The rain lashed against the battered roof of my old Mini with such fury it felt like the sky itself wanted to crush me, to wash me away into the gutters along with my grief. Each drop was a hammer against the anvil of my fate, relentless and deafening. Id just fled the sterile, antiseptic hell of the hospital, where yet another exhausted doctor had delivered the same verdictmy mums surgery wasnt happening. The sum he named wasnt just unaffordable. It was a cruel joke, a reminder of my place in the world: scrambling in the dirt while people like him threw that kind of money around like loose change.
A year of fighting for Mums life had hollowed me out. I was a ghost, stretched thin across three jobs, drowning in debts I couldnt pay back. Despair was my shadow, its taste like rust on my tongue, impossible to scrub away.
And then, in the depths of that emptiness, the phone rang. Aunt Lydiapersistent as a moth to a flamehad found her next victim. Her voice crackled down the line, all business.
“Listen, Annie, stop your blubbering! Ive got you a lifeline. The Harringtons. Wealth like you wouldnt believe. And their son well, hes not well. Car crash. Cant walk, barely speaks. They need a carer. Young, strong, presentable. But not just a carer. A wife. On paper, of course. For appearances. Theyll pay. Handsomely.”
It wasnt an offer. It was a deal with the devil. But the devil held my mothers life in his palm. What had honesty ever given me? Poverty. Humiliation. A paupers funeral for the only person I loved.
A week of sleepless nights, and fear won. Now here I stood in the heart of their mansion, feeling like an insect on the polished marble. The air smelled sterile, like money and emptiness. Crystal chandeliers, portraits of stern ancestors judging meand by the window, him. Edward Harrington.
He sat in a wheelchair, his body frail beneath his clothes. But his facesharp cheekbones, dark browswas arrestingly handsome, frozen like a statue. His eyes, vacant and glassy, stared past the rain-soaked garden as if he werent really there.
His father, Charles Harrington, silver-haired and immaculate, assessed me in one glance. I might as well have been livestock.
“The terms are clear,” he said, voice like steel. “You marry my son. Legally. Care for him, stay by his side. No marital duties beyond appearances. A year from now, you walk away with a substantial sum. Fail the trial month, and youre compensated and gone.”
I nodded, nails digging into my palms. I searched Edwards face for any flicker of life. Nothing. He was just another piece of furniture.
The wedding was a silent, joyless farce. My new room was spacious and cold. My life became a numb routine: feeding him, bathing him, reading to a man who never responded. I pitied him, this broken, beautiful stranger. I started talking to him like a diary that couldnt answer back.
But a month in, the cracks began to show.
Once, tripping on a rug, I nearly felland Edward let out a sharp, unmistakable gasp. I froze. His face betrayed nothing. Surely Id imagined it.
Then my favourite hairclip vanished. I tore the room apart. That night, I found it on his bedside tableon his side, where I never went.
Next, a bookmark. Id left it in a drawer. The next morning, it was on the breakfast table, marked with a jade lizard Id never seen.
I started testing him. Pretended to sleep, left things in odd places.
“I bet theres peonies behind the old oak,” I said one day, massaging his stiff fingers. There was only weeds.
The next day, his father casually ordered a new flowerbed. “With peonies. Behind the oak. Lovely idea.”
Ice slid down my spine. This wasnt paranoia. It was a conspiracy.
The truth came at midnight. A rustle from his room. I crept to the door, cracked it open. Moonlight spilled over the bed.
It was empty.
My heart plummeted. Thena scrape of wood. His fathers study.
He was standing. Edward was standing. Sweat gleamed on his back as he braced against the desk, rifling through papers. His lips moved soundlessly, his face twisted with fury.
I stepped back. The floor creaked.
He went rigid. Turned. His eyes werent empty anymorethey were wild with terror.
“Quiet,” he rasped, the word jagged, unused. A threat.
A shadow fell over me. Charles stood in the doorway, holding a file. Not a gun. Something worse.
“Our little bird saw too much,” he said calmly. “Come inside, Annie. Lets talk.”
The truth spilled out. The accident. His fiancée, dead. Her father, Vladimir Krotov, blaming Edward. A corporate war. A vendetta.
“If Krotov thinks Edwards recovering,” Charles said, “hell kill him.”
I was a decoy. A wife to draw attention away.
“You used me,” I whispered.
“We saved your mother,” Charles countered. “Thats your payment. Now youre part of this. Your life depends on how well you lie.”
Edwards hand shot out, gripping my wrist. “Youll die,” he forced out, “if you tell.”
I understood. I was in the war now.
A year passed in lies and tension. Edward relearned to walk in secret, teeth gritted against the pain. Then, word cameKrotov knew. Hed sent a killer.
We set a trap. A dummy in Edwards bed. The assassin came through the balcony, syringe in hand. Lights flashed. Guards tackled him.
It was over.
A month later, Krotov was arrested. The divorce papers waited on the table, alongside a cheque. More than promised.
“Stay,” Charles said. “We owe you.”
Edward stood by the fireplace, leaning on a cane. His eyes held gratitude. Something deeper.
“No,” I said. “I did this for my mother. Were square.”
I took the cheque. Turned to leave.
“Annie.” Edwards voice was rough but steady. “Thank you.”
I nodded. Smiled faintly. Walked out.
Outside, the first snow fell. Clean. Quiet. The air tasted like freedom. I had nothing. No job, no plan. But I had my life. And that was enough.
