The CEO's Accidental Bride (Contract Marriage)

Ivy's POV I met Lucy on a Thursday afternoon when I came home early to escape the press vultures outside my office. A teenage girl was sprawled across Adrian's pristine white couch, eating cereal out of the box. She looked up, assessed me, and said, "You're not what I expected." "I'm not sure what you expected." "Taller. Colder. More Botox." I sat down across from her. "Give me six months on the Botox." She almost smiled. Almost. Lucy was Adrian's half-sister. Sixteen. Lived with their mother in Connecticut but appeared at the penthouse whenever she needed to escape. According to the folder Sloane had given me, this was three or four weekends a month. "You're the fake wife," Lucy said, crunching cereal. I choked. "Who told you that?" "Adrian. He doesn't lie to me." She tilted her head. "He said you were funny but I didn't believe him." "I'm not funny. I'm sleep-deprived. It looks similar." She studied me like I was a science experiment. "Most of his girlfriends pretend to like things they don't. Art films, running, me." "I hate running," I said honestly. "And I've never seen an art film that couldn't have been forty minutes shorter." Lucy smiled. It was the first real one. "Okay. Maybe you're okay." That night, I couldn't sleep. I padded to the kitchen for water and found Adrian standing at the stove in a gray t-shirt and sweatpants. His hair was messy. He was making pasta at midnight. "Couldn't sleep?" I asked. He didn't turn around. "Lucy forgot to eat again. She does that when she's stressed." I leaned against the doorway. "Does she have a lot to be stressed about?" "Her mother is difficult, her school is worse. She's sixteen and she's already learned that adults mostly disappoint her." He stirred the pasta. "I'm trying to be the exception." He said it so quietly I almost missed it. I watched him cook. He moved with the same precision he used for everything, but softer somehow. Less like a CEO and more like a brother who was still learning how to be one. "The braids," I said. He paused. "What?" "I saw the YouTube history on the living room tablet. 'How to braid hair for beginners.' 'Easy braid tutorial for dads.'" I smiled. "That was for Lucy, wasn't it?" He did not answer. But his ears went pink. Something in my chest cracked open. I learned things about Adrian over the next two weeks. He stayed up until 2 AM filling out school forms because Lucy's mother had forgotten. He had a folder on his phone labeled "Lucy" that contained doctor emails, tutoring schedules, and a screenshot of a meme she had sent him three years ago. He had learned to make her favorite breakfast, pancakes with chocolate chips arranged in a smiley face and he made them every Saturday morning without fail. He was not the cold, untouchable man the tabloids described. He was a man who had built a fortress around himself and let exactly one person inside. I started to understand why he had said yes to me. Not because he needed a wife for his trust or a date for his events. But because his house was full of marble and glass and silence, and he had been alone in it for a very long time. ***" Lucy came back the following weekend. I was in the library, a room I had discovered tucked behind a false wall, filled with books no one had touched in years, when she found me. I had taken to leaving sticky notes in the margins of books I liked, small observations for whoever came next. "You're weird," Lucy said, watching me write. "I'm aware." "Adrian said you're a preservationist. Like, you save old buildings." "Something like that." She sat on the floor across from me. "Why?" "Because someone should care about things that are falling apart." I capped the pen. "Because if no one pays attention, eventually everything good just gets demolished for something shinier and worse." Lucy looked at me for a long moment. "He's not good at people, you know. Adrian. He tries, but he's been on his own so long he forgets how." "I've noticed." "He needs someone who's not pretending." I set the book down. "I'm not pretending with him, that's the one thing I promised." She nodded slowly. Then she smiled, genuine this time, nothing guarded about it. "Good. Because I already told my friends my brother married someone cool. It would be embarrassing if you turned out to be lame." I laughed. "I'll do my best." Adrian found us an hour later. I was on the floor, showing Lucy how to identify first editions by their binding. She was asking questions, actually listening, her guard completely down. He stopped in the doorway. He did not speak. He just watched. I caught his eye. Something passed between us, not words, not anything I could name. But his expression softened in a way I had not seen before. Lucy looked up. "She's staying for dinner, right?" "I didn't" I started. "She's staying," Adrian said. His voice was even, but something in it had shifted. "We have pancakes." "It's seven PM," Lucy said. "Pancakes are acceptable at all hours." Lucy grinned. It was the grin of someone who had won something. She grabbed my hand and pulled me up. We made pancakes in the massive, spotless kitchen. Adrian handled the stove while Lucy directed and I managed the chocolate chip placement. It was chaotic and loud and so far from the polished, controlled world I had married into. I was laughing at something Lucy said when the word hit. "You're being weird," Lucy told her brother, shoving him with her shoulder. "It's like you forgot how to act when you have actual family around." She said it casually. Offhand. Like it was nothing. Adrian went still. I went still. The room was suddenly very quiet. Lucy looked between us, confused. "What? Did I say something wrong?" "No," Adrian said. His voice was rough. "You didn't say anything wrong." He turned back to the stove. His hands were steady, but I saw the tension in his shoulders, the way he held himself like someone bracing for something to break. I looked at Lucy. She was watching him with the familiar concern of someone who had seen her brother hurt before. "Pass the chocolate chips," I said. "These pancakes aren't going to make themselves." Lucy laughed and the tension cracked. Adrian's shoulders dropped a fraction. But neither of us spoke about what she had said. Family. I had married Adrian Vale for a contract. For six months. For a clean exit and a fresh start. I had not planned to become someone who made his house feel less empty. I had not planned for it to feel less empty for me, too. That night, I lay in my separate bedroom and stared at the ceiling. The silence was different now. Softer, less like absence and more like waiting. My fake husband had taught himself to braid hair from YouTube tutorials. He made pancakes with chocolate chip smiley faces. He stayed up until 2 AM filling out school forms for a teenager who needed someone to care. And I was starting to care. That was the problem.