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sjsmith56 · 5 months ago

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Cold Hearted

Summary: AU one shot. A marriage of convenience between the son and daughter of two CEOS to benefit their companies leads to a friendship between the couple, then more.

Length: 6.7 K

Characters: Bucky Barnes, unnamed and undescribed female character. She is occasionally referred to as “Sweetheart” or “Pretty girl.”

Warnings: unresolved emotional trauma, Bucky is a bit of a party boy at first, loneliness, unrequited love, feelings of worthlessness and betrayal.

Author notes: There’s some angst in this but it’s part of the growth process for the couple as they learn to trust and rely on each other.

🥂 🏥 🐚

It was just a business deal according to my father. I marry the son of his biggest competitor and they signed an agreement to split the market between them. It sounded like something a mob boss would ask of their daughter, but my father wasn't in the mob, at least not so far as I knew. He was the CEO of a billion-dollar company, just like the competitor was and both of them had spent almost two years fighting to corner the market for a stupid product that would be outdated in a year, two at the most. Then someone, a VP or maybe my father's mistress (same person) suggested a marriage of convenience. After all, you wouldn't screw over family. So, here I was, standing in a church next to a total stranger, both of us facing the minister as he droned on and on about the sanctity of marriage.

We each said I do, when it was asked of us, then put a ring on each other's left hand, while not once making eye contact. When it was time to kiss, he looked at me then and kissed me hurriedly on my cheek; his blue eyes looking quickly away as if I was something unexpected. We signed the register, were introduced as Mr. and Mrs. James Barnes, then he offered me his arm and we stepped down the aisle towards the open doors at the end of the church. All I had to do was pull away from him, sprint through the doors, hail a cab and I could run away. But I didn't. I took the long walk, stood in the receiving line, shook hands with my father and my new father-in-law's business colleagues then was told it was time to leave. My husband offered me his hand, led me out the doors, past the people throwing rose petals at us and into the limousine. Our wedding party piled into the second vehicle. At least it was quiet in there and as it pulled away; he looked behind us then let out a breath of air, seemingly glad that was over with.

"You thirsty?" he asked. "I think there's water in the mini fridge."

Without waiting for an answer, he opened it, took out two bottles and uncapped one, offering it to me before he opened his, draining half of it almost immediately. I sipped mine several times, then placed the cap back on.

"What did you father offer you to do this?" he asked.

I looked at him. "Nothing, just said I better do it if I wanted to still be part of the family and get my inheritance."

He frowned. "That's cold. My dad offered me $10 million. I talked him up to 25."

I looked out the window. Swell. My husband had to be paid to marry me.

"Sorry," he murmured. "I guess that sounds crass. You seem nice but I'm not the faithful type. I like my freedom."

I looked at him. He was a handsome man and in real life would never look at someone like me. He was all nightclubs, parties, exotic vacations and I was a quiet, shy wallflower, who had only ever had a handful of boyfriends. At least he was honest, if telling me he wasn't the faithful type meant he was probably going to cheat on me.

"James, you know the contract stipulates grandchildren, at least two."

"I know. I thought we could use IVF. I wouldn't expect you to sleep with me." He was quiet for a moment. "Call me Bucky. It's my nickname. James is what my father calls me when he's about to chew me out about my lifestyle."

"Okay. So, we'll have separate bedrooms?" He nodded.

"If you want but I won't bring anyone home," he said. "I wouldn't embarrass you like that and I'll be as discreet as I can." He frowned. "Your dad say anything about the divorce agreement in two years?"

I looked at him. "No, what divorce agreement?"

"You get $100 million as a settlement plus a house and a car, child support. I saw the papers and you signed it."

My mind went blank for a moment. There were so many documents that I signed when this was proposed, and I just put my signature where the lawyer said. Why wouldn't they make it known I had a divorce agreement?

"I can ask my lawyer, if you wish," he said. "I mean, you are my wife now, and your wellbeing is my concern. I'm not a complete cold-hearted asshole."

I smiled at him, and he squeezed my hand then he drank some more of his water. We pulled up to the reception venue and waited for the driver to open the door. Bucky got out, then offered me his hand to get out. There were several flashes from the paparazzi, as Bucky was well known in certain social circles, then we hurried inside and made our way to a private lounge for our formal wedding pictures. As the pictures of me and my attendants were being taken, I noticed Bucky talking animatedly with a man. He seemed bothered at what the man was explaining then when he was called for our pictures he turned to him.

"Get it done," he said. "It's not fair and I'll expose the whole thing right now if it isn't fixed."

He smiled at me as he approached, then stood where the photographer told him, right behind me. As the photographer directed the others into position he leaned towards my ear and spoke in a low voice.

"My lawyer said you signed over the proceeds of the divorce agreement to your father. I told him that was false, as you didn't even know about the agreement. If they don't fix it, we'll get an annulment and he'll get nothing. Since I already got paid by my dad, I'll give you half. It's only fair." My mouth was open, and he placed his hand under my chin, closing it, as he grinned. "I told you, I'm not an asshole, well, at least not to those who are my friends."

My smile during the photographs was genuine. It had been a long time since I had anyone that stood up for me; certainly not my parents or any of my siblings. My grandmother, before she died, was the last person who ever advocated for me, and I had forgotten how good it felt to have someone in my corner. When the pictures were done, Bucky went over to a table filled with liquor bottles and poured out shots for everyone. I looked at him dubiously, as I wasn't much of a drinker.

"Come on, it's your wedding day," he smiled. "Open your mouth, pour it in and swallow."

I did as he said, feeling it burn down my throat. He laughed then did his own shot, before pouring another. With his encouragement I drank that one, then another before the wedding planner came in to say we had to make our entrance. Grabbing my hand, he pulled me out the door and waited for the rest of the wedding party to go in as they were introduced. Then it was our turn and he looked at me, then smiled.

"You ready, Mrs. Barnes?"

I nodded and we danced our way into the reception room, as the guests clapped in time to the music. As we passed my family's table, I noticed my father was glaring at me. Bucky noticed too and leaned in close to me.

"Kiss me," he said. "Let your dad know that we're fucking with him."

"He'll be angry," I answered.

"So? Let him. He's arranged this so that only he benefits from this marriage. You deserve a piece of the action."

He twirled me around until our lips were just inches apart, then with an almost evil grin, he kissed me, and I kissed him back. As the guests hooted and hollered, we gave them a good show, then he stood up and pumped his fist in time to the bass beat in the song. I looked at my dad again and he was livid. Before the wedding, I would have been terrified of my dad being like this but maybe the three shots, the kiss, and the encouragement of my fake husband changed something because I suddenly didn't care what my father thought. Pumping my fist and jumping in time to the music I joined Bucky as we continued our entry dance around the room, before finally collapsing into our seats at the head table. He pushed my water glass to me, while he drank his then leaned close to me again.

"The trick to partying is to stay hydrated," he said. "Always drink water when you drink alcohol. It takes care of the hangover as well."

The evening went way too fast as we ate, drank, danced our first dance (Perfect by Ed Sheeran), then cut the cake, threw the garter and the bouquet. Every time my father tried to come over to me, Bucky whisked me away to dance or to meet some of his friends. When it was time for us to make our getaway, he picked me up, threw me over his shoulder and carried me out to the limousine, making me laugh. As soon as we got inside, he told the driver where to take us, then took my hand and kissed it. If I hadn't known better, I would swear that this was a man that really loved me. By the time we got to the hotel, I was quiet again, realizing that everything that Bucky did that night was a lie. It was fun but it was still a lie.

We checked in, went up to the hotel room, where our bags had already been dropped off, and Bucky tipped the bell boy before locking the door. Then he sat on a couch and patted the seat beside him. I didn't come over right away and he looked at me with puppy dog eyes, so I sat next to him.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Are you always this good of an actor? You had me believing for a moment that you ... that we were real."

"We are legally married," he answered. "I wasn't acting. I had a good time tonight. At first, I thought you were kind of a stick in the mud, but I realized that you just haven't really lived. You've been kept on a pretty short leash by your family, haven't you?"

"It's obvious, isn't it?" I sighed. "I don't like confrontation and I tend to let people have their way."

He nodded his head. "Like me. I'm sorry. I was just trying to get you to have a good time. You did have a good time, right?" Bucky was right about that as I did have a good time. I nodded. "Look, if there is anything good to come out of this arrangement one of them will be you allowing yourself to have fun. No matter what happens, I kind of like you, so if we become friends from this, I'll be very happy. Finally, getting you what is due to you is the top priority. I'm not going to let your father cheat you out of what was negotiated."

I smiled at him, then bent over and undid my shoes, slipping them off. Bucky gestured to his lap, and I changed positions, so my feet lay on top of his legs. Gently, he took one foot in his hands and began to massage it. I groaned and made a face as he hit every spot that was sore, making it feel so much better. When he was finished with that, he did the other foot. When I withdrew my feet from his hands, he got up and went to the bathroom, coming out drying his hands on a towel.

"I've drawn you a bath," he said. "Take your time, play your favourite playlist and I'll get set up out here."

"I thought ...." I looked at him, puzzled.

"What kind of husband would I be if I abandoned you on our wedding night? We won't have sex, but we can sleep in the same bed. I'm tired and it's been a long day."

Opening my bag, I took out my toiletries and pyjamas. He grinned at the pink elephants on them, then showed me his pyjama bottoms, with cookies on them. I chuckled, then went to the bathroom and closed the door. When I came out half an hour later, Bucky was changed into his bottoms and a plain white T-shirt, there was soft music playing and a bottle of champagne was open. On top of the bed was a plate of chocolate covered strawberries. Patting the space next to him, he offered me a hand as I crawled on, then poured me a glass of champagne. Holding our glasses up he made a toast.

"Here's to having a good time together, not a long time," he said. "Hopefully, we come out of this as friends because good friends are rare, and you can never have enough good friends."

We sipped the champagne, then he held a strawberry for me as I bit into it, before popping the rest of it in his mouth with a cheeky grin. For an hour we talked about ourselves, growing up in families that were focused on business more than anything else. I learned that Bucky lost his mother at a young age when she died of cancer. He went to boarding school, which he admitted could have made him bitter, but he formed some deep friendships and found some adults to have a meaningful substitute parent relationship with. His college years were spent mostly partying, but he did enough work to get his degree in finance and understood enough about business to agree that this marriage arrangement would keep both of our father's companies from inflicting fatal blows on each other. As I told him about being the quiet child in the family who seemed to always be ignored and forgotten when decisions were made, he frowned and held my hand, kissing it from time to time.

It was easy to talk to him and I cried a little that night. But he comforted me and when my yawns started coming more, he insisted I get under the covers. We curled up and faced each other in the dark. Before I closed my eyes he whispered.

"Sleep tight, pretty girl."

No one had ever called me pretty before.

For the next month, Bucky was pretty attentive. My father finally succeeded in cornering me to ask what the hell I was trying to do by bringing up the divorce agreement. Maybe being so much in Bucky's presence had rubbed off on me because I asked him why the lawyer thought I signed the money over to him. He grabbed my wrist and began to twist it when my husband walked in and quickly grabbed my father's wrist, surprising him with the strength of his grip.

"You don't ever touch my wife like that again," said Bucky, gritting his teeth a little. "I brought up the divorce agreement and was shocked that a father would be so cold-hearted to his daughter to literally try to pick her pocket before she even had any money in it. You want this deal to go through? Then you restore the agreement to what I signed; the money belongs to her. Otherwise, we get an annulment, and you get nothing."

"You can't annul the marriage," huffed my father. "You were together on the wedding night."

"We were but we didn't consummate the marriage," replied Bucky, throwing daggers at my father with his bright blue eyes. "Make sure you amend that divorce agreement and I want to be there when my wife signs it. You got that?"

He released my father, put his arm around me and led me away. We signed the amended agreement two days later that stipulated the money, house, car and child support, when we divorced, would go to me and only me.

Once a week, Bucky went out with his friends, partying. He always wore his wedding ring when the paparazzi took photographs of him and for quite a while he was careful, as there were no pictures of him going off with another woman. I knew he was seeing them, because he would come home smelling of their perfume, before he showered, put on his funky pyjama bottoms and slipped into bed, usually spooning behind me, something that he said he liked even though we had separate bedrooms.

Since the marriage agreement called for two children, Bucky arranged for us to visit the IVF clinic and we both underwent testing. He must have paid the doctor and staff there a lot of money to keep their questions to themselves because none of them ever said anything about why two healthy individuals who just got married didn't make a baby the old-fashioned way. I had to undergo shots to stimulate my ovaries so they could harvest multiple eggs. Then Bucky provided them with semen to fertilize the eggs in preparation for insertion into my uterus. Over the next few months, none of them implanted and I began to develop anxiety about it. He was great, never once blaming me. There were even a couple of occasions when he didn't go out with his friends and stayed home to comfort me when my period started, dashing our hopes once again.

Somehow, somewhere along the way, I realized something, about how I felt about him. It wasn't something I expected, falling in love with a man who made it clear from the start that friendship would be the most he could offer me. For as long as I could, I kept it to myself, not wanting to appear needy to Bucky. He had been wonderful and so kind to me. But after that realization, every time I saw him get ready to go out and knew that he would return smelling of someone else, it was inevitable that I finally said something.

"Don't go out," I whispered, one night, just as he came out of his bedroom, dressed in one of his Armani suits. "Please."

He looked at me as if I was joking then saw the pain in my eyes.

"What's wrong?" he asked, sitting next to me.

"Stay home," I answered. "Don't go out with your friends tonight."

"I have to," he said. "We're on the VIP list at a new club opening. I'll be back before morning. After a little sleep-in we can spend the day together, maybe take a drive out to the coast." He smoothed my hair, then kissed my forehead. "Sleep tight, pretty girl."

He left without a backwards glance, and I cried. It wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last, especially when the paparazzi succeeded in acquiring a picture of Bucky and a starlet kissing each other. He apologized but the crack between us was there, and it would only get worse. The night it was the worst was the night I almost died.

We were supposed to be at a charity event together, but he texted to say he was running late, and he would meet me there. Of course, when I showed up without him, I was swarmed by photographers, all of them asking where Bucky was and who he was with. Ignoring them as best as I could I entered the venue and was shown to my table, seated with several other wives of prominent individuals. Even though I had improved my social skills and learned to have more fun, these women weren't inclined to be friendly and after enduring their whispered comments with no word from Bucky I decided to go home. A car service had dropped me off but expecting Bucky to arrive in his car we didn't book a return trip. There were no taxis available, so I began to walk, trying to hail one as I walked. Somewhere, along the way, I began to cry like the pathetic little individual I always knew I was. Funny how quickly I crumbled, when I figured that even Bucky had enough of me.

I woke up in the emergency room, with a bright light glaring down on me, a collar around my neck, a tube down my throat and IVs in my arms. A doctor leaned over me until I looked at him then began asking me questions, but I couldn't speak, not with the tube blocking my voice. He told me I walked out into traffic without looking and was hit by a car. My heart stopped twice but they brought me back. Was there anyone they should call? I tried to point at my wedding ring as Bucky was the only person I wanted to see, but my arms were splinted as apparently, I thrashed around too much when I was out. He figured it out and held up my phone. Painfully, I signalled the code numbers with my fingers, and he unlocked it then phoned Bucky. Returning a moment later he bent over me again.

"He's on his way. Hang in there, okay? Nothing's broken but you do have internal injuries."

I moaned since there was really no other way to communicate. I must have fallen asleep or passed out because when I woke up again, I was in an ICU hospital room, there were the sounds of several monitors, and Bucky was sitting on a chair, with his head in his hands. He looked up at a sound I must have made and immediately came to my side, placing his hand on mine. All I saw in his eyes were guilt and sorrow.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart," he said. "This is all my fault. I was supposed to be there with you, but I let others distract me and before I even realized that I had missed the whole event I got the call from the doctor."

I closed my eyes, feeling the tears streaming down from them. His apology, though sincere, really meant nothing. He promised to be my friend and instead, he did what my family had done my whole life, ignored me. To me, it was proof that I was truly meaningless in this world, that I was insignificant. I felt a cloth on my face and opened my eyes to see Bucky wiping my tears away with a washcloth. Painfully, I turned my head away from him.

"Please, don't," he begged. "Don't be angry with me. I fucked up. I know I did. I thought we could get through the two years and be friends, but I haven't been a good friend to you."

I still didn't look at him. I wasn't angry but I was disappointed. He tried to take my hand in his, but I pulled it away, bringing a distressed sound out of him. It must have affected me because a nurse came in to check the monitors and suggested that Bucky go home and come back in the morning. He put up an argument, but she convinced him that I needed to rest. Reluctantly, he agreed and bent over me, kissing me on the forehead.

"I'll do all I can to make it up to you," he whispered. "You were the last person I ever wanted to hurt."

He left then and I eventually fell asleep. Those first few days he was there from early in the morning until late at night. His father visited the second day, and I was aware of a fairly emotional whispered conversation between him and Bucky. None of my family visited. Three days in they took the tube out of my throat, confident that my bruised lungs and ribs were strong enough for me to breathe on my own. It still hurt to speak, almost as much as I was hurting emotionally. Bucky watched me with glassy eyes after the doctor and nurse left, seeming almost afraid to say anything. I looked at him, and the tears began to fall again, in earnest this time. Even though my body hurt I sobbed, and he was right there, his chair pulled up to the edge of the bed, kissing my hand.

"How can I make it better?" he asked. "Please, tell me."

"You won't," I answered, my voice raspy. "You made it clear from our wedding day that you weren't the faithful type. We can't be friends anymore."

"No, please, don't say that," he pleaded. "I need you. Don't you know that?"

I shook my head. "I don't know anything anymore; except every time you walk out the door to be with someone else it hurts so much. Loving you wasn't supposed to happen, but it did."

"You love me?" he asked, not quite believing what I was saying.

I looked away, then nodded my head. "You were nicer to me than anyone I ever met. Then suddenly you were gone more and then you didn't show up last night."

I covered my face with my hands and wept. The edge of the bed dipped slightly as he sat there, then he was carefully lifting me up in his arms to hold me.

"I'm sorry." He stroked my hair. "You know there are times I wake up at night and you're talking in your sleep. Strange, weird stuff, about kangaroos and jungle roads, and stuffing your face with hot dogs at a ball game. One night, I spoke to you, and we carried on a weird conversation. When I finally said you should go back to sleep, you said okay. Then you said good night and that you loved me. Just the way you said it I knew you were telling the truth. It frightened me because I'm not a good person. I party and sleep around too much, I spend money like it will never end, and I never once told anyone other than my mother that I loved them. She died, and it got into my head that if I loved someone, I would lose them someday." He touched my wedding ring, running his fingertip on it. "Then I almost lost you and I never once told you that I was falling in love with you, a love that I was scared to feel."

"You don't love me," I scoffed.

"I love that you listen to me and follow my lead, even when you really don't want to at first. I love your goofy pyjamas and how cuddly they make you feel when you're sleeping in my arms. I love that I would rather ... be here in the hospital begging for your forgiveness and love, than partying with people who only want to ignore the real world. With you, I have real fun, where I laugh and feel good about helping you and being there for you, because that makes me feel good about myself."

"That's not love," I murmured.

"Maybe not but I know that I don't want to be anywhere but near you."

I looked at him, truly looked at him and saw a man with bags under his bloodshot eyes, his hair was sticking out at odd angles because he had fallen asleep in the armchair of the hospital room, and he had several days of beard stubble on his face because he hadn't shaved. This from a man who took pride in how he looked. He wasn't dressed well, like he normally was when he appeared in public. He looked like a mess, and it was because he loved me, and thought he had lost me.

"Do you think we could start over?" he asked, those puppy dog eyes suddenly prominent, even in their bloodshot state. "After you get better, we can go away and just be ourselves, without any family or the business bothering us. I don't care where and it doesn't have to be fancy or expensive. I just want to be with you."

"No more partying with your friends at nightclubs?" I asked. "No more sleeping with other women? Just you and me?"

"Just you and me," he repeated. "The only person I want to sleep with is you, when you're ready."

I couldn't help it. I sobbed again and began to cry. Immediately, Bucky began to kiss my face. Then he looked in my eyes, placed his hand on my cheek and kissed me for real, a soft and sweet kiss that said I was the most important person in his world.

He was as good as his word. Once I was released, he leased a guest house on the coast. It was quiet, far enough away from the other houses on that stretch of windswept beach that we could pretend we were alone. We visited farmer's markets, picking up fresh food for meals that Bucky cooked for me, trying but not always succeeding in his attempts. It didn't matter because we were together and that was the real reason we were there. We walked; short distances at first as I got my strength back, then longer where we would take our time and pick up interesting shells and rocks on the beach. Sometimes we kept them, sometimes we tossed them back into the ocean. Not once did he look at his cellphone. In fact, the charge ran out and he left it on the kitchen counter as a reminder that he wanted all of his attention on me. At night, we curled up in front of the fireplace until I fell asleep, and he would carry me in his arms to bed, helping me into my comfy pyjamas, before changing into his own and spooning behind me.

One night we had a storm, with pounding waves, thunder and lightning, and a wind that rattled every window in the house. He held me until I fell asleep. When I woke up, I looked at his sleeping face, admiring his straight nose, defined cheekbones, and the cleft in his chin. He must have sensed I was looking at him because he opened his eyes, those blue grey eyes that seemed to change colour like the ocean did whenever it was peaceful or angry. There must have been something in my eyes that morning because Bucky kissed me differently, then looked at me in a way he never had before. As his hands moved under my top, and caressed my skin, he shifted so that he was looking over me. I nodded yes, and he smiled softly, before kissing me again and pressing his body against mine.

As pieces of clothing were discarded, we explored each other's bodies, responding with soft sounds as we awakened our sensuous side. It was lovemaking that started out slowly, then built in intensity as Bucky showed me physically how much I meant to him. I had never been that intimate with anyone before, even though I thought I had with the few boyfriends of my limited experience. None of the others made me feel what he did and any last doubts I may have had about his devotion to me were erased. I was in love, truly in love for the first time and so was Bucky.

For six weeks we lived in this bubble where only we existed. Then Bucky plugged his phone in, and all the notifications sounded, one after another for almost an hour. He deleted the ones from his partying friends. They were part of his past now. There were a couple from my father, demanding to know where we were. Then there were the others from his father and lawyers. As he read them, he sighed then looked at me and sat in an armchair, pulling me onto his lap.

"When you were in the ICU, I asked my father for a favour," he said. "I asked him how we could take over your father's company."

"Why?" I asked. "Our marriage was the agreement to keep the competition equal with him, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, it was but when I demanded that your father amend that divorce agreement, he did something stupid and frankly, unethical. He entered into a secret agreement with an overseas company and contracted with them to provide him with the same product at a fraction of the cost. They aren't the same quality, but he is selling them for a bit less than ours, and he makes more profit on them. It's cut into our profits. We'll be alright because Dad's R&D division are already testing the update that would have been brought out at the end of the two years when we were originally going to get divorced. Of course, now, we're not getting divorced."

"We're not?" I asked, my heart racing a little.

"Nope. You've got me for life." He shrugged. "But it means you don't get your 100 million, although you do get a house and car. They were my late wedding presents to you." He cleared his throat. "Do you know how your father has his company structured?"

"No, I assumed he owns and runs it himself," I said.

"Well, he is CEO, but he doesn't exactly own it, at least not all of it," said Bucky. "It's actually shared between your dad, your siblings and yourself. He's never paid you dividends or anything from the company, has he?"

"No, I didn't know any of it," I said. "I feel stupid now, but I always assumed he had total control."

"I think you were kept in deliberate ignorance of it, and he used some shady tax loopholes to keep the money that was yours out of your hands. It doesn't appear he did the same thing to your siblings which led me to wonder why he has always seemed to be so cold-hearted to you."

It was true, my dad never really liked me. I was aware of that from my earliest memories. Bucky's hand on my mine drew my attention back to him.

"He's not your dad." I opened my mouth then closed it. "He was married to your mother when you were born but your father was someone else. The company was her's and he had no choice but to declare you as his daughter at your birth. When she died, she left the company divided up between all of you."

"My mother's not dead," I said.

"She's not your mother, she's your stepmother," he replied. "Originally, she was your dad's mistress. He married her a month after your mother died, when you were two years old. Since then, your father has cheated you out of everything that should have been yours."

"What do I do?" I asked.

"You could launch takeover plans of your own, but I think it would expose you to investigation and possibly prosecution if the full story of how your father operates becomes public." That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing considering how he cheated me. Bucky smiled a little. "I think you should turn him in. Report him to the FBI, the IRS, and any other regulatory agency that oversees corporations. They'll freeze all the assets of the company while they investigate and once they confirm what my dad found out; you won't be a subject of investigation. You'll be recognized as a victim of a long-term plan to swindle you out of your inheritance. You can even bring a private civil suit against him. At the least it will expose your father and your family to some pretty intense public scrutiny. There might be some criticism about you, but I'll be with you while this happens, and I won't let anyone associate you with them."

I considered his words. For someone who said he barely passed his university courses he sounded pretty sure of himself and of what we should do. Just at that moment I felt like I had to throw up and I ran from him to the bathroom, emptying my stomach. His hands were on my hair, gently pulling it back so it didn't get soiled. Then he gave me a glass of water as I sat on the floor. A strange but satisfied smile was on his face.

"You haven't had a period since we first got here," he said.

I stopped drinking the water and looked up at him. "Do you think I'm pregnant?"

He shrugged then kneeled down to play with the ends of my hair. "Maybe. We can pick up a pregnancy test on the trip back to the city."

Something occurred to me. "The grandchildren clause ... who asked for that?"

He smiled. "My dad. I'm an only child so he wanted to make sure that I had heirs before I died because of my partying ways. If you are pregnant, I'll be happy and so will he. I'm going to be more involved in the company but not to the extent that you feel left out. In fact, my dad thinks you might be a good fit for the Board of Directors. We can work together and take over managing it when he retires."

"I don't know anything about business," I protested.

"I'll teach you," he smiled. "Say yes, to staying as my wife, the mother of my child, and partner in business. There's no one else I want to have it all with."

I agreed and his smile lit me up inside. When we returned to the city, the lawyers that his dad retained helped me turn my father and siblings in for the irregularities of how they ran my mother's business. Like Bucky said, several agencies became interested, and they confirmed that I had been cheated out of tens of millions of dollars worth of income and compensation. There were many shady deals they engaged in, and even the ones that weren't shady, like the marriage arrangement between Bucky and me, weren't always honoured. It took a long time for the whole thing to wind its way through the legal system but when it did, it was my company, and mine alone, as the Board of Directors fired my father and siblings after they were forced to divest their holdings in order to pay years of back taxes on the income they didn't declare. When Bucky's father, George Barnes, proposed a merger I accepted, being offered the position of Chief Ethics Officer in the combined companies.

There was something else that happened. On the way home from the coast, we stopped and picked up a home pregnancy test. The next morning, we waited as the stick processed the urine sample. The word Pregnant appeared and we accepted that our life was going to change. Bucky left behind the party lifestyle completely, becoming the partner in life I had always dreamed of. When our son was born, he was hands on as a father and stayed that way with each child we had, four in all. Some people said we lived a charmed life, but it wasn't always that way.

I never felt truly loved until I survived my accident and confessed my love to my husband. Bucky, who had dealt with his own trauma of his mother's death and being sent to boarding school at a young age, had lived a life of shallowness, afraid to truly be intimate with anyone, until he almost lost me. Our sham marriage ultimately brought him and his father closer together, healing the rift that had kept them apart. With the trust we built between us we formed a new family, made richer by the birth of our children. Although my biological father was dead, he did have children, born after his affair with my mother. We got along well, and they became my new siblings. Whatever cold-hearted life I suffered before I agreed to marry a man I didn't know didn't matter, as Bucky and I showered our own family with all the love we could muster. Above all else, we were happy.

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