Updated Nov 5, 2025 • ~11 min read
Camille made it until noon before the rage hit.
She’d spent the morning in her room, staring at her phone, reading and rereading her mother’s grateful text. The bank called. My mortgage is current. Eleanor’s money. Eleanor’s control. Eleanor’s web, and Camille was tangled so deeply she couldn’t see where the threads ended and she began.
But it was the other part—the part about Nicholas choosing her specifically because she was desperate—that kept circling in her mind like a vulture.
She’d known, of course. On some level, she’d always known this was a transaction. But hearing Eleanor spell it out, hearing that she’d been evaluated and selected like a product off a shelf, that Nicholas had looked at her mountain of debt and seen not a person but an opportunity—
The anger finally burned through the numbness.
Camille stormed through the sitting room and threw open Nicholas’s bedroom door without knocking.
He was at his desk, on a video call, and his head snapped up in surprise. “I’ll call you back,” he said quickly, closing his laptop. “Camille, what—”
“Did you know?” Her voice was shaking. “When you first approached me with this arrangement, did you already know about my mother’s debts? The exact amounts, the casinos, all of it?”
Nicholas stood slowly, his expression guarded. “Camille—”
“Did you know?” she demanded.
“Yes.” The word hung in the air between them. “Martin Ross did a background check. Standard procedure for—”
“For what? For hiring someone? For purchasing services?” Camille’s hands clenched into fists. “That’s what I am, right? A service you purchased. A desperate woman willing to sell a year of her life because you knew exactly how much pressure I was under.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Then what was it like?” Camille moved closer, and Nicholas took a step back. “Because from where I’m standing, you looked at my life falling apart and saw an opportunity. You saw someone vulnerable enough, desperate enough, to agree to anything.”
“I saw someone strong enough to survive my mother.” Nicholas’s voice rose to match hers. “Do you think I chose you because you were weak? Because you’d be easy to manipulate? I chose you because every other candidate Martin presented folded under basic scrutiny. But you—” He gestured at her. “You fought back. You had fire even when you had nothing else.”
“Don’t make this noble. You exploited my situation.”
“And you exploited mine!” Nicholas’s control finally cracked. “You needed money, I needed a wife. We made a deal. A mutual transaction. Or are you going to pretend you agreed to this out of the goodness of your heart?”
“I agreed because I was drowning!” Camille’s voice broke. “My mother was losing her house. Debt collectors were calling every day. I had no options, Nicholas. None. And you—you had all the information, all the power, all the control. You knew exactly how desperate I was, and you used it.”
“What was I supposed to do? Tell you that I’d researched you? That I knew your financial situation?” Nicholas ran both hands through his hair. “Would that have made you feel better? Would you have somehow felt more empowered knowing I’d chosen you specifically because you needed the money enough not to ask too many questions?”
“At least it would have been honest.”
“Nothing about this has been honest!” Nicholas’s laugh was harsh. “From the moment we met, we’ve been lying. To my mother, to the press, to everyone we know. And now you’re angry that I didn’t add more honesty to a situation built entirely on deception?”
Camille wanted to scream, to throw something, to do anything but stand here feeling the full weight of how thoroughly she’d been played. “Your mother paid my mother’s mortgage. Did you know that?”
Nicholas went pale. “What?”
“This morning. She told me she’s been handling my mother’s debts. Not with the money you gave me—with her own money. Through shell companies and anonymous payments.” Camille’s voice dropped. “She owns me now, Nicholas. Completely. And I never saw it coming because I was too busy thinking I was making my own choices.”
“She’s been paying—” Nicholas sank into his desk chair, the fight draining out of him. “Jesus. She’s been three steps ahead of both of us.”
“Four steps. Five. A mile ahead while we thought we were so clever.” Camille moved to the window, needing distance. “She said if I leave early, the payments stop. If I expose the arrangement, the payments stop. If I hurt you—really hurt you—the payments stop and she makes sure the debt collectors find my mother.”
“She threatened you.”
“She gave me an ultimatum. There’s a difference.” Camille pressed her forehead against the cool glass. “And the worst part? I can’t even be angry at her. She’s protecting her son and her family legacy. She’s doing exactly what any parent would do if they had unlimited resources and a complete lack of ethics.”
Behind her, she heard Nicholas stand, heard his footsteps across the carpet. He stopped close enough that she could feel his presence, but he didn’t touch her.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “For choosing you because you were desperate. For not being honest about the research, the background check, all of it. You’re right. I had all the power in that initial arrangement, and I used it.”
“And I let you. Because I needed the money more than I needed my dignity.” Camille turned to face him, and they were close now, close enough that she could see the guilt written across his face. “We’re both culpable here, Nicholas. I’m angry at you for exploiting my situation, but I’m also angry at myself for being exploitable.”
“You’re not—”
“I am. I was. I still am.” She gestured at the room around them. “I’m standing in a mansion I don’t belong in, wearing a ring I can’t take off, playing a part I’m starting to forget isn’t real. And your mother has made sure I can’t leave without destroying the one person I was trying to protect.”
Nicholas’s jaw tightened. “We can still win.”
“Win what? This isn’t a game we can win, Nicholas. Your mother has already won. She’s arranged everything exactly as she wanted it.”
“Then we change the game.” Nicholas moved closer, and Camille found herself backed against the window. “We stop playing by her rules. We stop reacting to her tests and start making our own choices.”
“What choices? She controls the money, the inheritance, my mother’s debts—”
“She controls circumstances. She can’t control how we feel about them.” Nicholas’s hand came up to cup her face, the gesture achingly familiar now. “That kiss in the photos. That wasn’t her plan. That wasn’t choreographed or calculated. That was real, Camille. For both of us.”
Camille’s breath caught. “Nicholas—”
“I know the arrangement was supposed to be fake. I know we were supposed to maintain distance and stay safe. But somewhere between the courthouse and now, something changed.” His thumb traced her cheekbone. “And I don’t think either of us can keep pretending it hasn’t.”
“Pretending is all we have. It’s what we’re good at.”
“Then we keep pretending for everyone else. But not for each other. Not anymore.” Nicholas’s other hand found her waist. “My mother wants us to be convincing? Fine. We’ll be so convincing that she won’t know where the performance ends and reality begins. But we sell it together, as partners instead of two people drowning separately.”
“That’s dangerous.”
“Everything about this is dangerous.” Nicholas leaned closer, and Camille’s heart hammered. “But at least if we’re honest with each other—about what we’re feeling, about what this is becoming—we have a chance of surviving it intact.”
“Or we both get destroyed.”
“Maybe. But I’d rather get destroyed trying something real than succeed at something fake.” His eyes searched hers. “Nine more months, Camille. Nine months of selling this marriage so thoroughly that my mother has no choice but to believe it. Nine months of protecting your mother and securing my inheritance. And maybe—” He paused. “Maybe at the end of it, we figure out if any of this was worth saving.”
“Your mother said I have to leave cleanly. That I can’t hurt you.”
“My mother doesn’t get to decide that.” Nicholas’s voice was fierce. “We decide. You and me. Together.”
Camille wanted to believe him. Wanted to believe they could somehow navigate Eleanor’s manipulation and come out the other side whole. But she’d learned enough about this family to know that nothing was ever that simple.
“What if we can’t separate performance from reality?” she asked. “What if we get so deep into this that we lose ourselves?”
“Then we lose ourselves together.” Nicholas’s forehead touched hers, the gesture intimate without being a kiss. “I’m tired of being alone, Camille. I’m tired of keeping everyone at arm’s length to avoid getting hurt. Maybe that makes me weak or stupid or desperate—”
“It makes you human.” Camille’s hands came up to grip his shirt, anchoring herself. “And maybe I’m tired of being alone too. Maybe I’m tired of pretending I don’t feel anything when you look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I matter. Like I’m more than just a solution to your inheritance problem.”
Nicholas pulled back just enough to meet her eyes. “You’ve been more than that since the dance floor at the gala. Maybe before. I just didn’t want to admit it.”
“Because admitting it makes everything complicated.”
“Everything’s already complicated. At least this way we’re complicated together.”
Camille studied his face—the vulnerability written in every line, the hope he was trying to hide, the fear that matched her own. They were both terrified, both in over their heads, both trapped by circumstances neither of them fully controlled.
But maybe he was right. Maybe the only way out was through. Together.
“Okay,” she said finally. “We sell this. We make your mother believe we’re the real deal. We protect my mother and your inheritance. And we…” She trailed off, not sure how to finish.
“We see where it goes,” Nicholas finished. “No more separate rooms every night. No more maintaining distance when we’re alone. We actually try to be married—or at least figure out what that would look like if this were real.”
“That’s terrifying.”
“Yeah.” Nicholas’s smile was crooked, almost boyish. “But I’m already terrified. Might as well be terrified with someone instead of alone.”
Camille thought about all the reasons this was a bad idea. About Eleanor’s threats and the arrangement’s expiration date and the fact that Nicholas was still broken from losing Juliette. About her own tendency to lose herself in other people’s needs, to sacrifice herself to save others.
But she was tired of being smart. Tired of being careful. Tired of pretending she didn’t feel her pulse quicken when Nicholas looked at her.
“Nine months,” she said. “We have nine months to figure this out.”
“Nine months,” Nicholas agreed. “And whatever happens at the end—whether we walk away or figure out how to stay—we do it as a team. No more secrets, no more hiding. Just honesty about whatever this is becoming.”
“Even if it destroys us?”
“Even then.” Nicholas’s hand tightened at her waist. “But I don’t think it will. I think maybe—maybe we’re stronger together than we are apart.”
“Your mother would say that’s exactly what she planned.”
“My mother doesn’t get to take credit for everything.” Nicholas’s expression hardened. “She arranged the circumstances, but what happens between us? That’s ours. Not hers.”
Camille wanted to believe that was true. Wanted to believe they had any agency in this situation Eleanor had so carefully orchestrated. But maybe belief was enough. Maybe choosing to fight together instead of drowning separately was the only real choice they had.
“Okay,” she said again. “We sell this. Together.”
“Together,” Nicholas echoed.
And then, because they were already this far over the line, because the performance had already become something else, because neither of them seemed capable of maintaining distance anymore—Nicholas kissed her.
Not for cameras this time. Not for Madison Pierce or society pages or Eleanor’s approval. Just for them.
And Camille kissed him back, knowing it was reckless and dangerous and probably the worst decision she’d made in a series of terrible decisions.
But it felt right. It felt real.
And maybe that was all they needed to survive the next nine months: something real in a world of carefully constructed lies.
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