The courthouse was gray, institutional, and completely devoid of romance.
Isabella stood in the sterile hallway, wearing a simple cream dress she'd bought that morning—not white, because this wasn't that kind of wedding—and clutching a folder of documents. No flowers. No guests. No family waiting to witness this moment.
Just her, a lawyer named Mr. Hastings who looked bored, and Liam.
Liam wore one of his usual three-piece suits—charcoal gray, perfectly tailored, expensive enough to buy a car. He looked exactly like he did every day at the office. Cold. Distant. Untouchable.
He looked like a man attending a business meeting, not his own wedding.
"Ms. Hart," Mr. Hastings approached with a clipboard. "We're ready for you. The judge has a tight schedule, so this will be brief."
Brief. Of course it would be.
Isabella followed them into a small room that smelled like old paper and disinfectant. The judge—a tired-looking woman in her fifties—barely glanced up from her desk.
"Marriage license?" she asked mechanically.
Mr. Hastings handed it over. The judge scanned it, stamped it, and looked at Isabella and Liam for the first time.
"This is a legal marriage," she said flatly, as if reading from a script she'd recited a thousand times. "It carries all the legal rights and responsibilities of matrimony. Do you both understand this?"
"Yes," Liam said without hesitation.
"Yes," Isabella whispered.
"Liam Alexander Black, do you take Isabella Marie Hart to be your lawfully wedded wife?"
"I do."
No emotion. No warmth. Just two words spoken like confirming a meeting time.
"Isabella Marie Hart, do you take Liam Alexander Black to be your lawfully wedded husband?"
Isabella's throat closed. This was it. The moment everything changed and nothing changed at all.
"I do," she managed.
"Rings?" the judge asked.
"No rings," Liam said firmly.
The judge's eyebrow raised slightly—the first sign of any reaction—but she said nothing. Just made a note on her paperwork.
"Then by the power vested in me by the state, I now pronounce you husband and wife." She looked up, her expression completely flat. "You may kiss if you wish, though it's not required."
The silence that followed was deafening.
Liam didn't move. Didn't even look at Isabella. Just stood there like a statue, his jaw tight, his eyes fixed somewhere over the judge's shoulder.
"We'll skip that part," he said coldly.
Something inside Isabella cracked.
The judge stamped the final document. "Congratulations. You're legally married. Mr. Hastings has your certificates. Next."
That was it.
Five minutes. Maybe less. And Isabella Hart had become Isabella Black.
She'd become a wife.
A wife whose husband wouldn't even kiss her.
They signed the final documents in silence. Mr. Hastings handed Isabella a copy of their marriage certificate—official, legal, binding—and she stared at the names written there.
Liam Alexander Black & Isabella Marie Black
Her name looked wrong. Like it belonged to someone else. Someone who'd gotten married for love instead of money. Someone whose husband looked at her with warmth instead of cold indifference.
"The penthouse is ready," Liam said, checking his watch as they walked out of the courthouse. "We'll go there now. I've had your things moved already."
"You moved my things?" Isabella stopped on the steps. "Without asking me?"
"It's in the contract," Liam replied without looking at her. "You agreed to move in immediately after the wedding to maintain appearances. I was simply being efficient."
Efficient. Of course.
A black car waited at the curb—Liam's driver, Marcus, who nodded politely but didn't meet Isabella's eyes. He knew. The driver knew this was a sham.
The ride to Liam's penthouse was silent. Isabella stared out the window, watching the city blur past, her marriage certificate still clutched in her hands.
She was married.
She was Mrs. Black.
And she'd never felt more alone in her life.
The penthouse was everything Isabella expected—cold, modern, expensive, and completely impersonal. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the city. Everything was black, white, or chrome. Not a single photograph. Not a single piece of art that suggested human warmth.
It looked like a magazine spread, not a home.
"Your room," Liam said, walking down a long hallway and opening a door.
The bedroom was large, beautifully furnished, and entirely separate from the rest of the penthouse. It had its own bathroom, a walk-in closet where her clothes had already been unpacked, and a king-size bed that looked untouched.
"This is the only room you'll need," Liam continued, his tone businesslike. "My bedroom is at the other end of the penthouse. The door is always locked. Do not enter it. Do not knock unless there's an emergency."
Each word was a boundary, a wall, a reminder that this marriage was a lie.
"The kitchen, living room, and office are shared spaces," he went on. "I'm rarely home before ten PM. I leave at six AM. We likely won't see much of each other outside of work."
"Outside of work," Isabella repeated numbly. "So at the office, we're still—"
"You're still my secretary. Nothing changes professionally." Liam finally looked at her, and his eyes were hard. "The only people who know about this marriage are us, Mr. Hastings, and the officials required by law. It stays that way. At work, you call me Mr. Black. You maintain professional distance. No one can suspect."
"And when we're here?"
"When we're here, we stay out of each other's way." He checked his watch again. "I have a dinner meeting tonight. I'll be back late. Feel free to order food, familiarize yourself with the space, whatever you need. Just remember the rules."
"The rules," Isabella whispered.
Liam was already walking away. "Welcome home, Ms. Hart."
He didn't even call her Mrs. Black.
The door closed behind him, and Isabella was alone in her beautiful, empty prison.
That Night - 11:47 PM
Isabella couldn't sleep.
She'd tried. She'd unpacked the few personal items that had been moved from her apartment—photos of her mother, a few books, the only things that mattered. She'd explored the penthouse like a ghost haunting someone else's life. She'd ordered food she couldn't eat because her stomach was in knots.
And now she lay in this enormous bed, in this silent room, wearing one of her own pajamas in a home that would never feel like hers, staring at the ceiling.
She was married.
Legally, officially married.
And her husband hadn't come home.
Isabella looked at her phone. No messages. No calls. Nothing.
She got out of bed and walked to the window, looking down at the city lights below. The penthouse was on the 62nd floor, so high up that people looked like ants, cars like toys.
So isolated.
So far from everything real.
Movement below caught her eye. A car pulling up to the building entrance. A familiar car.
Isabella's heart clenched.
Liam stepped out of the back seat, but he wasn't alone.
A woman emerged after him—tall, stunning, with long dark hair and a dress that probably cost more than Isabella's monthly salary. She was laughing at something Liam said, her hand touching his arm with easy familiarity.
Isabella recognized her immediately. Sophia Laurent. The French model who'd been photographed with Liam at three different events in the past month. The woman the tabloids claimed he was dating.
The woman who didn't know that Liam had gotten married that very morning.
Isabella watched as Sophia leaned close to Liam, saying something that made him smile—actually smile, something he never did—and then she kissed his cheek before getting back into the car.
Liam watched her drive away, then turned and entered the building.
Isabella stepped back from the window, her hand pressed to her mouth, her eyes burning.
He'd spent their wedding night with another woman.
Not sleeping with her, probably—the contract said he wouldn't have physical relationships that could complicate things. But he'd been with her. Had dinner with her. Smiled at her. Let her touch him.
While his wife waited alone in an empty penthouse, wondering if she'd made the biggest mistake of her life.
Isabella heard the penthouse door open. Heard Liam's footsteps in the hallway—confident, unhurried, completely unaffected.
She held her breath, waiting. Would he check on her? Would he say something? Would he acknowledge that today they'd gotten married?
The footsteps passed her door without slowing.
A door opened at the far end of the penthouse—his bedroom, his private sanctuary that she was forbidden from entering.
The door closed.
A lock clicked.
And then... silence.
Isabella sank onto the edge of her bed, her hands shaking. One tear escaped, sliding down her cheek before she could stop it.
"It's just a contract," she whispered to the empty room, her voice breaking. "It's just business. It doesn't mean anything."
But even as she said the words, she knew they were a lie.
Because it meant something to her.
Every moment meant something to her.
And to Liam—her husband, the man she loved, the man who'd signed their marriage certificate like it was just another business deal—it meant absolutely nothing at all.
Isabella lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling of her new home, wearing a ring she didn't have, married to a man who wouldn't even kiss her at their own wedding.
And for the first time since signing that contract, she let herself cry.
Silent, devastating tears that no one would see and no one would care about.
Because that was the deal she'd made.
That was the price of saving her mother.
That was what it meant to be Mrs. Black—in name only, in secret only, in heartbreak only.
Through the walls, she heard nothing. No sound from Liam's room. No sign he even remembered she existed.
And Isabella realized with crushing certainty that this was how it would be for the next two years.
Her, alone in the dark, loving a man who'd locked his door against her.
Him, going about his life as if nothing had changed at all.
Just a contract, she told herself again, wiping away tears that wouldn't stop falling.
But contracts weren't supposed to hurt this much.
And husbands weren't supposed to feel this much like strangers.