Dinner is served, though my husband Kerzen doesn't seem impressed by my fried tilapia. Devastatingly handsome and impossibly critical, he's everything I dreamed of—and nothing like I expected. When I offer to cook something else, he pulls me close, his touch igniting something fierce within me. We're bound by more than just marriage vows; we're tangled in a contract that neither of us anticipated would feel this real. As I force down the burnt fish, watching him smirk across the table, I can't help but marvel at my luck. The boy I've secretly crushed on for years is now my husband. Only my best friend Tamara knows the truth about our arrangement—that what started as a practical agreement is becoming something dangerously authentic. His body, his presence, his unexpected tenderness in unguarded moments—it all threatens to unravel the careful boundaries I've built around my heart. Tonight, as we finish dinner and I wash the dishes, I'm caught between the thrill of our hidden connection and the terrifying possibility that this contract marriage might be the realest thing that's ever happened to me. Tomorrow, Tamara will demand every detail. But tonight, I'm drowning in the intoxicating reality that the man I've always wanted is finally, impossibly, mine—even if no one else knows it yet.