8. Chapter 8
Jade
The morning light in the carriage house is brutal, catching every speck of dust and the clean clinical edges of the document on my kitchen table.
Twelve pages. That's what twelve months of my life costs. I trace the signature line at the bottom, my finger hovering over the empty space where my name is supposed to go.
It's mid-October. Five weeks since I walked into this house with a duffel bag and a green hand puppet, and here I am about to sign away the next twelve months of my life.
I stopped trying to balance the equation around midnight.
Graham is leaning against my counter, looking like he hasn't slept and has still managed to look like a threat in a charcoal sweater. He's watching me with that flat, unreadable stare that makes me want to either punch him or fix his hair.
"Section four, point two," I say, tapping the paper. "Public displays of affection are limited to hand-holding, brief hugs, and forehead kisses. Anything else requires mutual consent in the moment. No surprises for the cameras that haven't been cleared with me first."
Graham shifts his weight, broad shoulders blocking the sun from the window.
"Agreed. I have no interest in performing for the paparazzi more than necessary.
But if the Whitlocks are watching, it has to look convincing.
A forehead kiss isn't going to sell a whirlwind romance to a woman who has spent forty years sniffing out social climbers. "
"Then we'll have to get very good at staring longingly at each other from across dinner tables." I slide the pen toward the center of the table. "And separate rooms. I want that explicitly stated. My space is off-limits. No midnight strategy meetings in my bedroom."
A muscle jumps in his jaw. I've learned to recognize that as a sign of his ego bruising.
"Separate rooms go without saying, Jade," he says, voice dropping into that low gravelly register that vibrates in the back of my throat. "I'm buying your time and your name, not your body. I think I can manage to keep my hands to myself for twelve months."
"Good. Because if you forget, I've got a heavy cast-iron skillet and very little patience for billionaire entitlement."
I pick up the pen. It weighs more than a pen has any right to weigh.
"One year. My mother's bills paid in full. Iris stays with you. The only reasons I'm doing this."
"Noted."
I look at the signature line.
My handwriting is going to outlive this version of me. Whatever I am at the end of twelve months, the woman who signs this paper is going to be someone else.
I think about my mother's voice on the phone last week. The good ones reach for you. I think about Iris falling asleep with her hand on my wrist three nights ago, her fingers refusing to fully let go even after she'd gone under.
Three reasons. The third one I haven't said out loud to anyone, including myself.
I sign.
He doesn't look away. I can feel his gaze like a physical weight, tracking the movement of my hand as I bind my life to his. When I finish, I slide the paper across the table.
He signs his name in three hard strokes.
It's done. I am officially the future Mrs. Sterling.
In the small space between the contract being done and the next thing starting, my brain finally surfaces the thing it's been trying to tell me since I woke up.
The pill case is still on the bathroom counter at the cottage. Same place I set it down last night before I brushed my teeth. Same place it was on Tuesday morning. Same place it was the Tuesday before that.
I do the math without meaning to.
Tuesday. Diner parking lot. Three hours late. Within the window.
Wednesday. Three hours late again, after the dress fitting. Within the window. Probably.
Yesterday. I was on the phone with my mother and forgot entirely. Took it at noon. Five hours late.
This morning. Nothing yet. The case is across the lawn, and the clock on the stove reads nine fifty-six.
Three slips in eight days. Four if I count this morning, which I should.
A small alarm goes off somewhere behind my ribs.
The kind of alarm you can silence by reminding yourself that you have taken this pill at seven every morning since you were nineteen and one or two off-window doses are not the same as a missed week.
I have not missed a full day. I have just shifted the window.
I tell myself this. I almost believe it.
I'm on the way to file a marriage license with a man who lives down the hall from me. I'll take it the second we get back. I'll set a phone alarm for seven a.m. I'll buy a second case and leave it in my purse so this stops happening.
Right now I have a courthouse to get to.
"The courthouse opens in twenty minutes," Graham says, checking his watch.
"Pierce is meeting us there with the expedited filing.
We get the license on file today. Friday, we sign before the clerk.
No ceremony, no guests. Just legal. The public event comes later, when we're ready for people to see it. "
I nod. The two-step makes sense. The legal part is armor. The public part is theater. I understand the difference. I'm just not sure I'll feel it that way when the moment comes.
The drive into Linden Lake is silent.
Graham drives his SUV with a controlled aggression that matches his personality, hands tight on the leather-wrapped steering wheel. I keep looking at his profile. The sharp line of his nose. The slight curl of his dark hair at the nape of his neck.
I need to stop registering his scent. Cedar and expensive coffee, filling the cabin of the car.
I can't.
We pull up to the courthouse, a squat brick building that tries hard to look important.
The October cold has bite now. Graham reaches out as we step out, his fingers brushing the small of my back as he guides me toward the stairs.
A light touch, barely there. But my whole spine knows it's there.
I stiffen, and he leans in close, his breath warm against my ear.
"Relax, Jade. The clerk at the front desk has the biggest mouth in the county. If we look like we're heading to a funeral, the whole town will know by lunch. Smile like you like me."
"I'm an educator, Graham, not an actress." But I force my shoulders to drop.
I reach down and catch his hand, lacing my fingers with his. His palm is broad and warm, his skin rougher than I expected. I hate how well our fingers fit together.
The courthouse smells like floor wax and old paper.
The woman behind the glass partition has glasses on a chain and the alert, darting eyes of someone who has spent decades collecting other people's business. She looks up as we approach. Her gaze goes from Graham's face to our joined hands. She looks like she's just swallowed a very juicy secret.
"Mr. Sterling. We didn't expect you in person. Usually your people handle the paperwork."
"Some things are too important to delegate, Mrs. Pell. My fiancée and I would like to file our marriage license. Quiet as possible. We'll return Friday for the civil signing."
Mrs. Pell takes the paperwork, her eyes scanning my name, my address, my face. She looks at me with a mixture of envy and suspicion that makes my skin crawl. To her, I'm the help who caught the king.
I squeeze Graham's hand harder.
He misinterprets the squeeze. He pulls me closer, his arm wrapping around my waist, drawing me into the heat of his side. I can feel the hard line of his thigh against mine, the rhythmic thud of his heart against my shoulder.
For a second the room blurs. The smell of the wax, the scratch of the pen, the way she's stamping a lie into a legal document. It all fades into the simple, terrifying reality of his body against mine.
He's so much larger than me. A literal wall of a man. For one weak, flickering moment, I feel safe.
His hand spreads across my hip and stays there. Through the fabric of my dress I can feel the heat of each finger, the deliberate weight of his palm. His thumb moves once, just once, a slow stroke against the curve of my hip bone.
The kind of touch that has no audience. The counter is between us and the clerk. There is no reason for it.
Then he goes still. Like he's caught himself. And I have the brief, dangerous thought that he is having a worse time than I am with the proximity.
I should be filing this under performance. Section four, point two. Hand-holding, brief hugs, forehead kisses. We just signed a document about this less than an hour ago.
His thumb is not on the list.
I shake the thought away. Safety is an illusion when it's bought and paid for.
Mrs. Pell stamps the paperwork and slides it back across the counter. "There's a seventy-two hour waiting period. Return Friday afternoon for the civil signing before the clerk of court, or have any licensed officiant complete it. The license is good for sixty days."
"Friday," Graham says. "Just the signing. The ceremony, the real one, for people, comes later."
Mrs. Pell's eyes glitter. "And when would that be?"
"When we're ready. Once Iris is comfortable."
I look past Mrs. Pell, toward the hallway that leads to the judges' chambers, and my pulse stops.
The double doors at the end of the hall swing open.
Beatrice Whitlock walks out, regal in a navy suit that screams old money and cold hearts.
She's tucking something into her purse. Behind her, through the closing doors, I catch a glimpse of a woman in black judicial robes returning to her chambers.
Beatrice was just in there. Alone. The kind of visit that doesn't go on any docket.
"Graham," I whisper.
I don't have to point. He's already seen her. The muscles in his arm turn to stone, his entire body coiling into a predatory stillness.
Beatrice's smile doesn't sharpen when she sees us. It settles. The smile of a woman looking at something she has already accounted for.
"Mr. Sterling. And Ms. Alvarez. What a coincidence."
She says my name like a word she's already looked up. Like she has known it longer than I've been standing here.
"We're handling some personal matters, Beatrice." Graham's voice is perfectly smooth.
"Personal matters." Her eyes drop to the marriage license folder in my hand. She doesn't look surprised. She looks satisfied. "Eleanor and I were just discussing how very telling it is when a man manufactures stability instead of demonstrating it. She finds it quite revealing. As do I."
She says Eleanor like she's said it a thousand times before. First name. No ceremony. A thirty-year friendship worn smooth as river stone.
She doesn't wait for a response. She nods at Graham, gracious and unhurried, and walks toward the exit. Her heels click against the marble with the rhythm of a woman who has never been asked to leave a room.
The door swings shut behind her.
I look down at the marriage license in my hand.
Beatrice Whitlock just walked out of a judge's chambers on the same morning we filed our paperwork. She wasn't surprised to see us. She was satisfied.
I have spent enough time around powerful people to know which one is worse.
Graham's hand finds the small of my back. I don't lean into it this time.
Whatever this contract is supposed to protect us from, it's already too late.