His Accidental Wife Is A Secret Tycoon

Jaden Carpenter leaned her shoulder against a cold marble pillar in the New York City Hall lobby. She tugged her black baseball cap lower, letting the brim cut a sharp shadow across her eyes. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed, harsh and white.

Heavy metal screamed through her earbuds. The wall of noise swallowed the miserable arguments of the couples lined up for divorce to her left.

Her phone vibrated hard against her thigh.

She pulled it from her leather jacket pocket. Tammy. Her foster mother.

Jaden didn't blink. She swiped her thumb across the screen, killed the call, and shoved the phone back into her pocket. She pushed off the pillar and walked toward window number three, hands jammed deep in her pockets. She had spent years building an underground empire, but there was one thing she couldn't buy—a clean, legal severance from the parasites who held her childhood records. This ridiculous proxy marriage was the last step. Once the papers were signed, she would be free.

Outside the heavy glass doors, tires screeched against the pavement.

A black Maybach jerked to a stop at the curb. Constantine Kensington shoved the car door open and stepped out. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with dark hair swept back from a face that looked carved from stone. His steel-gray eyes held the permanent chill of someone who had never been told no. His long legs carried him up the concrete steps. He checked the Patek Philippe on his wrist, jaw clenching so tight a muscle ticked in his cheek.

He rubbed the space between his eyebrows, a sharp headache forming.

"Speed this up," he ordered his assistant, Arthur, without looking back.

Arthur's phone rang. The assistant's face went pale. "Sir, the overseas merger—" Arthur stopped at the bottom of the steps to take the emergency call.

Constantine let out a harsh breath and pushed through the heavy glass doors alone. He headed straight for the VIP lane, but two people were screaming at each other, blocking the velvet rope. A woman threw a cup of hot coffee at a man's chest.

Constantine's eyes went flat. He didn't have time for this garbage. He pivoted and strode into the regular line, his height parting the crowd until he stood directly in front of window number three.

The clerk behind the glass was sweating, slamming his thick fingers against a frozen keyboard.

Constantine stepped up right next to Jaden. The air around him dropped several degrees.

Jaden felt the sudden cold. She tilted her head slightly, catching only the sharp silhouette of an absurdly expensive suit. Her earbuds continued blasting at maximum volume, the guitar riffs drowning out the ambient noise of the lobby.

The clerk didn't look up. He shoved half a pastrami sandwich into his mouth and mumbled two names through the glass. Just as the syllables left his mouth, the screaming woman at the velvet rope completely lost it. She grabbed a heavy brass stanchion and hurled it. The stanchion smashed into the marble floor right next to window number three with a deafening crash that bounced off the walls like a gunshot.

The clerk's words were swallowed completely by the explosion of noise.

Constantine assumed the idiot had called his and Kira's names. He pulled prepared identification documents from his inner pocket and shoved them through the slot under the glass.

Jaden, still wearing her earbuds at maximum volume, had caught nothing beyond the blurred shape of the clerk's moving lips. She kept her chin low, the brim of her cap blocking her peripheral vision. She had zero desire to look at the disgusting sixty-year-old proxy her foster parents had hired. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught only the cuff of an expensive custom-tailored suit and a whiff of high-end cedar cologne. Wow, she thought, mildly disgusted. Old Gus really dressed up and bathed in cologne just to play the part of a wealthy proxy. Pathetic. She assumed the clerk had called her and Gus's names. She pulled her ID from her jacket and tossed it through the same slot.

The clerk grabbed both cards. He swiped them through the scanner, his eyes glued to the frozen screen. He didn't look at their faces. He didn't check the age gap.

The printer beside him whined and ground its gears. It spit out two crisp sheets of paper bearing the City Hall letterhead. Marriage certificates.

Constantine didn't read a single word. He grabbed the cheap plastic pen chained to the counter and slashed his signature across the bottom line.

He turned his head slightly toward Jaden. His voice was a low, emotionless rumble, just audible over the residual ringing in the air.

"I'm giving this circus exactly fifteen minutes," Constantine said, ice dripping from every word. "Once this is done, keep your head down and stay in your lane. Don't even think about trying anything stupid."

Jaden raised one eyebrow under her cap. This proxy old Gus hired was incredibly arrogant for an errand boy.

"Whatever," Jaden muttered. She still hadn't looked directly at him, too disgusted to bother.

She grabbed the second certificate, dragged the pen across the paper, and signed her name in sharp, aggressive strokes. The pen tip nearly tore through the page.

The clerk grabbed his heavy metal stamp and slammed it down on both papers. Bang.

Legal. Binding. Done.

The clerk shoved the warm papers back through the slot.

Constantine snatched his copy. He turned on his heel, his broad shoulder swinging hard toward Jaden's as he walked away. But Jaden's body reacted before her conscious mind did. Years of brutal combat training took over. She dropped her center of gravity, her core locking into an immovable wall of muscle. Her heavy combat boots rooted to the tile. Instead of Jaden getting knocked aside, Constantine's shoulder slammed into her and he physically rebounded, stumbling half a step sideways. A gust of cold, cedar-scented air hit her face as he caught his balance.

Jaden's eyes went dark. She didn't rub her shoulder. She just stared at his retreating back, a cold, clinical assessment running through her head. Terrible footwork. His center of gravity is completely off.

She snatched her copy of the certificate, crumpled it into her jacket pocket, and walked toward the exit.