Accidentally falling into marriage

Emily's Pov

“Lock the doors, Father, please.”

The words blurting out of my mouth sounded loud, echoed, and entirely unhinged, but I didn't care. My skull was throbbing from where it had just cracked against the polished marble floor, and my vision was swimming in a soup of black spots and stained-glass reflections.

“Sign the papers, Father,” a deep, chilling baritone commanded from somewhere above my head. “Before she regains her senses.”

Through the haze of my sudden concussion, I blinked up at the man standing at the altar. He looked like he had been sculpted out of dark thoughts and ice. He was towering—easily six-foot-two—with broad shoulders draped in a midnight-black three-piece suit that cost more than my entire life expectancy. His sharp jawline was set so hard it looked dangerous, and his piercing slate-grey eyes were locked onto mine with an intensity that sent a bizarre shudder straight down my spine.

It was a terrifying look. But it wasn't the look of my parents.

*“Emily!”*

A sharp, familiar screech echoed from the back of the grand chapel, cutting through the stunned whispers of the three hundred elite guests sitting in the pews. I choked back a breath, my hand instinctively dropping to cup my flat but slightly protruding stomach. Through the glass vestibule at the entrance, I could see my mother’s pristine blonde hair and my father’s towering, furious silhouette pushing past the ushers.

They had tracked me.

Ten minutes ago, I was trapped in my bedroom, suffocating under an ultimatum. My image-obsessed parents were forcing me to hand over my unborn baby—the result of a wild, anonymous one-night stand at a masked gala—to a high-society family in Boston so they could wipe my "incident" clean from their ledger and force me into an Ivy League university. I had hacked off my long hair into a jagged espresso-brown pixie cut as a final middle finger, grabbed my fashion sketchbook, and scrambled down the rose trellis to run for my life.

I had ducked into this chapel just to hide from my father’s cruising Mercedes. I had only leaned against the heavy back doors to catch my breath. I didn't know the ancient brass latch was completely unaligned.

The door had swung wildly inward, gravity had taken over, and I had flown backward, crashing straight into the high-society wedding of the century—a wedding where, apparently, the billionaire groom had just been stood up by his socialite fiancée.

“Young woman,” the elderly priest whispered, his voice trembling through the microphone as he squinted at my twenty-dollar white maxi dress. “I ask you again... do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

I looked back at the doors. My parents were ten seconds away from dragging me to a country club backroom and stealing my child. I looked up at the stone-faced billionaire.

“I do,” I croaked.

The priest didn't hesitate. Eager to avoid a public relations riot for the elite crowd, his trembling hands slammed the leather-bound register down. Before my brain could even process the absurdity of what I was doing, the billionaire bent down. His large, warm hands brushed against my bare arms, sending an electric shock through my skin that felt horrifyingly familiar. He lifted me effortlessly into his arms, shielding my face against his chest as he turned toward a private side exit.

“Whoa,” I mumbled, my head lolling against his shoulder. He smelled like rain, expensive wood, and pure authority. “Nice suspension. Are you a robot, or do you just lift luxury vehicles for fun?”

“Quiet,” he muttered, his voice a low, sparse rumble that vibrated right through his suit jacket. “You are concussed. Stop talking.”

He carried me out of the vestry and straight into a private, underground courtyard where a sleek black Maybach was already idling. He threw the door open and slid me onto the plush leather seat, stepping in right after me.

“Marcus, go,” the billionaire ordered his rigid, pale personal assistant in the front seat. “St. Jude’s Private Hospital. Have the medical staff ready for a neurological evaluation.”

“Sir,” Marcus squeaked, his hands shaking on the steering wheel. “The... the media? The Vance family? What do we tell the press about the bride?”

“Tell them the wedding proceeded with a private, pre-arranged adaptation to secure the Rice family interests,” he said coldly, staring straight ahead. “Let the PR team spin whatever fairy tale keeps the stock market stable until Monday morning.”

The car surged forward, leaving the chapel behind, but the soundproof interior didn't stop the dread pooling in my gut. I rubbed the growing lump on my forehead and looked at my accidental husband.

“Look, thanks for the assist back there,” I said, trying to sound entirely unbothered despite the adrenaline spiking in my veins. “My parents were about to—”

“I didn't do it for you,” he interrupted, his slate-grey eyes cutting over to lock onto mine. The sheer ice in his gaze was staggering. “I did it to prevent a catastrophic public relations disaster for my family empire. On Monday morning, my legal team will draft the annulment papers. Until then, you will play the part of a compliant wife.”

I let out a dry, breathy laugh. “Compliant? Man, you really don't know who you just married. I don't do compliant. It’s bad for the posture.”

His jaw clenched, but before he could snap back, the Maybach smoothly glided to a halt in the secure VIP bay of the hospital. But the doors didn't open to a medical team.

Instead, the tinted window was slammed from the outside. My mother’s face, twisted into a mask of elite rage, pressed against the glass. My father was right behind her, throwing the heavy passenger door open before the lock could even engage.

“Emily!” my mother hissed, her manicured fingers lunging into the vehicle to grab my wrist. “Get out of this car right now! The Van Der Bles family is waiting at the country club. You are coming with us to settle this nonsense once and for all!”

I shrank back into the leather, my arms wrapping tightly around my stomach. The suffocating trap was closing in again.

But before her fingers could even graze the fabric of my dress, a massive, black-suited arm cut through the space between us like a steel barrier. Matthew stepped out of the car, his imposing frame completely blocking the doorway and casting a long, dark shadow over both of my parents.

“Remove your hand from my vehicle, Madam,” Matthew said. His voice wasn't loud, but it possessed a terrifying, quiet weight that made the air in the underground garage drop ten degrees.

“Do you know who we are?” my father roared, stepping up to Matthew’s chest, his face flushed a deep, ugly purple. “That is our daughter! She is twenty years old, she lives under our roof, and she is mentally unstable! Step aside!”

Matthew didn't even flinch. He slowly adjusted the cuffs of his midnight suit, looking down at my father with absolute, chilling detachment.

“She *was* your daughter,” Matthew replied, his delivery sparse and brutal. “As of exactly twelve minutes ago, her name is Emily Rice. My wife. Which means her housing, her mental stability, and the child she is carrying are no longer your concern.”

“This is absurd!” my mother cried out, her voice cracking against the concrete walls. “She's pregnant with some nameless street thug's child from a masquerade gala! She ruined her future! We are trying to save her from herself!”

A sudden, violent tension rippled through Matthew’s jaw at her words. His slate-grey eyes darkened to the color of a stormy sea, a dangerous, predatory glint flashing within them. He stepped directly into my father’s space, his voice dropping into a low, lethal rumble.

“I don't care if she is pregnant with the ghost of Christmas past,” Matthew said, each word dripping with venomous authority. “The marriage certificate is signed, sealed, and currently being processed by the city registry. If you attempt to touch her, step within fifty yards of her, or speak another word about her child, I will have Rice Enterprises buy out your family’s firm by closing bell on Friday and dismantle it for scrap metal. Do I make myself clear?”

My father went completely pale, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. He knew the name Matthew Rice. He knew that Rice Enterprises could erase his entire life's work with a single phone call.

Matthew didn't wait for an answer. He turned his back on them as if they were nothing more than dust on his pristine leather shoes. He reached into the car, his large, warm hand surprisingly steady as it wrapped around my arm to help me stand.

“Come, Emily,” he muttered, his massive frame completely shielding my trembling body from my parents' sight as the hospital’s private sliding doors parted for us. “Let’s get your head checked.”

I let him guide me into the sterile, white hallway, the automatic doors closing behind us with a soft click, cutting off my parents’ furious shouts. For the first time in months, I felt a strange, bizarre sense of safety. The icy billionaire was a tyrant, sure, but he was a tyrant who had just drawn a line in the sand between me and the people who wanted to tear my life apart.

The hospital staff immediately rushed us into a private, high-end examination suite. Matthew stood by the window, his arms crossed, watching silently as the doctor checked my vitals and shined a penlight into my eyes.

“A mild concussion, Mrs. Rice,” the doctor announced, typing notes into a tablet. “The baby is perfectly fine, but we need to run a routine blood panel just to ensure your iron and hormone levels are stable after a fall like that. We’ll have the results back in an hour.”

“Fine,” Matthew clipped from the corner of the room. “Do it quickly.”

The nurse stepped forward, expertly drawing a vial of blood from my arm, labeling it carefully, and placing it into a metal biohazard container. I watched the little glass tube of crimson liquid, completely unaware of the ticking time bomb it contained.

Because what neither of us knew—what my cold, attentive husband couldn't possibly calculate, and what I couldn't even dare to dream—was that the nameless stranger from the masquerade gala hadn't vanished into the night.

He was standing right in front of me, wearing a three-piece suit, waiting for a blood test that was about to blow both of our worlds completely to pieces.

Emily's pov

The sterile smell of bleach and antiseptic always made me want to gag, but right now, it was the only thing keeping me grounded. I sat on the edge of the examination table, my fingers digging into the crinkly white paper lining. My head was a carnival of throbbing pain, but my mind was laser-focused on the man standing across the room.

Matthew Rice didn't look like a man who had just gotten married. He looked like an army general preparing for a siege. He had his arms crossed over his chest, his dark brows pulled into a tight, menacing V as he stared out the third-floor window of the private clinic.

"The blood work is processing, Mr. Rice," the doctor said, his voice dripping with the kind of forced politeness reserved for people who could buy the hospital. "We should have the full panel, including her iron levels and prenatal stats, within thirty minutes. In the meantime, Mrs. Rice needs to rest."

*Mrs. Rice.* Hearing the title made a hys