Prologue Daisy #2
I crouch to gather my papers. He crouches too, picking up a contract page and handing it to me without comment. When he finds my mother's photograph, he holds it carefully by the edges, like it's something precious instead of a drugstore print.
"Why did you do that?" I ask.
He frowns slightly. "Do what?"
"Stand there. Between me and the door."
He's quiet for a moment. When he answers, his voice is oddly uncertain, nothing like the flat authority from before. "I don't know."
That's what gets me. It isn't the business arrangement or the five years or the promise of saving my father's house. The honesty of I don't know from a man who probably hasn't admitted uncertainty about anything since he learned to talk.
"Klaus Brandt," I say slowly. "He believes in family men."
"Yes."
"Men with stability. Roots." His voice stays flat, clinical.
"Yes."
"What does he believe about the women they marry?"
Adam's jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. "He believes they should be treated well."
I think about Cole. About the restraining order and the trial and the way his lawyer tried to paint me as hysterical. About how prison sentences end and how little the law actually protects you when someone decides you belong to them.
Then there's being married to a man named Smith. About the weight of that name and what it might mean for a girl from a small trucking family when her ex-boyfriend's release date circles on the calendar.
My mind goes to my father, watering roses and talking to a woman who can't answer, in a house he might lose because a fleet manager cut corners and a corporation couldn't admit fault.
"If I did this," I say, "I'd need terms."
Adam's expression shifts. Interest, maybe. Or surprise.
"Such as?"
"No touching without permission. My own space. My own life. You said separate lives. I need that in writing." These are boundaries I've practiced saying since Cole. I can say them to this man too.
"Done."
"I keep working. Whatever I want." I hold his gaze, daring him to push back.
"Agreed."
"And this ends in five years. No extensions. No complications. My father keeps the house and I never see you again."
He studies me for a long moment. "Is that what you want?"
No, I think. What I want is for none of this to be happening. What I want is my mother back and my father's house safe and a life where I never learned what it sounds like when someone breaks your ribs. But we don't always get what we want. Sometimes we get what we can survive.
"Yes," I say.
"Then we have a deal." He extends his hand. After a moment, I shake it. His grip is warm and firm and absolutely impersonal. "My car is downstairs. The courthouse closes at five."
I stare at him. "You want to do this now?"
"Klaus calls tonight. I'd prefer not to lie to him again."
"We met twenty minutes ago."
"Is there a waiting period I'm unaware of?"
My hands aren't shaking anymore. And he didn't ask questions.
"Fine," I say. "But I need to make a phone call first."
It takes another hour to put the terms in writing.
I read every page, then call Dad's lawyer and read him the clauses I don't understand while Adam waits outside.
The dismissal is permanent; there is no clause reviving it if I leave.
The five-year date is a plan for filing a divorce, not a switch that makes us unmarried.
Knowing that should make this feel less like a trap. It doesn't.
An assistant brings a plain gold band in a velvet box. Adam sets it beside the agreement, leaving me to pick it up. I make him write down that my work and earnings remain mine before I sign.
The car is black and expensive and driven by someone who doesn't speak to either of us. I sit on the opposite side of the backseat and call my father while Adam types on his phone with the singular focus of a man who has never made small talk in his life.
"Hey, sweetheart." Dad's voice is tired. It's been tired for a year. "How'd it go?"
I look at Adam Smith's profile. Sharp jaw. Downturned mouth. A crease between his eyebrows that hadn't eased since we left.
"Good," I say. "I think we worked something out."
"Daisy. What did you do?"
"Nothing crazy." The lie tastes strange. "I'll tell you about it later, okay? I have to go."
"I love you, bug."
"Love you too, Dad."
I hang up. Adam is still typing.
"Your father," he says without looking up. "You're close."
"Yes."
"He doesn't know about this."
"Not yet."
The courthouse is a gray building with stone steps and metal detectors and none of the romance you see in movies. We stand in line at the clerk's window behind a couple who look maybe nineteen and completely terrified. The girl keeps touching her stomach in a way that explains everything.
"Name?" the clerk asks when it's our turn. She's got reading glasses perched on her nose and a coffee cup that says WORLD'S OKAYEST MOM.
"Adam Smith," he says. "This is Daisy Williams."
The clerk glances up. Her eyes go wide for just a second (she recognizes him, I realize, from magazine covers or news stories or whatever billionaires appear in) but she recovers quickly. "Marriage license?"
"Yes."
She slides forms across the counter. I fill mine out with a pen that's chained to the desk, watching my own handwriting spell out the details of my life.
My name and age, then the address of my apartment with the bad plumbing and the neighbors who fight every Saturday night.
Adam finishes his form first. Of course he does.
"Witnesses?" the clerk asks.
He turns and approaches two people waiting on a bench, a woman reading a paperback and a man playing something on his phone. After a brief conversation I can't hear, both of them follow him back to the window with expressions of bemused agreement.
"We have witnesses," Adam says.
The clerk stamps something. "Judge Halloran has an opening in fifteen minutes. Down the hall, room 104."
Fifteen minutes. I'm getting married in fifteen minutes to a man I met this afternoon. What the hell am I doing?
Room 104 is small and beige and smells faintly of lemon cleaning solution. Judge Halloran is a white-haired man with kind eyes and a slight stoop who looks like he's been marrying people since before I was born.
"Any vows?" he asks, after the opening recitation. "You can use the standard or write your own."
I open my mouth to say standard (because what would I even say?) but Adam speaks first.
"I'll write my own."
The judge nods and hands him a card and a pen. Adam writes something in quick, angular script. When he hands it back, the judge scans it with raised eyebrows.
"Short but meaningful," he says. "Alright, Mr. Smith. Whenever you're ready."
Adam turns to face me. The fluorescent light catches the ink at his wrists, dark swirls I still can't make out. His eyes are steady. Certain.
"I'll keep you safe," he says.
That's it. Four words. No promises about love or forever or sickness and health. Just: I'll keep you safe. And a hairline crack opens in my chest, in a place I thought I'd sealed off forever.
"Ms. Williams?" The judge gestures to the card in my hand. "Would you like to respond?"
I haven't written anything. I didn't know we'd have this option. But Adam is watching me with that unreadable expression, and somehow the words come.
"I'll be honest with you," I say. "Even when it's hard."
The corner of his mouth twitches. It's not quite a smile, but it's closer than anything I've seen from him yet.
"By the power vested in me by this state," the judge says, "I now pronounce you husband and wife."
No kiss. Adam doesn't try, and I don't offer. We sign papers and shake hands with our borrowed witnesses and walk out of the courthouse into late afternoon sun that feels surreal on my face. I'm married. I'm married to Adam Smith.
"The penthouse has a guest room," Adam says as we reach the car. "You can use it until your things are moved."
"I didn't agree to move in with you."
"Klaus will expect us to live together."
"Fine," I say. "But I'm keeping my apartment for now."
"Agreed."