I Marry My Billionaire Boss to Save My Sister novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: Dawn Offer
Ava, after a double shift, is summoned to Damien's penthouse at dawn in the snow. He puts a one-year marriage contract in front of her tied to her family's debt. She signs, demanding separate rooms and no feelings.
I signed my life away at 6:12 in the morning, with a stranger's pen, in a dress I didn't own.
That's not true.
I was still in scrubs.
Deep navy, a smear of someone else's blood on the cuff, and a coat I'd grabbed off the break room hook.
I had been awake for twenty-nine hours.
The text came at 5:04.
Car downstairs. Mr. Kastar requests you now. Marcus.
Nobody says no to that text.
Damien Kastar owned the company that owned the company that owned St. Brennan's Hospital.
He had never once spoken to me.
Outside the ER doors, snow was coming down sideways.
A black car idled at the curb with its wipers going.
The driver was a gray-haired man in a dark overcoat who held the door like he'd been doing it for decades.
"Ms. Sinclair. I'm Marcus."
"Am I fired?"
"No, ma'am."
He said it kindly.
That scared me more.
We drove up Fifth Avenue in the blue dark.
Central Park lay white and empty on my left.
The building had a doorman who didn't ask my name.
The elevator opened straight into the apartment.
Everything was glass and pale stone, and the whole city was going gray-pink beyond the windows.
He stood at the far end, with his back to me.
Dark three-piece suit. Charcoal tie. Hair swept back, not one strand out of place at dawn.
He was taller than he looked in the hospital newsletter.
"Ava Sinclair," he said, without turning.
"That's me."
"You've been on shift since yesterday morning."
"Twenty-nine hours. I'd like to say I'm at my best."
He turned around.
Dark brown eyes. A jaw like it had been cut with a ruler.
He looked at the blood on my cuff.
Then at my face.
"Sit down."
"I'd rather stand."
"Then stand."
A long table ran along the window, and one chair was pulled out.
A single folder lay on the wood in front of it.
He didn't touch it.
"Your father, Frank Sinclair, borrowed two point three million dollars from a Kastar lender."
My stomach dropped.
"I know he owes you."
"You know he owes me. You don't know what he put up."
"What does that mean?"
"Your sister co-signed."
The room tilted a little.
"Lily's twenty-two. She's in nursing school. She works at a coffee shop."
"She signed four years ago. Your father told her it was a lease."
I put a hand on the back of the chair.
"She didn't know."
"No."
"Then you can't collect from her."
"I can," he said. "I'm entitled to."
He said it flat, like a weather report.
I wanted to throw the folder at his head.
"What do you want?"
"A wife."
I laughed.
It came out cracked and tired.
"Excuse me?"
"One year." He opened the folder and turned it toward me. "In public, you are Mrs. Damien Kastar. In return, the debt is forgiven in full at the end. Every dollar, your father's and your sister's."
I stared at the first page.
It was real.
Clauses, numbers, a signature line with my name already typed under it.
"Why me?"
"You're not on anyone's payroll but mine. You have no history with my board. And you don't want anything from me."
"I don't want anything from you now."
"Exactly."
"That's not an answer."
His jaw moved.
"My board votes on my seat in a few weeks. They want a man who looks settled. I need a wife who can stand next to me and not flinch."
"So you picked the nurse."
"I picked the woman who held a drunk man's artery shut with her bare hands last month while three residents froze."
I hadn't known he knew that.
I didn't like that he did.
"And if I say no?"
"Then the debt goes where debts go."
"To Lily."
He didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
Snow ticked against the glass.
I read the whole thing standing up.
One year. A year of dinners, galas, a ring.
If I walked away early, the full debt came back on both of us, with interest.
My eyes were burning.
My hands weren't steady, and I hated that he could see it.
I picked up the pen.
"I have conditions."
"I thought you might."
"Separate rooms. Mine has a lock."
"Done."
"You don't touch me unless there's a camera."
"Done."
"And no feelings. Not yours, not mine. If you start getting ideas, you tell me, and we stop."
Something flickered across his face.
It was gone before I could name it.
"I don't get ideas, Ms. Sinclair."
"Good. Neither do I."
I wrote in the margin in my own handwriting.
Separate rooms. No feelings.
Then I signed at the bottom.
Ava Sinclair.
The ink looked wet and black and final.
He took the page back.
He read what I'd written.
For one second, his eyes stayed on the last two words.
"Welcome to the family," he said.
"Don't."
He nodded once.
I let out a breath that felt like twenty-nine hours.
"That's it? I can go sleep?"
"Almost."
He reached into the folder and drew out a second page.
He laid it on top of the contract and slid it across the table to me with two fingers.
A court notice.
Official seal. Official type.
And in the center, in bold, the name of the person I had just sold myself to protect.
Lily Sinclair.
The date at the top was today.
Served at 5:30 this morning.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend