Summary
Her wedding day was supposed to be the start of a new life.
Instead, it became the day everything fell apart.
Jilted at the altar by Ethan Donovan, the man she planned to marry, she loses not only the love of her life but also her chance at US citizenship. With a broken heart and her future hanging by a thread, she finds herself in a bar, drowning the humiliation of being left behind in front of friends, family, and hundreds of guests.
While drowning her sorrows, she meets Miles Donovan, a man who offers her a deal: they marry so she can stay in the country, and he can secure his inheritance.
Miles is Ethan’s older half-brother. The son of the powerful Donovan family who was always cast aside by his father and stepmother. For years, he worked to prove he deserved the name he carries, eventually becoming the ideal candidate to lead his grandfather’s business empire.
But Arthur Donovan’s will contains one final condition.
To inherit control of the Donovan Group and become CEO, Miles must marry within a year of the will's reading. If he fails, he loses everything, and control of the company will pass to his father, who will sooner or later hand it over to Ethan.
She needs a husband.
He needs a wife.
What begins as a conversation between two strangers becomes an offer impossible to refuse.
A contract marriage.
For twelve months, they will share a home, attend family gatherings, act deeply in love, and maintain the facade of a perfect marriage. When the year ends, they will each go their own way with exactly what they needed: she will have the stability she fought so hard for, and he will have the company he has spent years earning.
There are only three rules.
Do not fall in love.
Do not cross the contract's boundaries.
And remember, every single day, that this marriage is not real.
Yet, the more convincing the lie becomes to the world, the harder it is to distinguish where the act ends and true feelings begin.
As they both discover that home can be found in the most unlikely person, two forces are determined to destroy everything they’ve built.
Ethan cannot stand to see her as his own half-brother’s wife and will do whatever it takes to win her back, convinced she belongs to him and that Miles does not deserve the inheritance he always thought was his.
Meanwhile, Olivia Brooks, the daughter of the Donovan family's former gardener, has been in love with Miles her entire life. Having grown up alongside him as his only childhood friend, she is convinced this marriage is a sham and that no one can take the place she has reserved for herself for years.
Because some contracts have an expiration date.
But there are promises the heart never signs… and yet ends up keeping.