Catherine’s POV
I’d taken a personal day to get married.
I stood in front of my closet for a solid twenty minutes like the world’s dumbest woman.
The blue dress?
Too dressy.
Like I was showing up to impress somebody.
The gray sweater?
Too casual, like I couldn’t be bothered to shower.
I held up a third thing, then let my arm drop and just glared at my own reflection.
Why did I even care?
That was what made my stomach knot up.
I was standing here agonizing over an outfit to go marry a man I’d met twice, and some pathetic corner of my brain kept whispering, what’s he going to think when he sees you?
Whether he’d look at me again the way he had in that restaurant, like I was the only real thing in a room full of cardboard cutouts.
“Pull it together, Catherine,” I muttered, and yanked the gray sweater over my head hard enough to muss my hair.
It didn’t matter.
None of this mattered.
This was a contract.
Not a wedding.
I told myself that the entire cab ride to City Hall.
It didn’t take.
The whole thing was over in fifteen minutes.
A clerk with a coffee stain on her blouse slid the paperwork across the counter, we signed our names, and just like that, I was somebody’s wife.
I walked out into the Manhattan sun clutching the marriage certificate in both hands and I still couldn’t wrap my head around it.
There was my name, printed right beside his: Lorenzo Marino.
Marino was the alias he used exclusively for this marriage registration to hide his true identity as a member of the powerful Romano family.
I had married a total stranger on the heels of the worst breakup and most humiliating week of my life, yet the sky had not fallen.
Taxis still honked in the street, and a man on the corner was still shouting about hot dogs as if it were any other Tuesday in New York.
I had just married a stranger.
And Marino?
I had never heard that name among the city’s rising elite.
He clearly hadn’t been born into one of those famous families, so why did he carry himself like a man who had money everywhere he went?
He had flown first class, eaten at expensive restaurants, and moved through the world as if nothing in it could ever inconvenience him.
“Where do you live?” he asked, sliding his sunglasses on.
“I’ll take you home.”
“Old part of Brooklyn.” I hugged the certificate to my chest.
Then my curiosity did what it always does and got the better of me.
“So.
Your family.
They’re not gonna have a fit about this?”
“No,” he said, easy as breathing.
“I answer to myself.”
He walked over to a sleek black car parked at the curb and pulled the passenger door open for me.
The little chrome ornament on the hood caught the light and threw it back cold and bright, and something about it snagged in my head.
I stopped dead.
Rubbed my eyes.
Then I actually walked up and pointed at it, and I swear to God my voice cracked.
“Is that…is that a Rolls-Royce?”
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
Is this a Wattpad novel?
Am I about to find out this man owns half of Manhattan?
He went still for a second.
I caught something flicker across his face, there and gone, before his fingers tapped once against the door frame.
“It belongs to my employer,” he said smoothly.
“He asked me to take it in for servicing today.”
“The first-class seat?”
“Company benefit.”
“And the expensive restaurant?
You broke Ricci’s arm.”
“I was demoted for that,” he said solemnly.
“Yes, your husband has already made many sacrifices to protect you.”
I stared at him, then laughed despite myself.
With that explanation, everything suddenly made more sense.
An ordinary, attractive employee with a rich employer, a family pressuring him to get married, and a desperate need for a wife on paper sounded far more believable than a billionaire searching for a bride.
Reality, after all, was rarely as romantic as fiction.
And honestly?
The vibe coming off this man was less billionaire and more like something out of a mob movie.
The kind of quiet where you don’t ask questions.
We climbed in and the car pulled off the curb smooth as silk.
I ran my palm over the leather and tried very hard not to look impressed.
Then something occurred to me and I turned to face him.
“So.
Mr.
Marino.” His name felt strange rolling off my tongue.
“Can I ask where your place is?”
Because I needed out of the Vitale house yesterday.
I’d spent the last two nights scrolling listings until my eyes burned, but rent in this city is a bad joke and my savings account is more of a rounding error than an actual number.
Nothing worked.
He frowned, thinking, like the question was somehow harder than it should be.
“Bellavista Gardens,” he said finally.
I blinked.
“Bellavista Gardens?”
That was one of the nicest buildings in Midtown.
Prime block, walking distance to everything, sitting in the best school zone in the borough.
Places in there went for a small fortune per square foot.
So, big corporate salary.
That tracked.
Man had money.
Just not throw-a-Rolls-around-like-it was-nothing money.
“That’s really close to my office,” I said, nodding.
Then, before my mouth could check with my brain, “Um.
When can I move in?”
The second it left my lips I heard exactly how it sounded, and my whole face went up in flames.
His fingers drummed once on the wheel.
“Give it a few days.
I’ll come get you.”
“Okay.” I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
“Thanks.”
We drove a block in silence.
And then, because if I didn’t lay this all out now I never would, I twisted around in my seat to look at him.
“Look.
Before this gets real, I think we should set some ground rules.”
The corner of his mouth ticked up.
“Ground rules.”
“Three of them.” I held up my fingers and counted them off.
“One.
We stay the hell out of each other’s personal lives.
You do you, I do me, no questions asked.
Two.
Separate bedrooms.
This is a piece of paper, not a marriage.” I swallowed.
“Three.
Nobody finds out.
As far as the rest of the world is concerned, we’re both single.”
“Separate bedrooms,” he repeated, tasting the words.
His gaze slid to my mouth for half a second, then away.
“You sure about that one, wife?”
Heat crawled up my neck.
“Very sure.”
“Shame.” He said it so mildly I almost missed it, pulling smoothly through the intersection like he hadn’t just set my whole face on fire.
I glared at the side of his stupid, perfect profile.
“That’s not part of the deal.”
“I didn’t say it was.” A pause.
“Anything else?”
“Yeah, actually.” My voice came out steadier than I felt, which was a small miracle considering my pulse was doing something ridiculous.
“If you ever meet someone.
Someone real, someone you actually want.
We call it.
Clean split, no drama, no lawyers.
You walk, I walk.
Deal?”
Something shifted behind his eyes then, dark and slow.
Then he said, “Deal.”
And for some reason I couldn’t name,I had the distinct feeling I’d just walked myself into the wolf’s den—and pulled the door shut behind me.