1. Chapter 1 #2
Her throat tightened. She couldn’t stop herself. She was tired of running, tired of the endless fear, the games, the hiding. And her nonna, sweet, stubborn, clever Evangeline, didn’t have the luxury of time.
“I need a husband,” she blurted, the words bursting from her before she could stop them.
Heat rushed to her cheeks, and she shut her eyes with a sigh of frustration.
“Sorry. That came out… creepy.” When she opened them again, his expression hadn’t softened, but his eyes—those impossible eyes—hadn’t left hers either.
She swallowed hard, forcing herself to keep talking. “I need help.”
“In the form of a husband?” he asked, his tone caught somewhere between disbelief and curiosity.
Her gaze flicked to his mouth, noting the absurdly white, even teeth. Too white. Too perfect. She’d met plenty of men scraping by, and toothpaste was never at the top of their survival lists. Food. Shelter. Warmth. Not dental care.
“Yes,” she admitted, her fingers tightening before she sat down, deliberately folding her hands together and resting them on the age-darkened wood of the picnic table.
She forced her shoulders to relax, her face to remain calm.
“I need a husband… actually, just a marriage certificate,” she corrected.
“I’d be willing to pay you for your help. ”
His eyes narrowed, suspicion sharpening his already hard features. “Why the hell do you need a husband?”
Mia shook her head before he even finished the question. “The money means you don’t need to ask any questions.” Her voice sounded steadier than she felt.
The silence that followed wasn’t passive—it pressed down on her, thick and suffocating. A gull cried overhead, the sound startlingly loud in the stillness of the park. Somewhere, a branch creaked as the wind shifted, scattering more petals across the table between them.
Mia’s heart pounded, her body urging her to move, to scratch an itch, to shift her weight from one foot to the other.
Anything to break the unbearable waiting.
She didn’t. She couldn’t. Wiggles meant nerves.
Nerves meant weakness. Weakness gave the other person power.
And she’d lived too long under her father’s shadow to ever forget that painful lesson.
So, she held still. She forced herself to breathe evenly, even as her chest screamed for more air. She kept her gaze on him, unblinking.
Was he thinking? Judging? Calculating what she was really after? Or was he simply waiting her out, seeing how long it would take for her mask to crack?
Every heartbeat felt like a test—and she couldn’t afford to fail.
“How much?”
Slowly, Mia took a deep breath. “One thousand dollars,” she answered. “Five hundred now. Five hundred after I have the signed marriage license, which has been witnessed and notarized.”
She thought, almost imperceptibly, that she caught the tight set of his jaw beneath the scruff of his beard. A silent tell.
“When?”
“Tomorrow. Nine o’clock in the morning,” she blurted, the words pouring out before she could stop herself. Too quick. Too eager. She needed to be cool, casual, indifferent. Instead, her answer exposed her urgency for this plan to work, her relief that he hadn’t already laughed in her face.
“Where?”
She pulled a folded slip of paper from her pocket and held it out with trembling fingers. “This judge will perform the ceremony.”
“I don’t have a suit,” he murmured, reaching for the scrap of paper. A corner of his mouth twitched as though the idea of himself in a suit amused him. His eyes lingered on her a beat too long—not angry now, but colored with a strange curiosity, as if he were trying to puzzle her out.
“No suit necessary,” she rushed to assure him, her voice pitched too high with the hope she couldn’t quite smother.
It sounded almost like joy—wild, desperate relief that maybe, just maybe, she had found her solution.
“Just be there tomorrow and the judge will do the rest. You’ll never have to see me again.
I’ll arrange for a quiet annulment in a year’s time. ”
He shoved the paper into his pocket. The gesture was sharp, dismissive, but to Mia it was everything. It was agreement.
Her heart fluttered in relief as she slid an envelope across the weather-darkened wood. “Here’s the first installment. I promise there’s more tomorrow, if you show up.”
Mia pushed herself to her feet before he could change his mind, before he could speak a word that would unravel the fragile hope growing within her.
Best case scenario: the man would show up tomorrow at the courthouse, say the vows, sign the license, and vanish back into obscurity.
Worst case: she was out five hundred dollars and left scrambling for another plan.
That would hurt, but she was desperate. Desperation had driven her here, and now, for the first time in weeks, she felt a flicker of something like relief.
But relief was a luxury she couldn’t trust. Not when her father was still searching, still doing horrible, evil things. Not when her nonna’s future balanced on this insane gamble.
If the man didn’t show up tomorrow…
She clenched her fists. No. She couldn’t think like that. She had to hold tight to hope, however thin and fragile it felt, and pray her wildest plan wasn’t also her most disastrous.