She Signed His Marriage Contract Then His Enemies Came novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Signature
Gareth interrupts Ava and Damien's dawn contract signing at Kastar Holdings, announcing in front of the staff that Claire's debt is due today and he has ordered her clinic's equipment seized. Ava signs the contract and makes Damien agree to separate rooms and no feelings.
The pen is cold in my hand.
Dawn is coming up gray and gold over Midtown, and the whole thirty-eighth floor glows with it.
I haven't slept.
I came straight from a double shift, and my navy scrubs still smell like antiseptic and somebody else's blood.
"Ms. Sinclair."
Damien Kastar stands at the head of the glass table.
Dark three-piece suit. White shirt. A face that gives me nothing.
"You have read it."
"Twice."
"Then sign."
Three of his staff stand along the wall with their hands folded.
A lawyer, an assistant, a woman holding a tablet she keeps pretending to read.
Witnesses. That's all we are in this room.
One year. Wife in public. Husband in public.
In exchange, my sister's debt of four hundred and eighty thousand dollars stops being a rope around her neck.
I look at the line where my name goes.
My parents' clinic loan is sitting on the other side of it.
"I have terms," I say.
His eyes lift from the page to my face.
"Name them."
"Separate bedrooms."
"Already in the contract."
"No touching unless there's a camera."
"Also in the contract."
"And no feelings."
Something moves at the corner of his mouth. Not a smile.
"Ms. Sinclair, I don't have any to spare."
"Good. Neither do I."
"Then we understand each other."
I lean over the table.
The pen touches the paper.
The elevator chimes.
Everyone in the room turns.
The doors slide open, and a man walks out like he owns the floor.
Gareth Vale.
Forty-six. Silver at the temples. A camel coat over his arm in the middle of July, because he likes people to notice it.
Two men in dark jackets follow him.
"Damien," he says warmly. "Up early."
Damien doesn't move.
"You weren't invited, Gareth."
"I'm the chief operating officer. I don't need to be."
His gaze slides over the table and lands on me.
On my scrubs. My tired hair. The pen.
"And this must be the bride."
He says it loud enough for the assistant by the window to hear.
Loud enough for the woman with the tablet.
"Mrs. Kastar," he says, and smiles at me. "Almost."
My hand goes tight around the pen.
"I don't know you," I say.
"You will. I hold the other half of your family's paper, Ms. Sinclair."
Damien's voice drops.
"You hold nothing."
"Your lender sold me the servicing rights Friday night. Ask your lawyer."
The lawyer by the wall looks at the floor.
Gareth turns to face the staff, the way a man turns to a crowd.
"The Sinclair debt comes due today, everyone. All of it. Four hundred and eighty thousand."
Nobody breathes.
"Her sister Claire runs a little clinic in Queens. Charity patients. Sweet idea."
He sighs.
"Not a sweet balance sheet."
"Stop," I say.
"I've already filed the seizure. My men are at the clinic now. Exam tables, the refrigerator, the sterilizer. Everything that has a serial number."
My stomach drops through the floor.
"Claire has patients this morning," I say. "There's a boy with a fever and an old man on insulin."
"Then she should have paid."
"They're sick."
"They're collateral."
He says it pleasantly.
The woman with the tablet stares at her shoes.
Nobody in this room is going to say a word.
I look at Damien.
He's gone very still, jaw like cut stone, hands flat on the glass.
"Call them off," I tell him.
"I can't," he says quietly. "Not yet. Not legally."
"You told me you controlled the debt."
"I controlled my half."
Gareth laughs softly.
"He didn't mention that, did he? Poor Mrs. Kastar."
I look down at the contract.
The signature line waits.
If I walk out, Claire loses the clinic and the money, and the men in the dark jackets keep carrying boxes down her steps.
If I sign, I'm at least inside the room where this gets fought.
I think of Claire at nineteen, standing at our parents' funeral in a dress too big for her.
I put the pen down on the line.
"Ava," Damien says.
It's the first time he's used my first name.
I sign.
Ava Sinclair. Clean, fast, no shake.
Then I straighten up and look him in the eye.
"Separate rooms," I say. "No feelings. Say it."
His voice is low and flat.
"Separate rooms. No feelings."
"Out loud, so they hear."
"Separate rooms," he says, to the whole floor. "No feelings."
Gareth watches us with his head tilted.
"How romantic."
He reaches into his coat pocket.
Something small and brass catches the sunrise.
He holds it up between two fingers so I can see the green plastic tag on the ring.
Claire's handwriting.
CLINIC. FRONT DOOR.
"Your sister was kind enough to hand this over," he says.
"She didn't."
"Not kindly."
He lets it dangle.
Then he opens his fingers.
The key drops onto the contract and lands on my signature with a small, bright clink.
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