legs moving mechanically. She felt like she was dreaming, walking through a world that was no longer quite real. As they passed the cemetery gates, she glanced back at the gravestone, half-expecting to see Eleanor Vance waving.

He led her to a car parked on the street. It wasn't a sleek black sedan like she'd expected. It was an old Ford SUV, the paint on the hood slightly faded, a small dent on the rear bumper. The sight of it was a strange comfort, a small anchor of normalcy in a sea of insanity. He wasn't some weird billionaire, at least.

He opened the passenger door for her. The interior was clean but worn, smelling faintly of coffee and something vaguely like old paper.

Her heart was a frantic drum against her ribs. She was about to marry a man she'd met less than an hour ago.

"We don't even know each other's full names," she said, the words feeling stupid and small.

He started the engine, the sound a low rumble. He turned to her, his profile sharp and handsome in the dim light of the car.

"My name is Harmon Chandler," he said, his voice steady. The name hit her like a physical blow, an electric shock that made her flinch. Harmon Chandler. No. It couldn't be. Her smile froze, and the air in the old SUV suddenly felt thin, unbreathable.

"And you, future Mrs. Chandler?" he asked, oblivious to the panic clawing its way up her throat.