Chapter 2 TWO
Lennox's brain had officially stopped working.
She sat there in the coffee shop, staring at Gerald Morris across a small table that wobbled every time she shifted her weight, and tried to process what he'd just said. Around them, people ordered complicated drinks with too many specifications, tapped away on laptops, lived their normal Wednesday lives. Meanwhile, this man in his thousand-dollar suit was casually discussing marriage like it was a business transaction.
Which, apparently, it was.
"I'm sorry," Lennox said slowly. "Did you just say your client needs a wife?"
"A wife in the legal sense, yes." Gerald took a sip of his black coffee, completely unbothered by the insanity of this conversation. "The marriage would last one year, though we're hoping you'd be amenable to extending it to two if the arrangement proves mutually beneficial."
"This is a joke." Lennox stood up. Her chair scraped against the floor too loudly, and a few people glanced over. "This is some kind of sick..."
"Sit down, Miss Rivers." Gerald's voice was kind but firm. "Please. Just hear me out."
She should leave. Should walk right out of this coffee shop and never look back. But her phone was still buzzing in her pocket, Detective Chen again, probably, and she had nowhere to go. Her apartment would be crawling with cops soon if it wasn't already. Ryan had vanished. Her job was gone. Her savings were gone. Her entire life had imploded in less than two hours.
Lennox sat back down.
"Smart girl," Gerald said, and pulled a folder from his briefcase. "Here's the situation. You're facing criminal charges for embezzlement. The evidence is damning, transfers made with your credentials, your access codes, money that appeared in accounts linked to you. Hartley & Associates is demanding full restitution of fifty thousand dollars, plus damages. They're estimating three hundred thousand total."
"I didn't steal anything." Her voice came out smaller than she wanted. "My boyfriend..."
"Ryan Castellano. Gambling addict with debts to some very unpleasant people in Atlantic City." Gerald opened the folder, showed her printed records she didn't want to look at. "He used your laptop, your passwords. Framed you beautifully, I have to say. He's already disappeared, by the way. Probably in Vegas by now with enough money to dig himself deeper."
The coffee smell was making her nauseous. Or maybe that was just everything.
"You have thirty days to pay back the three hundred thousand," Gerald continued. "Or the DA's office will prosecute. You'll go to prison, Miss Rivers. Minimum five years for this kind of theft. And that's if they're feeling generous."
Five years. Lennox thought about prison jumpsuits and cells and her entire twenties disappearing into a system that didn't care if she was actually guilty. She thought about her mom getting that phone call, hearing that her daughter was a criminal. Thought about her younger sister Emma looking up to her, and how that would just end.
"I don't have three hundred thousand dollars," she whispered. "I don't have anything."
"My client is prepared to pay your debts in full." Gerald slid a paper across the table. "Plus two million dollars for your cooperation."
The number didn't feel real. Two million. Lennox had never known anyone with that kind of money. She'd never even known anyone who knew anyone with that kind of money.
"What's the catch?" Because there was always a catch. Always.
"You marry my client. You live as his wife for one year, minimum. Attend events, play the role, maintain the fiction for family and public. After one year, you can divorce quietly and walk away with your payment. If you agree to stay for two years, the compensation increases significantly."
"This is insane." Lennox's hands were shaking again. She pressed them flat against the table. "People don't just buy wives."
"People with enough money do whatever they need to do, Miss Rivers." Gerald's expression was almost sympathetic. "And my client needs a wife very badly. His father's will requires it. No marriage, no inheritance. It's arcane and dramatic, but wealthy families often are."
"So find him someone who actually wants to marry him."
"He doesn't have time for courtship. His thirtieth birthday is in eleven months, and the marriage must be established and stable. You're perfect for this, intelligent, presentable, and most importantly, desperate enough to say yes." He paused. "That's not meant to be cruel. It's just accurate."
It was accurate. Lennox hated that it was accurate.
"Who is he?" she asked. "Your client."
Gerald hesitated, and that hesitation made Lennox's stomach drop all over again.
"Callum Westbrook."
The name hit her hard. Callum Westbrook. As in Westbrook Industries. As in one of the wealthiest families in Manhattan, maybe the country. As in the fifteen billion dollar empire that she'd been investigating for eight months.
As in the company whose servers she'd been inside, digging through files and following money trails that led to shell companies and offshore accounts and financial irregularities that didn't make sense. The company she'd been tracking as Cipher, her anonymous hacker identity that no one knew about. The company she was this close to exposing.
"No," Lennox said immediately. "Absolutely not."