第3章 The Terms

You want something, Seraphine said. She had been waiting three years to say it to his face, and the words felt inadequate, like throwing a single stone at a fortress that had stood for decades. Drake set down his glass. I want many things. But primarily, I want you to marry me. She laughed. It was a short, sharp sound with no humor in it whatsoever. I see. And I suppose you are offering me a ring and a story about true love. No. He was completely serious. I am offering you a marriage of convenience. You will be my wife. You will attend the functions I require. You will present the image of a happy couple to the world. In return, I will give you everything you have been trying to find for the past three years. The truth about the fire, he said. The fire. She stood. The chair scraped against the marble, a sound like a bone breaking in the silence. You burned my parents' house. You killed them. You killed my father, who was holding my mother's hand, and you called it business, and now you are offering me marriage like it is a compensation package. Drake did not move. He did not flinch. His expression did not change at all, and that was the most terrifying thing she had ever seen in a human face. I did not burn that house, he said quietly. The words hung in the air between them like smoke. Seraphine froze, one hand on the back of her chair, her breath caught somewhere between outrage and confusion. His voice was lower now, almost gentle, which made it worse somehow. I wish I could say I did. At least then I would have the right to offer you something in return. But I did not. And I know that is hard for you to hear, because it means I have no reason to give you anything, and yet here I am, offering you exactly what you need most. She sat back down slowly. The wine in her glass had gone warm. Then why are you here? Why marry me? What do you want? Drake reached into his jacket and produced a folded document. He slid it across the table. She did not touch it immediately. She stared at it the way you stare at a live wire, waiting for it to spark. A prenuptial agreement, he said. You keep everything you own. I keep everything I own. If we divorce, we divorce with no fault, no alimony, no claims. You will play the role of my wife for one year. At the end of that year, you are free to leave with your life intact and your sister safe. My sister? Chloe. Drake's mouth tightened, just barely. There are people who would like to harm her. People who think she knows something she should not know. I can protect her. You can protect her. But you need the authority that comes with being my wife to do it properly. Seraphine felt the room tilt slightly. What are you talking about? Chloe does not know anything. Exactly. Drake leaned forward. Which is why the people who want her dead think she might know something. They are looking for evidence that your father passed to her before he died. A ledger. A list. I do not know which. But I know that if I do not produce her myself, someone else will, and they will not be as careful as I intend to be. She stared at him. The candlelight painted his face in gold and shadow, and for the first time she noticed the scar that ran from his temple to his jawline, pale and thin, a line she had never seen in any photograph or news article or public appearance. Why would you protect her? she whispered. After everything. Drake looked at her for a long time. When he spoke, his voice was different, softer, older, as if the mask had slipped for just a moment and the man underneath was tired of holding it in place. Because your father was my friend. And I failed him. --- The words landed between them like a stone dropped into still water, and for a long moment neither of them moved. Seraphine had spent three years building her hatred of this man into something solid and certain, a foundation she had walked on every day, and now he had put his hand through it and shown her the ground was not where she thought it was. Your father was your friend, she said slowly. And you failed him. He did not correct her. He did not soften it. He simply held her gaze, and she saw in his eyes the particular exhaustion of a man who had been carrying a mistake for eight years and had stopped expecting to be forgiven for it. So tell me what you want, she said. All of it. No more games, no more rooms full of shadow and candles and whatever this is. He sat back, and for the first time since she had entered the room he looked like a man rather than a monument. I want you to marry me, he said. Not for love. Not even for show, though there will be plenty of that. I want you to marry me because there are people who believe your sister knows something she does not, and the only way to keep her safe is to put my name between her and them. A wife is untouchable in ways a sister is not. A Drake wife is untouchable in ways no one is. She should have laughed. She should have stood and walked out and never looked back, the way she had planned to do a hundred times in the three years since the fire. Instead she sat very still and felt the old anger rearrange itself into something she did not have a name for yet. And what do I get, she said, if I agree to be your wife for however long this takes. The truth, he said. About your father. About the fire. About the people who really did it, and the reason they are still free, and the reason I have spent eight years trying to bury them. One year, Seraphine. One year of playing a part, and then you walk away with your sister and everything I know. A year, she said. One year of being your wife. And after that. After that you never have to see me again, he said. Or you can, if you choose. The choice is yours in a way almost nothing in my life has ever been mine. She looked at the ring of candlelight on the black table, at the man across from her who had just offered her the one thing she had wanted since the night her parents died, and she understood that this was the deal of her life and that it might also be the trap of her life, and that she no longer trusted herself to tell the difference. I will think about it, she said. That was all she would give him, for now. But they both knew she had already begun to say yes.