Contract Marriage With My Enemy

The perfect shot was right there—this gorgeous street musician with his guitar case open, late afternoon sunlight catching the angles of his face just right. I crouched behind a food cart in Brooklyn Heights, adjusting my camera settings, when my phone started buzzing like an angry wasp.

I ignored it. This guy was Instagram gold, and I'd been hunting for the perfect addition to my "Handsome Strangers of NYC" series all week.

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

"For the love of—" I muttered, glancing at the screen. Mom. Again. Third call in five minutes.

I hit decline and raised my camera again, but the musician had moved. The light was gone. The moment was ruined.

My phone immediately started ringing again.

"What?" I snapped, not bothering to hide my irritation.

"Stephanie Marie Cole, you get yourself to Manhattan this instant!" My mother's voice was shrill enough to shatter glass. "This is a family emergency!"

"What kind of emergency? Did someone die? Is the house on fire?"

"I cannot discuss this over the phone. Just come home. Now."

The line went dead.

I stared at my phone, a cold knot forming in my stomach. Mom never called me by my full name unless someone was literally dying or I was in deep trouble. And she definitely never used words like "emergency" lightly.

Twenty minutes later, I was on the subway to Manhattan, my camera bag clutched in my lap like a security blanket. The closer I got to the Upper East Side, the more my anxiety spiked. I'd worked so hard to build my life in Brooklyn, to carve out my own space away from the suffocating world of charity galas and business mergers that defined my parents' existence.

The Cole family mansion loomed before me like a monument to everything I'd tried to escape. Its limestone facade gleamed in the late afternoon sun, every window perfectly polished, every hedge meticulously trimmed. I used to love this house as a kid, but now it felt like a beautiful prison.

I found them in the formal dining room—a space that screamed "important family meetings" with its mahogany table that could seat twenty and oil paintings of dead relatives glowering from the walls. Mom sat at one end, her usually perfect blonde chignon slightly disheveled. Dad paced behind her, his face grave.

But what made my blood run cold was seeing Richard and Patricia Whitman seated across from my parents, their expressions equally somber.

The Whitmans. Which meant—

"Oh, hell no," I said, backing toward the door.

"Stephanie, sit down." Dad's voice carried that tone that used to make me instantly obey as a child.

Not anymore.

"Whatever this is about, I'm not interested. If you're planning some kind of business merger that requires my presence at boring dinner parties, count me out."

"Sweetheart," Mom's voice cracked slightly, "we're in trouble. Serious trouble."

That stopped me. Mom never showed weakness, never let her composure slip. The fact that her hands were actually shaking as she