Ronan
She stands by the door, a cornered animal ready to tear its own leg off to escape the trap. The marriage certificate is a crumpled mess in her fist. Her eyes, which were full of fire and laughter just hours ago, are now wide with a cold, pure terror. And something else. Something harder. Rage.
I hold up my hands, a gesture of surrender. It feels wrong. I am not a man who surrenders. But I am also not a man who kidnaps women, no matter what this looks like.
“I know how this looks,” I say, keeping my voice low, steady. “I know it’s insane. You have every right to run. Every right to hate me.”
“I’m leaving,” she says. Her voice is shaking, but there’s a core of steel in it. It’s the voice of a woman who has pulled herself out of worse things than this. The thought is intriguing. And worrying.
“Just… don’t,” I say. “Not yet. Please. Before you go, just let me explain everything. I swear to you, this is not what it seems. Just give me five minutes. Hear me out. If you still want to leave after that, I won’t stop you.”
She watches me, her hand white knuckled on the doorknob. Every instinct in her body must be screaming. I can see the battle playing out across her face. The survivalist versus the strategist. I am betting on the strategist. The woman who joked about fire exits.
Her hand slowly, reluctantly, falls away from the door. She doesn’t move closer. She doesn't relax. She just stands there, a statue of defiance, waiting.
“Five minutes,” she says. The words are ice chips.
I nod, letting out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. I walk over to the armchair where her dress lies and pick up my pants from the floor beside it. I pull them on, not for modesty, but to give this conversation a shred of normalcy. To reduce the power imbalance, if only slightly. She tracks my every movement.
“Last night wasn’t a mistake,” I begin, facing her. “It was desperate. It was impulsive. But it was not a mistake.”
“It feels like a mistake from over here.”
“From over here, it was the only move I had left on the board.” I run a hand through my hair. “I am, for all intents and purposes, engaged. I have been since I was sixteen.”
Her expression doesn’t change, but I see a flicker of something in her eyes. Confusion. She is starting to process, to analyze.
“It’s not a formal thing,” I continue. “No ring, no announcement. It was a handshake deal between my father and hers. A political alliance. A merger of the two most powerful families in the city. Her name is Isabella Ricci.”
The name hangs in the air between us. Even if she is a civilian, a complete outsider, she would know that name. Everyone knows the Riccis.
“She’s a snake,” I say, the words tasting like poison. “She’s ambitious and cruel and she views our marriage as a coronation. Her coronation. I have spent the last ten years trying to find a way out of it. My father sees it as duty. I see it as a life sentence in a prison I do not own.”
I pause, letting her absorb this. Her posture shifts slightly. She is no longer just looking for an escape route. She is listening.
“A Moretti marriage contract is ironclad,” I say. “But it has one loophole. It is null and void if one of the parties marries someone else first. It’s an archaic clause, meant to prevent forced unions. No one has ever used it. Until last night.”
Her eyes drop to the heavy gold ring on her finger. Then back to my face. The pieces are clicking into place for her. The terror in her eyes is slowly being replaced by a dawning, horrified understanding.
“So I was a loophole,” she says. Her voice is flat, devoid of emotion. “A convenient stranger.”
“You were a godsend,” I correct her. “I saw you at the bar. You weren’t like the other women. They look at me and they see a vault they want the combination to. You… you looked at me and saw a man. You challenged me. You made me laugh. I wasn't planning on getting married last night, Aria. But then I saw you, and the most reckless, insane plan I have ever considered suddenly seemed like the only sane option.”
“That doesn’t make it better, Ronan. That makes it worse. You used me.”
“I am asking to use you,” I say. “That’s what this is. A proposition. A business deal.”
She lets out a short, sharp laugh. It holds no humor. “A business deal? You tricked me into marriage.”
“I got drunk and asked the most captivating woman I’ve ever met to help me out of a cage. And for some reason, you said yes. I don’t remember every detail, but I remember that. I remember you laughing when Elvis asked if you’d take me as your ‘hunka hunka burnin’ love’.”
A faint blush colors her cheeks. She remembers. Good.
“This is the deal,” I say, taking a single step closer. She flinches, and I stop. “Stay married to me. For six months. Play the part of my wife. Come to family dinners. Smile for the cameras at galas. Convince my father and the entire world that we are madly in love.”
“And in return?” she asks, her voice wary.
“In return, I give you a new life. I’ll deposit ten million dollars into an account under any name you choose. When the six months are over, we quietly annul the marriage. You walk away with the money and a clean slate. You can go anywhere, be anyone. Disappear. Or you can stay. I will set you up with a business, a home, anything you want.”
I take another small step. This time she doesn’t flinch.
“And more than that,” I say, my voice dropping lower. “For these six months, and for the rest of your life if you need it, you will have my family’s protection. My protection. No one will ever be able to touch you. The Moretti name is a shield. The best one there is.”
She is silent for a long time. The morning sun streams into the room, catching the dust motes dancing in the air. The city below us is alive now, a symphony of car horns and distant sirens. Here, in this room, the world has stopped, balanced on the edge of her decision.
“Why should I trust you?” she finally asks. “You’ve done nothing but lie to me.”
“I haven’t lied,” I say. “I omitted certain, rather large, details. But my name is Ronan. I do own this place. And everything I felt for you last night was real. That’s the one part of this that wasn’t strategic.”
Her gaze is steady, searching. She is trying to see past the mob boss, past the manipulator. She is trying to see the man. I let her look. I have nothing left to hide.
“What if I say no?”
“Then I meant what I said. I won’t stop you. You can walk out that door. I’ll have my lawyers draw up annulment papers this morning, citing… temporary insanity. I will deal with Isabella and my father. My life will become significantly more complicated. But you’ll be free.”
I can see the temptation on her face. The pull of freedom. The urge to run back to whatever life she had before she met me.
But I have one more card to play. The most important one.
“You should know, though,” I add, my tone casual, but the words are weighted. “The kind of people I deal with… they have ears everywhere. The moment that certificate was signed, word started to spread. By the time the sun came up, Isabella Ricci knew she had been replaced. She is not a forgiving woman.”
I let that sink in. I am trapping her. I know it. But I am also telling the truth.
“Walking out that door alone… it’s a risk,” I say softly. “Isabella will want to know who you are. She will dig. And when she finds you, she will try to destroy you. Not because she loves me, but because you took something she believes is hers. Staying here, by my side… it’s the safest place for you to be right now.”
I have laid it all out. The cage and the key. The prison and the protection. I can see the calculations running behind her eyes. She is weighing her options, her chances. I find myself holding my breath again.
I need her to say yes. It started as a strategy, a desperate gambit to escape a future I dreaded. But somewhere between the club and the chapel and waking up to find her standing in the morning light, it became something else.
I want her here. I want to know the secrets behind her eyes. I want to see her laugh again.
My attraction to her isn’t just real. It’s dangerous. It might be the most dangerous part of this entire deal.
She finally looks at me, her expression unreadable. She lifts her left hand, the heavy gold ring catching the light. It looks impossibly right on her finger.
“Six months,” she says. It is not a question. It is a statement. A term of a contract.
Relief, sharp and overwhelming, washes over me. I give her a small, slow nod.
“Six months,” I agree.
“And then I walk away.”
“With ten million dollars and my protection for life,” I confirm.
She takes a deep breath, the first one that doesn’t seem tight with panic. She walks over to the armchair and picks up the ridiculous red dress. She looks from it to me, a flicker of the fiery woman from the bar returning to her eyes.
“Fine,” she says, her voice clear and firm, the voice of a woman who has just negotiated the terms of her surrender, and maybe, just maybe, thinks she got the better end of the deal. “Looks like you have a wife, Ronan Moretti. Now, where is the damn coffee in this prison?”
