Vows without heart beat

The courthouse was quieter than Brielle expected.

No flowers. No music. No families gathering in joy.

Just tiled floors, flickering overhead lights, and the sound of footsteps echoing down sterile hallways.

Her heels clicked against the floor as she entered, heart hammering like she was walking into a war zone instead of a wedding. She wore a simple white dress she’d found in the back of her closet—knee-length, slightly wrinkled, and far from bridal. Her makeup was minimal, lips pale pink, eyes lined in subtle defiance.

She didn’t feel like a bride.

She felt like a deal being signed.

At the end of the corridor stood Alexander Hayes. Tall, composed, dressed in a black tailored suit with no tie, like he was attending a board meeting instead of his own wedding. His dark hair was swept back neatly, every inch of him pristine and unreadable.

He glanced at her watch as she approached.

“You’re two minutes late.”

Brielle rolled her eyes. “You sound like you’re timing a merger, not a marriage.”

His expression didn’t change. “Punctuality matters.”

“So does personality,” she muttered.

He didn’t respond. Just turned and gestured for her to follow him.

⸻

They were led into a small courtroom by a bored clerk who barely looked up from her phone. The judge looked equally enthusiastic, rifling through papers like he’d performed this ceremony a thousand times and couldn’t care less about the thousand and first.

Brielle’s stomach twisted as they stood before him. She didn’t even know what hand Alexander wrote with, what kind of music he liked, or what he looked like when he laughed—if he ever laughed. And yet, in less than five minutes, they’d be legally bound for a year.

One year.

That was the deal.

Not forever. Not love. Just one long lie.

The judge cleared his throat.

“Do you, Alexander Hayes, take Brielle Morgan to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for as long as this contract shall last?”

Alexander didn’t blink.

“I do.”

His voice was low and smooth. Devoid of hesitation. As if he’d already rehearsed the entire moment in his head and filed it away as another transaction.

Brielle swallowed hard.

“And do you, Brielle Morgan, take Alexander Hayes to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

There was a pause. A beat too long. She felt Alexander glance at her, felt the weight of the silence pressing against her spine.

“I do,” she said finally, her voice soft, but steady.

The judge gave a short nod. “You may exchange rings.”

Alexander pulled a slim black box from his coat pocket and opened it. The ring was elegant—platinum with a small diamond, delicate but clearly expensive. Not flashy. Just enough to say, I have money and taste. Look, but don’t ask questions.

He slid it onto her finger without ceremony.

“Custom made,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. “I figured you deserved at least one part of this to feel real.”

Brielle stared at the ring, then up at him.

It shimmered under the fluorescent lights—too beautiful for a love that didn’t exist.

“Thanks,” she said. “It’s almost convincing.”

⸻

The ceremony ended as quickly as it began.

No kiss. No applause. Just signatures, initials, and the scratch of pens sealing their fates.

They left the courthouse in silence. Outside, the New York air was crisp and alive, the city moving around them without pause. A sleek black car waited at the curb, its driver holding the door open with military precision.

“You’re coming home with me,” Alexander said, standing beside the open door.

“To your penthouse?” she asked, feigning innocence.

“To our penthouse,” he corrected.

She arched a brow. “Look at you, getting into character already.”

He didn’t smile. “We’re married now. Appearances matter.”

Brielle slid into the car without another word, the leather seats cool against her bare legs. Alexander followed, sitting across from her like she was a business associate, not his new bride.

The silence between them pulsed.

“So,” she said, eyes fixed on the city rushing past the tinted windows. “Are we going to talk about how incredibly weird this is? Or are we just going to act like two completely normal people who got married without ever going on a single date?”

Alexander crossed one leg over the other. His movements were too controlled. Too perfect.

“We don’t need to pretend for each other,” he said. “Only for everyone else.”

“Right. Because pretending is so much easier when you’re getting paid to do it.”

He looked at her then—something sharp and unreadable in his gaze.

“You didn’t have to say yes.”

“No,” she said softly. “But you knew I would.”

⸻

The car pulled into the underground garage of a luxury high-rise on the Upper East Side. Marble walls. Polished steel elevators. The kind of building with doormen who never blink and neighbors who wear tailored pajamas.

Brielle followed him to the private elevator, and neither of them spoke as it rose. When the doors opened to the penthouse, she stepped into another world.

The space was massive. Floor-to-ceiling windows. Art on the walls that probably cost more than her entire existence. Furniture in soft grays and blacks. Minimalist, masculine, sterile.

“You live here alone?” she asked, walking slowly through the living room.

“I used to,” he replied. “Now we both do.”

She stopped in front of the window, the city glittering beneath them.

“No rules about separate bedrooms in the contract?”

He walked past her, setting his watch on the table. “There’s a guest room down the hall. You can use it.”

“Gee, thanks. So generous of you, husband.”

Alexander looked back at her, and for the first time, something flickered behind his carefully maintained expression.

Tiredness. Or maybe regret.

“This isn’t a game, Brielle. We both know what we signed up for.”

She looked down at her ring, still shining like it belonged on someone else’s hand.

“Do we?” she murmured.

⸻

That night, she stood alone in the guest room, staring at the ceiling as the city moved beyond the glass.

Somewhere down the hall, her fake husband slept in silence. Or maybe not. Maybe he was just as awake as she was, wondering how they’d both ended up here—two strangers pretending they had something worth keeping.

And in the quiet space between dreams and reality, Brielle whispered the truth she couldn’t say aloud:

One year of this might just break me.

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