Chapter 1

IRIS

I stand at the front of the church and think, with an odd, dispassionate clarity, that nothing has ever felt less like a beginning.

The air is cool and smells faintly of lilies and old stone, a ceremonial chill that presses against my skin through silk and lace. My wedding dress is heavier than I remember from the fittings, weighted with intention, with expense, with the silent labor of women who will never know my name. During the nuptials, I keep my hands folded because it gives them something to do, and also because if I let them rest at my sides, I'm afraid they'll tremble and someone will surely mistake that for bridal nerves and excitement.

This isn't nerves, and it sure as hell isn't excitement. It's awareness, it's acceptance. I'm not in love, and I'm not even pretending to be.

That's the truth of it, stripped of all ceremony. I've stepped up to this church altar because retreat was no longer an option. The dress is a gorgeous trap, pressing me into stillness. I'm acutely aware of how young I look in it, far younger than my twenty-four years. Despite that, I've made the most adult decision that I'll probably ever make, for the whole rest of my life.

I'm marrying Edward Ashcroft because there was no other door open to me, because Edward needs a wife, and because I need money. Money – even money accessed by a contract, even money with strings and conditions attached – feels like something solid that I can stand on after years of balancing on nothing at all. He needs a wife to cleanly and serenely step into his life without complication or drama, and I need security badly enough that I've learned not to flinch at the cost of entering that life.

This is the entire architecture of the day, though I sure won't say it out loud, and neither will he. I've practiced the reception smile in the mirror anyway, the one that says grateful, the one that says lucky me, the one that implies love without actually requiring it. This smile has carried me further than honesty ever has.... it's carried me right into the luxurious, sumptuous world of the Ashcrofts.

Edward stands in front of me now, slipping a gold band onto my finger. He looks exactly as he should: dark-haired and handsome, rich and respectable. When he smiles at me, it's the smile of a man who believes he's arrived at the correct outcome, and I return the smile radiantly because that's what I'm here to do. I have to sell this publicly as a fairy-tale romance – the marriage contract that I signed six months ago made that explicitly clear.

I tell myself, for about the nine-hundredth time, that this is enough, more than enough. For the first time ever, I'm safe, I'm protected, and I have a clear and predictable path set before me, one that I can navigate with confidence, even right here at the very beginning. All I have to say is, "I do."

So I say the two words that activate the agreement. I say that I do: I do agree to everything laid out in the 147-page wedding contract, to the rules and the expectations, to the lifetsyle and the rewards. I say yes to an entirely new life.

And then I feel it. Someone is looking at me, and not in the way guests look at a bride, not with polite admiration or ceremonial interest, but with weight. With intent.

I know who it is before I even shift my eyes. I know that Edward's father is watching me.

I've sat across from him in offices with solid oak tables, watched him skim the wedding contract with ruthless efficiency, listened to his voice as it shaped the conditions of my life. I've met him dozens of times, always in the presence of lawyers, always with Edward next to me. I've told myself, repeatedly, that the unease he stirs in me is nothing more than the stress and strain of bargaining away my future clause by clause.

That explanation dissolves the moment I look at him now.

Thomas Ashcroft sits two rows back, filling the space as though the pew were built for him alone. At fifty-three, his body hasn't softened into comfort, it's hardened into authority. Broad, muscular shoulders stretch the fabric of his suit, his chest thick and solid beneath fine wool that can't disguise the sheer physical fact of him. His hands rest loosely on his knees – large hands, capable hands, the kind that look like they've signed contracts worth millions and closed around people’s lives without ever trembling. This is a man accustomed to being listened to and obeyed.

His wealth is visible without being advertised: it clings to him in the quality of his clothes, the stillness of his posture, the absolute absence of hurry. He looks like a man who owns rooms, who owns time, who owns outcomes. A man who has never had to ask whether he's allowed to own something.

And right now, as of 'I do', he owns me. I find that a part of me likes that. A lot.

Thomas' dark gaze moves over me slowly, unapologetically, as though the heavy material is no barrier at all. He doesn't look at the facade of the dress; he looks at my body inside it, young, contained, already disciplined by silk and contract and circumstance.

Heat blooms between my legs, sudden and dizzying. It's as if he's run a thick finger between my pussy lips, circled my clit, slipped inside my slick channel. I can feel him stroking me, gently, then faster until I fall apart under his hands, under his stare, under his body.

Then realization lands like cold water thrown smack in my face:

Clause forty-two.
Fidelity.