ANNALIESE
I’m the one who wrote out the marital agreement, plus the prenup, using everything I picked up working at Eric’s law firm. All it needs to be formalized is to have a notary stamp it with their seal, but for all intents and purposes, it’s a contract that sets out the terms for our marriage of convenience.
Our fake marriage.
About three weeks into being Mrs. Sebastien Reynolds, I realize that I forgot the most important clause.
I never agreed that I wouldn’t fall in love with him.
Oh, I promised myself that I wouldn’t. I fuckingswore. After everything that happened with Eric, I never wanted to fall in love again. I could do cooking. Cleaning.Fucking. I could be a pretty face on his arm, no personality, doing exactly what my husband wanted just like my former lover trained me to do.
But that was when I expected my fake husband would be treating this arrangement just like that. And, true, I should’ve suspected something was off when Sebastien insisted on us going through a real wedding with witnesses, but I couldn’t denythat our fake marriage would have more standing in the Order if, you know, we actuallyhadone.
Anything for Miranda. That’s what I told myself. Anything for my sister.
I haven’t heard from Eric. The fact that he’s still blocked helps, but he knows where I live. He pointed it out the last time he summoned me to his house. He could come here if he wanted to, and I’m so damn glad that he doesn’t want to. So far, my plan is working.
Except for the teensy tiny hitch in it.
I’m falling for my husband.
I don’t want to. I keep trying to step. I don’t even know when it started. When that charming grin of his had me going breathless. When I looked at him poured into his black jeans, muscle tee, and leather jacket and couldn’t stop endlessly reliving that night we shared at the Last Prayer. When his touches—as casual and careful as they were at the beginning of our ‘marriage—started to feel like promises against my skin.
When he called me ‘love’ almost as though he meant it, knowing that he can’t…
It’s stupid. No. It’sdangerous.
Eric will kill him. If he finds out that I really did marry for love—no matter why I proposed to Sebastien Reynolds in the first place—he won’t take it well. I honestly think he might be able to forget an Order-approved marriage of convenience. But for me to love someone that isn’t him? I don’t even want to think about how he’ll react.
Especially since there’s no way that Sebastien will ever loveme.
I promised I’d be the best fake wife possible. So far, he’s been the best fake husband I could hope for.
He knows about the intimacy clause in the contract; he pointed it out himself. And yet… he hasn’t pushed for any sortof it despite what happened between us at the Last Prayer. His touches can be possessive, but never disrespectful.
I know why. Of course I do. I might not have grown up in the Order, but I’ve been part of the secret society’s way of life long enough to understand. Miranda only confirmed it. My husband is a regular at the Court. That means that he’s known to sleep around, both with the Used and whoever will have him… like I did when I was looking for a distraction.
Sleeping with the Used isn’t considered cheating in his world. Even if this marriage isn’t fake, I know who I married. A high-ranking Order member, no matter how much Sebastien seems to want to distance himself from it… I’d have no right to expect fidelity from him. Hewasraised as an Owed. I doubt the idea of being loyal to his wife is anything those men know how to do.
Eric is a prime example of that.
And yet… when I’m alone at night, wondering where Sebastien and what he’s doing…whohe’s doing… I replay what he told me after the evening he signed the contract.
I don’t do fake.
So what is this then?
We have dinner multiple nights a week. He makes an excuse to stop by my apartment at least every few days. He says it’s to make sure everyone knows I’m his, but I saw him chatting with my next door neighbor the other day. Kimmie and Paul aren’t involved in the Order, so why did it matter if they knew I was in a relationship?
That I wasmarried?
I mean, the ring on my finger gives it away, but for Kimmie to congratulate me and gush that my husband is adorably sexy… I hate that I was jealous. Kimmie is more than a decade older than me, happily married to Paul, and they have four kids. I shouldn’t be jealous.
Damn it, I’m jealous.
But I can’t be. And just like I told myself that I won’t fall in love with Sebastien, I insist that I’ll prove that I’mnotjealous. I’ll follow the contract to the best of my ability, sticking to the same ‘marriage of convenience’ refrain.
This is a professional partnership, and nothing more.
