I'm Julian Vance — the guy everyone in Manhattan calls cold, untouchable, a machine. My board won't hand me the CEO title I've earned unless I prove I'm more than that. So I make Clara Thorne an offer: marry me, on paper, for six months. Ironclad NDA. Millions on the table. She's about to lose her late mother's agency to debt, so she says yes — strictly business, she tells herself. Then the galas start. The private jets. The cameras that never stop watching us. I only meant to fake the closeness, but somewhere between the lies we're telling everyone else, something real starts creeping in — right as old wounds and a sabotage campaign I didn't see coming threaten to tear it all apart. When our contract runs out, I'm left with one question I never wanted to ask: what do I do now that the one thing I swore I'd never feel is the only thing I can't walk away from?I'm Julian Vance — the guy everyone in Manhattan calls cold, untouchable, a machine. My board won't hand me the CEO title I've earned unless I prove I'm more than that. So I make Clara Thorne an offer: marry me, on paper, for six months. Ironclad NDA. Millions on the table. She's about to lose her late mother's agency to debt, so she says yes — strictly business, she tells herself. Then the galas start. The private jets. The cameras that never stop watching us. I only meant to fake the closeness, but somewhere between the lies we're telling everyone else, something real starts creeping in — right as old wounds and a sabotage campaign I didn't see coming threaten to tear it all apart. When our contract runs out, I'm left with one question I never wanted to ask: what do I do now that the one thing I swore I'd never feel is the only thing I can't walk away from?