C2 You Knew?

Nora stared at him across the small space between their seats.

"You knew?"

"Before you reached the altar," Julian said.

The car rolled through an intersection. Outside, a man in a blue shirt hurried across the street with a paper bag tucked under one arm. Nora watched him make the light as if that were the important thing happening. Then she looked back at her husband.

"How?"

Julian glanced at the ring on her hand. "Your father's lawyer called mine. Vanessa was gone. They wanted to know whether changing the bride ended the agreement."

"And your lawyer just gave you my name."

"He thought I might find it relevant," Julian said.

Nora rubbed her thumb over the edge of her phone. "My father forgot to mention any of that to me."

"I doubt he forgot."

Julian said it without sympathy, which was easier to take than pity.

"So you stood there and let me think I was fooling you."

Julian turned from the window. "I stood there and got married."

"That's a very convenient description of what happened."

He looked out the window again. Nora waited. When he did not rescue the conversation for her, irritation did the job.

"Why go through with it?"

The question made him quiet for long enough that she wondered whether he had decided not to answer at all. Her phone buzzed. Diane. Call me when you arrive. Please don't speak to any reporters until we decide what to say.

Nora read the message once and locked the screen. Her mother had apparently recovered enough to start managing the story.

"Today mattered," Julian said.

She looked up.

Julian rested an arm along the door. "I needed the marriage to happen today."

"Why?"

"I'll explain the part that concerns you," he said.

Nora gave a short laugh with no humor in it. "You already sound like a lawyer."

"I pay several. Some habits spread."

That nearly pulled a smile out of her. She refused to give him one.

"Try again."

His gaze settled on her. "There is a condition in my grandfather's estate. If I miss the deadline, I lose something I don't intend to lose."

"What?"

Julian nodded toward the road ahead. "I'll show you the trust terms when we get to the house."

"Why not tell me now?"

"Because I would rather you read them than decide I'm lying," he said.

Nora had an answer ready, then realized she did not hate that reasoning. For once, she stopped searching his silence for a hidden threat long enough to ask the next question.

She turned the phone over in her hand. "You knew Vanessa had gone. You knew I was the replacement. What made you think I had agreed to any of it?"

"I didn't know."

Nora paused. Julian rested his hand near the cane. "I knew the family's lawyer was changing the bride. I did not know what they had said to you."

"And that didn't bother you?"

"It did," he said.

His answer came without the polished pause she had started to expect. Nora studied him. "You still said continue."

He nodded. "Yes."

"Why me?"

He took a breath, then looked toward the windshield instead of at her. "When I lifted the veil, you apologized before I asked a question." Nora remembered the church too clearly.

"You looked like you were waiting for someone to punish you," he continued. "Not like someone pleased with a successful trick."

She shifted in the seat. "You got all that from one look?"

Julian shook his head. "No. I made a judgment with poor information."

"And if your judgment had been wrong?"

"Then today would have become much more expensive," he said.

She stared at him. Julian's mouth moved, barely. "That was a joke."

"It needs work."

"I've had a difficult morning," Julian said.

Against her will, a small sound escaped her. Not quite a laugh. Enough that she turned toward the window before he could enjoy it.

The city looked offensively normal. People waited at bus stops. A delivery cyclist argued with a taxi driver. Somewhere, someone was probably complaining about lunch. Nora was still wearing a wedding dress she had not chosen beside a man she had not planned to marry.

"So what happens to me now?" she asked.

Julian's expression sharpened. "That is your decision." She looked at him again. "Really."

"Did your family force you into the church?"

Nora remembered Diane crying, Richard saying the family would never recover from the humiliation, both of them telling her this was a chance to prove she cared. Eight months had taught them where guilt worked fastest on her.

"They asked," she said. "I agreed."

"Why?"

Nora's hand stopped moving over the phone. Julian waited. She expected another question. He did not ask one.

"That's mine," she said at last.

"All right."

The answer was so simple she almost checked his face for sarcasm. He had none.

"I cannot undo the wedding," he said. "And I won't pretend I didn't benefit from what your family did. I need this marriage to stay in place for a while."

"How long is a while?"

Julian looked toward the front seat. "I want you to read the terms first."

Nora held up one hand. "If I'm reading terms, I'm not agreeing to them."

"I know."

She lowered her hand. "And if I read them and leave?"

He looked at her then. "You leave."

Nora waited for the condition that usually came after words like that. Julian simply looked back at her. Her mother would have filled the silence by now.

"What exactly are you asking for?"

He answered after a beat. "For you to hear the whole proposal before you decide."

She glanced at the ring on her finger. "Fine. I can listen." The car slowed as traffic thickened ahead.

"How long?" she asked again.

This time Julian answered.

"Six months."

Nora looked up so fast she nearly dropped her phone. He had said it like six months was an ordinary unit of time.