Unexpected Vow

Chapter 1

Jessica

The organ music cuts out. Just stops. The silence that follows is louder than any note, a physical weight that presses down on my shoulders, on the delicate lace of my wedding gown. Every head in the pews swivels, a sea of confused faces looking from the organist back to us at the altar.

Mark’s hand, the one holding mine, is slick with sweat. His grip is suddenly too tight.

“Mark?” I whisper, my voice catching on his name. My smile feels frozen on my face, a brittle mask I’m afraid will crack. “What’s happening? Is everything okay?”

He won’t look at me. His eyes are fixed on the stained-glass window behind the minister, on the image of a saint I can’t name.

“Mark, talk to me,” I say, a little louder this time. A nervous cough ripples through the first row where my parents are sitting.

“I can’t do this, Jess.” His voice is a strangled rasp, meant for me but sharp enough to carry in the dead quiet of the church.

My heart gives a painful lurch. Nerves. It’s just nerves. Everyone gets them.

“Of course you can,” I whisper, squeezing his hand back, trying to pour all the love, all the ten years of us, into that one small gesture. “It’s me. We’re almost there.”

“No.” He finally turns to me, and the look in his eyes isn’t love or fear. It’s a hollow, gut-wrenching pity. “I mean I can’t marry you.”

The words don’t compute. They’re just sounds, meaningless syllables that my brain refuses to assemble into a sentence.

“What are you talking about?” I laugh, a tiny, terrified sound. “This isn’t funny.”

“I’m not joking.” He pulls his hand from mine. The absence of his touch is a cold shock. “I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry. I should have told you weeks ago, but I’m a coward.”

“Told me what?” I can feel the bouquet of white roses trembling in my other hand. The sweet, cloying scent of lilies fills my head, making me dizzy.

He swallows hard, his gaze flicking to someone in the second row. I follow his look and my blood turns to ice. Chloe. His junior associate. She’s staring right at him, a tiny, triumphant smile playing on her lips. She’s wearing a deep green dress, a color she knows I hate.

Everything clicks into place with the horrifying sound of a guillotine dropping.

“It’s her, isn’t it?” My voice is flat, dead. “It’s Chloe.”

“Jess, please,” he begs, his eyes wide with a pathetic kind of desperation.

“How long?” I demand. The guests are murmuring now, a low hum of confusion and scandal.

“A few months,” he admits, his voice cracking. “I love her, Jess. I didn’t want to, but I do. I can’t stand up here and make vows to you that I can’t keep. It wouldn’t be fair.”

Fair? He’s talking to me about what’s fair. In front of our friends, our families, my grandmother who flew three thousand miles to be here. The humiliation is a physical blow, knocking the air from my lungs.

I look past him, past the minister whose mouth is hanging open, and see my father starting to rise from his seat, his face a thundercloud. I see my best friend Sarah, her hand clapped over her mouth in horror.

“So what now, Mark?” I ask, my voice dangerously calm. “You just walk away? Leave me standing here?”

“I have to,” he says, as if he’s the victim here. He takes a step back, away from me, toward the edge of the altar.

Then he does the most cowardly thing I’ve ever seen. He turns to our guests, his voice shaking but loud enough for everyone to hear.

“I’m sorry, everyone,” he announces, his words echoing in the cavernous space. “There… there will be no wedding today. This is all my fault. I’m deeply sorry for bringing you all here.”

A collective gasp sucks the air from the room. He doesn’t look at me again. He just turns and walks, nearly runs, down the long white aisle runner. He passes Chloe’s row, and without a moment’s hesitation, she stands and follows him.

They walk out of the church together.

I stand there, a statue in white lace. Alone at the altar. The silence is broken by a sob from my mother. The whispers erupt into a roar of hushed conversation. Every eye is on me, boring into me with a mixture of pity and morbid curiosity. I feel like an exhibit, the Jilted Bride, preserved in her moment of ultimate shame.

My father reaches my side. “Jessica, sweetheart, let’s go.”

His hand is gentle on my arm, but I flinch away. I can’t. I can’t face them. I can’t walk back down that aisle past hundreds of pitying stares.

“I need… I need a minute,” I choke out.

Ignoring his call, I turn and bolt, escaping through the small door behind the altar that leads to the gardens. I don’t care that the hem of my thousand-dollar dress is dragging through the dirt and mulch. I just run.

I push through the iron gate and out onto the street, a surreal vision in a cloud of tulle and satin. Cars slow down. People on the sidewalk stop and stare. A bride, running, with mascara-streaked tears carving paths down her cheeks.

I don’t know where I’m going. I just walk. The city is a blur of noise and color. The satin heels, the ones I spent weeks picking out, are already starting to pinch. Each step is a fresh wave of pain, both in my feet and in my heart. After ten blocks, I kick them off, leaving them on the pavement and continuing barefoot on the gritty sidewalk.

The dress feels like a costume, a cruel joke. Ten years. We met in high school. We went to college together. I helped him study for his law school exams. I put my own dreams of being an architect on hold to support his. For this. To be publicly discarded for a woman in a green dress.

My aimless wandering leads me downtown. The buildings get taller, more imposing. And then I see it. The City Courthouse. A huge, impersonal block of granite and marble, all sharp angles and cold efficiency. It’s the furthest thing from the romantic, flower-filled church I just fled. It feels right.

A place for endings, not beginnings.

I pull open the heavy bronze door and step inside. The air is cool and smells of floor wax and old paper. The fluorescent lights overhead hum, casting a sterile glow on the linoleum floors. No one here is celebrating. They’re paying fines, filing for divorce, settling disputes. It’s a place of contracts and consequences.

I find an empty wooden bench in a long, quiet hallway and sink onto it. The voluminous skirt of my dress pools around me like a deflated cloud. I tuck my bare, dirty feet underneath it and finally let my head fall into my hands, the sobs coming in ragged, silent waves.

How do I ever face anyone again?

“What do you mean she’s not coming?”

The voice is sharp, cutting through my haze of grief. It’s a man’s voice, low and controlled, but laced with a thread of pure, unadulterated fury.

I lift my head slightly, peering through the curtain of my fingers.

A man is pacing ten feet away, a phone pressed to his ear. He’s immaculate in a dark, tailored suit that probably costs more than my entire wedding. His hair is black, his jaw is sharp, and even from here I can see the frustration tightening the lines around his eyes.

“Leo, I don’t pay you to tell me things are impossible,” he snaps into the phone. “I pay you to make them possible. That was the entire point of your fee.”

He stops pacing and braces a hand against the wall, his back to me. His shoulders are rigid with tension.

“The contract is ironclad. You know that. My grandfather’s deadline is *today*. Not tomorrow. Today. The entire inheritance, the company, all of it hinges on this.” He listens for a moment, his jaw working. “I don’t care if she got cold feet. I don’t care if she ran off with a circus clown. Your job was to deliver a bride to this courthouse at two o’clock. It is now two fifteen.”

A bride. He’s missing a bride.

The irony is so bitter I almost laugh out loud.

“Find me another one,” he commands, his voice dropping to a deadly quiet. “I don’t care who. I don’t care how. Just find me a bride. Now.”

He ends the call with a vicious jab of his thumb and turns, pinching the bridge of his nose. He lets out a long, slow breath, clearly trying to rein in a temper that seems formidable.

That’s when he sees me.

His eyes, a startlingly clear gray, land on me, huddled on the bench in my ridiculous, ruined gown. They widen for a fraction of a second. He takes in the whole pathetic picture: the tear-stained face, the messy hair where my veil used to be, the pouf of white satin in a drab courthouse hallway.

His frustration doesn’t vanish, but it’s joined by something else. A flicker of disbelief. An assessment. He’s looking at me not as a person, but as a… a potential solution.

My heart is still a shattered mess in my chest, my future a complete blank. I have nothing. Nothing to lose. For the first time all day, a thought cuts through the pain. A wild, reckless, insane thought.

He needs a bride.

I am a bride.

The man in the perfect suit takes a step toward me, his expression unreadable.

Our eyes lock. In the sterile quiet of the courthouse, two separate disasters are about to collide.

Chapter 2

Jessica

His gray eyes pin me to the bench. They are not kind. They are the color of a storm gathering over the ocean, calculating and intense. For a moment, the world narrows to the space between us, the hum of the fluorescent lights, and the frantic, stupid thumping of my own broken heart.

He looks away first, his attention snapping back to the phone as if my presence is a minor, irrelevant distraction.

“Leo, listen to me very carefully,” he says, his voice a low, dangerous growl. He turns his back to me again, but the sound carries perfectly in the quiet hall. “The board meeting is on Monday. The succession clause in my grandfather’s will is explicit. If I am not married by the close of business today, everything goes to my cousin. Do you understand what that means for the company? For all of us?”

He pauses, listening. I can almost hear the frantic apologies from the man on the other end.

“Excuses are worthless to me,” Xavier snaps. “Solutions are what I pay for. You had one job. Find a woman, vet her, make sure she shows up. You failed on the most critical point. So now you have one more chance. Find someone else. I’ll be waiting here for thirty minutes. After that, you’re fired.”

He ends the call without a goodbye. The silence that follows is heavy, filled with his contained fury. He slowly turns around, his gaze sweeping the empty hallway before landing on me once more.

This is it. The moment the insanity crests. My bare feet are cold against the linoleum. My dress is a mockery. My life is a smoking crater. I have absolutely nothing.

Which means I have nothing to lose.

I push myself to my feet. The rustle of satin and tulle is shockingly loud. His eyes narrow as I take a step toward him.

“You need a bride,” I say. My voice sounds strange, a reedy echo of itself, but it doesn’t waver.

One of his dark eyebrows lifts in a gesture of pure, condescending disbelief. “I’m not in the mood for jokes.”

“Does this look like a joke to you?” I gesture down at my ruined dress, at the tear streaks I can feel tight on my cheeks. “My fiancé just announced he’s in love with his assistant. In front of two hundred of our closest friends and family. At the altar.”

The words come out flat and factual, devoid of the hysteria churning inside me. Maybe my capacity for emotion is simply exhausted.

He doesn’t offer sympathy. He just watches me, his expression unreadable. “A tragic story. It has nothing to do with me.”

“It has everything to do with you,” I counter, taking another step. “You need a bride. I am a bride. A bride with no groom, a dress, and a sudden, very empty schedule.”

A flicker of something that isn’t pity and isn’t annoyance crosses his face. It’s a sharp, clinical interest. The way a scientist might look at an unexpected variable.

“You have sharp ears,” he says. It’s not a compliment.

“I have nothing else to do except listen to other people’s disasters. It makes my own feel a little less lonely.” I manage a small, brittle smile. “Your contract bride stood you up. My groom ran off. It seems like fate has a twisted sense of humor.”

“I don’t believe in fate,” he states, his tone clipped. “I believe in contracts and leverage. What’s your angle?”

“My angle?” I almost laugh. “My angle is I can’t go back there. I can’t go home to my parents’ pitying looks. I can’t face my friends. I just want to escape this day. Marry me, get your inheritance, and in exchange, you give me a place to disappear for a while.”

He crosses his arms, a formidable wall of bespoke tailoring and sheer disapproval. “You want me to marry a complete stranger based on a thirty second pitch in a courthouse hallway because you had a bad day?”

“It was a historically bad day,” I correct him. “And you’re about to have one too if you don’t find a wife in the next… what did you say? Twenty eight minutes?”

His jaw tightens. I hit a nerve.

“I know your type,” he says, his voice soft and laced with steel. “You see a man in a good suit and you smell an opportunity.”

“Your suit is the last thing I care about right now,” I shoot back, a spark of real anger cutting through the numbness. “I spent the last ten years of my life supporting a man I thought was building a future with me. I put my own dreams aside for his. And he threw it all away. Believe me, the last thing I’m looking for is another man to depend on. This is a transaction.”

The raw, ugly truth of my words hangs in the air between us. He studies my face, and for the first time, I think he sees past the spectacle of the dress to the wreckage underneath. He sees the genuine despair in my eyes.

“My name is Xavier Sterling,” he says finally, the shift in tone catching me off guard.

“Jessica,” I reply, my voice barely a whisper.

“Just Jessica?”

“For now, it’s better that way.”

He nods slowly, a decision solidifying behind those stormy eyes. “A contract will be drawn up. My lawyers will handle it. It will outline the terms of this arrangement. The duration, financial compensation, clauses of conduct.”

“Fine,” I agree, though my mind can’t process any of it. Financial compensation? I just wanted a hole to crawl into.

“It will be a marriage in name only. For appearance’s sake. For my grandfather.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I say, the thought of any kind of intimacy making my stomach clench with revulsion.

He gives me one last, long look, as if memorizing the details of the mess I am. He seems to weigh every possible risk, every disastrous outcome, and then discard them all.

“Alright, Jessica,” he says, his voice all business. “Let’s get married.”

The next few minutes are a surreal blur. He makes a call, speaking in low, clipped tones. “Leo. Plan B is in effect… No, you did not find her. I did… Just handle the paperwork. Have it ready for my signature by the time I get back to the office.”

He leads me not to a grand courtroom, but to a small, sterile office with beige walls and a single dying plant in the corner. A clerk with a tired face and a name tag that reads ‘Brenda’ looks up from her computer, her expression barely flickering at the sight of me in my wedding gown.

“Marriage license?” she asks, her voice monotone.

Xavier produces passports, forms I didn’t even see him carrying. He’s ruthlessly efficient. He slides a pen and a document across the counter to me.

“Sign here,” he instructs.

My hand trembles as I take the pen. I look at the line. My name. Jessica Rose Miller. The last time I’ll ever write it. I think of the monogrammed towels waiting in boxes at my apartment, the custom stationery. All of it branded with the initials of a life that just evaporated.

I sign.

Xavier signs his name with a sharp, decisive flick of his wrist. Xavier C. Sterling.

Brenda stamps the document with a loud, final thud. “Witnesses?”

Xavier glances around the empty office. “Is there a problem?”

“Need two,” she says, not looking up.

A janitor pushes a cleaning cart past the open door. Xavier doesn’t hesitate. “Sir. A moment of your time.”

The janitor, a man in his sixties with kind eyes, looks from Xavier’s suit to my dress, his brow furrowed in confusion. Brenda sighs and points to the witness line. The janitor signs. Brenda signs the other line herself.

“Raise your right hands,” Brenda drones. “Do you, Xavier, take Jessica to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

“I do,” he says, his voice firm, unwavering. He is looking at the clerk, not at me.

“Do you, Jessica, take Xavier to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

My throat is tight. The words are stuck. This is insane. This is the act of a crazy person. But the alternative is walking back out onto that street, alone. Back to the pity.

“I do,” I whisper. The words are a ghost of the ones I practiced in front of a mirror this morning.

“By the power vested in me by the State, I now pronounce you husband and wife.” Brenda slaps the stamped license down on the counter. “Congratulations, or whatever. You’ll get the official certificate in the mail.”

And that’s it.

No kiss. No swelling music. No joyous tears. Just the hum of the computer and the squeak of the janitor’s cart retreating down the hall.

We are married.

I stand there, frozen, a stranger legally bound to the cold, imposing man beside me. The weight of what I’ve just done crashes down on me. I’ve traded one catastrophe for another, and I don’t even know which is worse.

Xavier takes the license and folds it neatly, tucking it into the inner pocket of his suit jacket. Then he turns to me. His expression is unchanged. He is still a businessman who has just closed a difficult but necessary deal.

“My car is outside,” he says.

It’s not a question. It’s a command.

He starts walking toward the exit, expecting me to follow. And I do. Like a sleepwalker, like a ghost in a white dress, I follow my husband out of the courthouse and into a life I cannot begin to imagine.

Chapter 3

Jessica

The car door closes with a soft, expensive thud that seals me inside. The interior smells of rich leather and something clean, like cold air. It’s a black sedan, sleek and silent, the kind of car that glides through the city unnoticed, a shadow among the yellow cabs and noisy buses.

Xavier slides into the driver’s seat. He doesn’t say a word. He just starts the car, the engine a low, powerful hum I feel more than hear. The courthouse disappears behind us as we merge into traffic.

The silence in the car is a living thing. It’s thick and suffocating. I sit ramrod straight, the beading on my dress pressing into my back. My ruined bouquet of white roses rests on my lap, a pathetic, wilting reminder of the morning. I should throw it away, but I can’t seem to let it go.

“My assistant, Leo, is drafting the postnuptial agreement,” Xavier says, his voice cutting through the quiet. His eyes are fixed on the road ahead. “It will be ready for you to review tonight.”

“A postnup,” I repeat, the word tasting like ash. “Right. Of course.”

“It will formalize the terms we discussed. For your protection as well as mine.”

“My protection?” I ask, a bitter laugh almost escaping my lips.

“This is a business transaction, Jessica. Every detail must be clearly defined to prevent future complications.” He makes a smooth turn onto a wider avenue. “Leo will also procure a new wardrobe for you tomorrow. We’ll need to dispose of… that.”

He gestures vaguely at my dress without looking at it. The dress. My dream dress. Now it’s just ‘that.’ An inconvenience to be disposed of. The humiliation, which had receded into a dull ache, flares hot and sharp again.

“Fine,” I say, my voice tight.

We don’t speak again for the rest of the drive. I watch the city lights blur past the tinted windows. It feels like watching a movie of someone else’s life.

The car descends into a private underground garage, the gate sliding shut behind us. He parks in a reserved spot next to a silver sports car that looks like it belongs on a racetrack. He gets out, and I fumble with my own door, my hands clumsy. The voluminous skirt of my dress makes exiting the low car an awkward, graceless struggle.

By the time I’m standing, he’s already waiting by an elevator, his posture impatient.

“This way,” he says.

I follow him into the elevator. He presses the button marked ‘PH’ with a gloved finger. I hadn’t even noticed he was wearing leather driving gloves.

The ride up is silent and dizzyingly fast. My ears pop. When the doors slide open, they reveal not a hallway, but the apartment itself. Or rather, a cavern of glass and steel.

My first thought is that no one actually lives here. It’s a showroom. The floors are polished black marble. The furniture is all sharp angles and chrome, in shades of gray and white. One entire wall is a sheet of glass, offering a breathtaking, glittering panorama of the city skyline. There are no pictures on the walls. No books on the shelves. No clutter. Not a single sign of a human life being lived.

It’s beautiful, expensive, and as cold as a tomb.

“You can have a seat,” Xavier says, shrugging off his suit jacket and placing it neatly over the back of a stark white sofa. He rolls up his shirtsleeves, revealing a ridiculously expensive-looking watch. “I’ll get us some water.”

I don’t move. I stand in the middle of the vast living room, a ghost in a dirty wedding dress, clutching dead flowers.

He returns with two glasses of water, placing them on a low glass table. He remains standing, looking at me like I’m a problem he’s about to solve.

“Let’s establish the ground rules,” he says, his tone leaving no room for argument. “It’s better we are both perfectly clear on the nature of this arrangement from the start.”

“Okay,” I whisper, my throat dry.

“First, the public front. To my grandfather, and to the world, we are a happily married couple. We met, had a whirlwind romance, and eloped. It’s a simple narrative. Stick to it.”

“And your grandfather’s name is…?” I ask, realizing I know absolutely nothing.

“Philip. You’ll meet him tomorrow. He is sharp. Don’t underestimate him.”

I nod, tucking the name away.

“Second, the duration. This marriage will last for one year, or until my grandfather’s passing, whichever comes first. His health is… precarious. Upon the dissolution of the marriage, you will be compensated for your time and discretion.”

“Compensated,” I echo numbly.

“Yes.” He names a number. A staggering, life-altering number. Five million dollars. The words hang in the air, obscene and unreal.

I stare at him. Is that what I am? A five-million-dollar solution to his problem?

“I don’t want your money, Xavier.” The words come out stronger than I expect.

He looks genuinely surprised, his composure cracking for the first time. “Everyone wants my money.”

“Well, I don’t. I wanted a place to hide. A way to not be the girl who was left at the altar. That’s all.”

“Nevertheless, the money is part of the contract. It ensures your silence and cooperation. It is non-negotiable.” He says it like he’s closing a business deal, because for him, that’s exactly what this is.

“Fine,” I concede, the fight draining out of me. What’s the point in arguing? “I have a rule, too.”

He raises an eyebrow, waiting.

“This is a marriage in name only. You said so yourself. I want that in the contract.”

“Of course. Separate rooms. Professional distance. That was always the intention.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. I need to be clearer. I need to build a wall so high he can never cross it. “I mean no physical intimacy. At all. Ever. A clause. I want a clause.”

I brace myself for a fight, for a sneer, for some kind of negotiation. Instead, he gives a short, dismissive nod.

“That won’t be a problem,” he says, his voice cool and detached. “I have no interest in that.”

His easy agreement is a slap in the face. It shouldn’t hurt, but it does. It’s another confirmation of my utter lack of desirability, first from Mark, and now from this cold, handsome stranger who is my husband. I am a convenience. A placeholder.

“Good,” I manage to say, my voice choked. “Then we’re in agreement.”

“Your room is the second door on the left down that hall,” he says, gesturing toward a long, dark corridor. “It has an en-suite. I trust you’ll find it adequate. Leo will contact you in the morning regarding your new wardrobe and personal effects.”

“Personal effects?”

“You’ll need to create a believable presence here. We’ll have your things moved from your old apartment.”

My apartment. The one Mark and I shared. The thought of all our things, our whole life packed into boxes, makes me feel sick.

“I have to work,” he says, turning away from me. “I have an office through there. Don’t disturb me unless it is an emergency.”

And with that, he walks away, disappearing into another part of the cavernous apartment. The quiet settles back in, heavier than before.

I am alone. A wife. A stranger. A prisoner in a gilded cage with a view of the entire world.

I slowly walk over to the wall of glass. The city lights are a river of diamonds below. It’s a view people would kill for. I feel nothing.

I see my reflection in the dark glass. A pathetic figure in a crumpled white dress, her face stained with tears, her eyes wide and lost. I don’t recognize her at all.