“Why should I? If it wasn’t for her money, I wouldn’t marry her at all. ”
I stood there, listening to my own mother say those words about me. She was talking to a friend, bragging that she’d only agreed to my marriage because my husband paid her—twenty thousand pounds a month for a full-time husband.
It was no big deal, she said. Just business. “And right now, I’m your only chance,” my husband told me that night. He was a stranger to me, a man I’d met only days before in a desperate situation.
He offered me the deal: twenty thousand a month to be his wife, no questions asked. I didn’t know his name. He refused to tell me. But I needed the money to pay for my mother’s hospital bills, so I said yes.
“Just stay away from me and don’t spill my secrets,” he warned. I didn’t understand him, but I agreed. We moved into his grand house, and he told me to use the guest room. No explanations needed.
It was a cold arrangement, but it kept us both alive. The trouble started when my mother found out. She wasn’t grateful for the money I was sending her—she was outraged that I’d married some nobody. She came to the house, screaming about how I’d ruined my chances.
She didn’t care that I was saving her life. She only cared about appearances. My husband’s family was worse. His father berated him, demanding to know why he’d married a poor, uneducated girl.
“What’s worse, Dad, if she’s married some nobody paying him 20,000 a month? ” my husband’s sister sneered. I wanted to disappear. Then there was my own sister, Caitlin.
She’d been away on vacation and returned to find me married. “You get married in secret while I’m away,” she accused me. “If Connor hadn’t let it slip, I’d be clueless still. ” I tried to explain, but she wouldn’t listen.
I was betraying her, she said. I was hiding something. I was hiding everything. The truth was that I had nowhere to go.
My mother had taken everything from me. When I was a child, she sold me to a wealthy family so she could gamble. I grew up as a servant to strangers, working day and night. The only good thing in my life was a night I spent with a mysterious man—a man who never told me his name, but who made me feel like I mattered.
I searched for him for years, but he vanished. That man was my husband. I didn’t know it at first. He kept his identity a secret, always telling me to stay away.
But the truth came out when he saw a photo of me from that night. “That was you back then,” he said, his voice shaking. “I searched for you after that night. So why didn’t you tell me?
”
I couldn’t answer. Because I didn’t know it was him. When I finally understood, I felt the ground fall away beneath me. He was the one I’d been looking for all this time.
But now everything was wrong. Our marriage wasn’t real. It was a contract. He paid me to be his wife, and I accepted.
“Derek, I don’t want a marriage based on lies,” I whispered. “Riley, I will do anything you ask if you take me back in,” he begged. I looked at him, at this man who had both saved me and complicated my life beyond measure. I didn’t know if I could trust him.
But he was the only person who had ever been kind to me without asking for something in return. Then my sister showed up again, angrier than before. I found her screaming at him, even slapping him. “That woman, THAT’S ENOUGH TO SCRATCH MY FACE,” she shouted, pushing me aside.
I watched in shock as she attacked him, demanding answers I still hadn’t given her. I fled to the bathroom, trying to catch my breath. When I came out, my mother was there, smirking. She’d sold my story to anyone who would listen.
Now the whole world knew about my shameful secret marriage. My husband’s business rivals used it against him. My mother tried to blackmail him for more money. My sister wouldn’t stop calling me a liar.
And through it all, Derek never wavered. He stood by my side, even when I pushed him away. “I searched for you after that night because the first moment I saw you, I fell completely in love with you,” he told me one evening. “And now I’ve spent all of this time with you, I realize you’re even more amazing than I first thought.
”
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to let him in. But how could I trust anyone when my own mother had sold me to a wealthy family just so she could gamble? When my own sister couldn’t stand the thought of me being happy?
There was one more secret I was hiding, one I hadn’t told anyone. Not even Derek. Because if he found out, I knew everything would be over. I was pregnant with his child.
And I had no idea how he would react.
