---
The floor-length mirror in the bridal boutique reflected a stranger back at me.
The white mermaid gown clung to every line of my body, making me look even more composed than usual. Cold, almost. Like something carved from marble.
I stared at my own reflection and felt nothing. Not even the smallest flutter of excitement about getting married.
Only numbness.
Seven days. In seven days, I'd be Ethan Blackwood's wife.
His name had come into my life just three months ago — spoken by family lawyers and estate trustees with careful formality, like an announcement of terms rather than a beginning.
We'd met exactly three times. Always across a long mahogany table. Always polite. Always distant. He spoke rarely, and when his gaze landed on me, it was flat — like this marriage was nothing more than an item on his agenda.
"Sophie." My best friend Vivian Holloway was sprawled across the boutique's velvet chaise, crunching an apple, watching me with the particular look she reserved for situations she found deeply unfortunate. "You look like you're about to face a firing squad, not a wedding."
"Two of the biggest families in the country arranging a merger, and they couldn't even be bothered to check if you wanted it." She shook her head. "Are you really going to do this to yourself?"
I tugged at the hem of the gown and said nothing.
Was it really doing something to myself?
After my parents died, I'd grown accustomed to a life where the big decisions happened around me, not with me. This marriage was just another version of that — a change of address, a new set of routines, the same absence of anything I'd actually chosen.
Ethan Blackwood came from old money and older reputation. Steady. Brilliant. Controlled. The kind of man everyone pointed to as ideal.
Except he didn't love me.
That was really the only flaw anyone could find.
"I'm here to take you home."
The voice came from the boutique entrance — low, unhurried, precise.
I looked up. Ethan had pushed through the door, already walking toward us. He was in a charcoal bespoke suit, every line of him perfectly composed, an air of cool reserve in the set of his jaw.
But when his gaze found me in the mirror, something shifted. The coolness didn't disappear — it just softened at the edges, for just a fraction of a second.
Whatever it was, he pulled it back before I could name it.
Vivian, with her impeccable social instincts, quietly excused herself.
Ethan stopped behind me. His eyes met mine in the mirror, and when he spoke, his voice had dropped a register.
"It suits you perfectly."
I gave a stiff nod and looked away.
In all three of our previous meetings, he'd never spoken to me like that. He'd barely looked at me longer than courtesy required. I had no idea what to make of this version of him.
The fitting ended. Outside, the early evening air carried a fine, cold bite. I pulled my coat tighter without thinking.
Ethan paused. Without a word, he reached back to his assistant and took something from him — a small hand warmer — and held it out to me.
When I took it, his fingertips brushed mine. The warmth of it moved through my palm and settled somewhere deeper.
"Don't get cold," he said quietly, the words measured and low. "I don't want my bride falling ill before the wedding."
I stood holding the hand warmer, watching him turn and walk toward the waiting car. The warmth spread slowly through my hands, then up through my chest, stirring something I didn't have a name for yet.
What was this man hiding?