Chapter 1
The man who married me to save my life looked me straight in the eye on our wedding night and said, “This marriage means nothing.” Four days later, on the honeymoon neither of us wanted, a gunman aimed his weapon at my heart—and Dominic Moretti threw himself in front of me so fast that his blood hit the floor before I even understood he had chosen me.
My name is Emily Carter.
Four days before I became Mrs. Moretti, I was a twenty-seven-year-old high school art teacher.
Then I stayed late after school and saw something I was never supposed to see.
A terrified accountant.
A flash drive.
A man secretly tracking Moretti shipping routes.
The accountant vanished the next morning.
Two days later, someone broke into my apartment.
Dominic’s men reached me first.
He gave me two choices.
Disappear under his protection and spend the rest of my life in hiding.
Or marry him.
“Nobody touches Dominic Moretti’s wife,” he told me, “without starting a war.”
So I married him because I wanted to survive.
He married me because protecting a wife was easier than protecting a witness.
Romance had nothing to do with it.
That became painfully clear an hour after our wedding.
I was still wearing my ivory dress when Dominic loosened his black tie and looked at me across the bedroom.
“This marriage changes nothing.”
He explained that my student loans were paid.
So was my father’s remaining medical debt.
I stared at him.
“You paid everything?”
“They were inconvenient.”
“Inconvenient to whom?”
“To my wife.”
The word should have sounded intimate.
Instead, it sounded like paperwork.
Then I asked the question I probably shouldn’t have.
“What happens when the people looking for me are gone?”
“You remain protected.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
He went still.
“When this is over, do we stay married?”
“If it remains useful.”
Useful.
I looked down at the diamond ring on my finger.
“And if it doesn’t?”
“We arrange a quiet divorce.”
My chest tightened.
“Did you ever even want to get married?”
His hand rested on the doorknob.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he looked back at me.
“No.”
He left me standing there in my wedding dress.
The next morning, we flew to his house on Penobscot Bay in Maine, because apparently even fake marriages required believable honeymoons.
The house was breathtaking.
Gray-blue ocean.
Pine forest.
Private beach.
A library full of first editions.
Then I found the art studio.
Professional brushes.
Canvases.
Watercolors.
Charcoal.
Everything I had stopped buying for myself years ago because supplies were expensive and bills mattered more.
“You did this?” I asked.
“You teach art.”
“This must have cost thousands.”
“I don’t know.”
“Of course you don’t.”
His mouth almost curved.
That was the confusing thing about Dominic.
His words were cold.
His actions weren’t.
He never touched me without asking.
He remembered how I took my coffee.
He left the fireplace burning when I painted late.
And despite insisting our marriage meant nothing, he somehow made sure I had everything I needed before I even realized I needed it.
On our fourth morning, I woke to Dominic breathing hard beside me.
“No,” he whispered in his sleep.
I touched his shoulder.
“Dominic?”
His hand shot out and gripped my wrist.
For one terrifying second, his eyes opened without recognizing me.
Then he released me at once.
“Emily.”
“It’s okay.”
He sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor.
“What happened?” I whispered.
Before he could answer, glass shattered downstairs.
Dominic stood instantly.
A gunshot followed.
Then another.
He pushed me behind him.
“Stay here.”
But the bedroom door burst open before he reached it.
A man raised a gun.
Not at Dominic.
At me.
And that was when the husband who said our marriage meant nothing stepped directly into the path of the bullet.
