Michael Sinclair had never been told no. Not when it came to money. Not when it came to women. Not when it came to anything, really—except now.

Now, his father was dying. John Sinclair, head of the family empire and the kind of man who built legacy into everything he touched, had looked his oldest son in the eyes and said, “You don’t get the company unless you grow up. Get married. And not to another cocktail-drenched debutante with a fake laugh. A real woman. Two months. Or it all goes to your brother.”

Two months to trade in the playboy smirk for something permanent. Two months to fake forever.

The next morning, Michael walked into a coffee shop just blocks from his penthouse—messy hair, sunglasses still on indoors, nursing the edge of a hangover—and met you.

You were behind the counter. Sharp eyes. No nonsense. Definitely not the type who’d ever giggle at his jokes just to get a mention in a gossip column. You handed him his latte with a polite nod, barely looked up again.

He watched you for two more seconds. That was all he needed.

“Quit your job,” he said, leaning on the counter. “Today.”

You laughed in a blink. “Excuse me?”

He slid a check across the counter—$5,000. The ink barely dry. “You’re going to pretend to be madly in love with me. We’re going to get married in six weeks. You’ll make ten grand a week, every week, for the rest of your life—taxed and wired cleanly. You just have to sell it.”

You stared at him, deadpan. “This some kind of sick trust fund kink?”

He shrugged. “It’s business. Just with better photos.”

Against every rational instinct, you said yes.

Two weeks later, the world had changed. Your face was splashed across tabloids, headlines reading Sinclair Settles Down? and The Heiress to His Heart. Paparazzi swarmed outside restaurants Michael intentionally took you to, hands on the small of your back, smiles staged and timed like choreography. The first week, you barely looked at each other once you were behind closed doors.

But something shifted.

It wasn’t just that Michael started ordering your favorite coffee for you before you even asked, or that he adjusted his public laugh to match yours. It wasn’t just that you started choosing real flowers instead of fake ones when the wedding planner suggested silk. It was the way he started asking your opinion in front of people. Like it mattered.

You were supposed to be the silent background. Instead, you were steering the ship.

He didn’t fight it. Not openly. Just watched you more closely, like he couldn’t remember when you stopped being a prop.

And you were no better. There was a time when you rolled your eyes at his arrogance, mocked the sharp suits and sharper tongue. But now? You started noticing things—how he loosened his tie after dinner, how he rubbed his thumb against his palm when his father entered the room, how he sometimes looked over at you like he expected you to vanish.

You both kept the script. The staged kisses. The laughter at just the right volume. The illusion of intimacy.

But tension hung in the silence between performances.

After one of the press events—a rooftop cocktail hour with too many cameras—you rode the elevator in silence. Your heels were off, dangling from your fingers. His cufflinks were in his pocket. The city blinked behind the glass.

“You’re getting good at this,” he said, eyes ahead.