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CHAPTER

ONE

NOURA

I’d memorized exhaustive details about the man standing beside me at the altar, and yet I didn’t know him at all.

My groom was a stranger.

His name was Calder Banks Castelo. He was a beautiful spoiled, rich boy, and I’d just handed him the unmitigated power to make my life hell.

I stole a glance at him. He cut an imposing figure in his black tux. He was tall, slim hipped, broad shouldered, and he held himself with a stiff, proud posture. He was carelessly handsome, and he struck me as just the kind of man who was cruel and calculated enough to use that very thing against me.

Our gazes clashed with a direct hit. His eyes were a striking, stormy gray and remarkably dispassionate.

I hadn’t had much time to judge him face to face, but so far he was beyond hard to read. He was utterly stoic. Unemotional. Cold. And if I had to guess at reading him just then, I’d say he was disinterested to the point of bored.

I wished I was bored. I wished my lips and the tips of my fingers would stop trembling.

I looked away first.

This is worth it, I told myself firmly. This is what I want. Wealth beyond my wildest dreams.

I made myself repeat the words in my head all throughout our stilted ceremony.

I knew what everyone would think if they knew the truth about this marriage.

They’d be shocked and appalled. And rightly so.

I was a young, modern, independent woman, and I’d done the unthinkable.

I’d sold my virginity to a spoiled rich boy.

And yes, I’d done it all for money.

Because let’s be real. Money is no small thing. It’s a lot of things. Comfort. Stability. Security.

And the amount of wealth I’d just tied myself to was a whole hell of a lot more than a paltry bit of cash. It was—potentially, if I lasted long enough—the keys to an empire.

I was deep in my thoughts, but I didn’t miss a beat when I heard my cue. “I do.” The words left my lips with no hesitation. Not so much as a catch in my breath. Nerves of steel. Or at least the right kind of nerves to fake it all, and by that point, what was the difference?

I’d been modeling full-time since I was fourteen, which gave me just the right skillset for something like this. I could pose. I could act. I could smile on command. I could fake just about any damn thing.

My hands never stopped trembling but I didn’t hesitate, and my voice was strong and steady as I sealed my fate.

His I do was indolent to the point of defiant.

I stole a glance at his face. He was looking at me. His eyelids were at half-mast over his stormy eyes. As I watched, the boredom on his face turned to belligerence.

I looked away.

Even now, when our lives were being bound together—till death do us part—I felt like I couldn’t stare. Every glimpse I got today was as furtive as all of the past ones I’d stolen during our two neat, obligatory, sterile ten minute meetings.

Roughly twenty minutes together before we met at an altar in front of seven hundred and fifty wedding guests, but I’d gathered plenty of intel during those meetings; none of it good.

To say my groom was not happy about this wedding was a bit of an understatement. He had to hide it from our wedding guests and the world, but I doubted he’d ever bother to hide it from me. Somehow or someway, his father was forcing him into his.

I wasn’t sure what leverage was being used against him, but I had a few ideas, all of them involving his potential inheritance or the lack thereof.