THE COUNTDOWN BEGINS
Maya's POV
I had exactly eighty-nine days, fourteen hours, and thirty-seven minutes to fall in love or lose everything.
The numbers glowed red on my laptop screen, mocking me from across the scattered battlefield of legal documents that had transformed my pristine glass dining table into evidence of my own stupidity. How had I never questioned why my inheritance was locked away until my thirtieth birthday? How had I never demanded to see the actual trust documents before now, three months before the deadline that would either secure my future or destroy it?
Rain hammered against the floor-to-ceiling windows of my penthouse, each drop like bullets fired by a Seattle sky that had turned hostile somewhere between midnight and this ungodly hour of 3:17 AM. The sound should have been soothing—it usually was—but tonight it felt like a countdown timer, every drop another second stolen from the eighty-nine days I had left to accomplish the impossible.
I lifted the coffee mug to my lips and winced. Stone cold, bitter as the realization that had been growing in my chest for the past six hours of reading and rereading the same devastating paragraph. The coffee tasted like metal and defeat, but I forced myself to swallow anyway. Caffeine was the only thing keeping my hands steady enough to hold the papers without shaking.
The trust shall be released to the beneficiary upon the occasion of her marriage, provided said marriage occurs prior to her thirtieth birthday. Should the beneficiary remain unmarried upon reaching the age of thirty years, the entirety of the trust shall be donated to the American Cancer Society, and the beneficiary shall receive no further benefits from this estate.
My grandmother's perfume still clung to these documents after fifteen years, the ghost of White Shoulders mixing with the scent of expensive paper and my own panic. Patricia Reeves had believed women needed protection, needed the stability of marriage, needed someone else to help them make the big decisions. She'd structured this trust like a punishment for my independence, a final attempt to control me from beyond the grave.
"You manipulative old—" The words died in my throat as another wave of nausea rolled through me. I pressed my palms flat against the glass table, the cold surface grounding me as my world tilted sideways.
Fifty million dollars. Everything I'd built my life on—this penthouse, my partnership track at Morrison, Kline & Associates, my carefully constructed future—all of it depended on money I'd never actually had access to. Money that would vanish in eighty-nine days if I couldn't find someone willing to marry a woman they'd known for less than three months.
I stood too quickly, the chair scraping against hardwood that probably cost more than most people's cars. My legs felt unsteady, foreign, like they belonged to someone else. Through the windows, Seattle sprawled below me, millions of people sleeping peacefully while my life imploded in real time. Elliott Bay stretched dark and endless toward the horizon, ferries moving like toys across water that reflected the city's lights.
Somewhere out there were men. Successful, intelligent, emotionally available men who might consider marriage to a stranger if she was desperate enough to make it worth their while. Somewhere out there was a solution to this problem, because there had to be. There was always a solution if you were smart enough and ruthless enough to find it.
My phone buzzed against the glass table, the vibration sharp as a scream in the silence. James Morrison's name appeared on the screen, and my stomach dropped. My family lawyer never called this late unless someone was dying or already dead.
"James?" My voice came out smaller than I intended.
"Maya." His tone carried thirty years of legal experience and none of it was good news. "I know it's late, but I saw your email about reviewing the trust documents. I thought we should talk."
"Tell me there's a loophole." I sank back into my chair, gripping the phone like a lifeline. "Tell me there's some legal technicality that makes this marriage clause invalid."
The silence stretched long enough for me to count five more raindrops racing down the window.
"Maya, your grandparents were thorough. I helped them structure this trust, and I spent the last three hours reviewing every word. There are no loopholes. No technicalities. No extensions or exemptions." His voice gentled. "You have to be legally married by your thirtieth birthday, or the trust goes to charity."
The metallic taste in my mouth intensified. "What if I contest it?"
"You'd spend more on legal fees than you'd ever recover, and you'd lose. Your grandparents had the right to structure their estate however they chose, and they chose to incentivize marriage. The courts won't overturn that."
I closed my eyes, seeing numbers cascade behind my eyelids. Partnership buy-in: $500,000. Penthouse mortgage: $8,000 a month. Law school loans: $180,000 remaining balance. Car payment, insurance, the dozen other financial obligations that had seemed so manageable when I thought fifty million dollars was waiting in my future like a safety net.
"Maya? Are you still there?"
"I'm here." Barely. "James, what happens if I can't... if I don't..."
"You'll be fine. You're a brilliant attorney with a bright future. You don't need your grandparents' money to succeed."
But he was wrong. I did need it. Not for survival—I could pay my bills with my salary, could probably even keep the penthouse if I was careful. But for everything I'd planned, everything I'd promised myself I'd build in honor of my parents' memory, I needed that trust fund. The foundation I wanted to establish in their names. The pro bono work I planned to take on once I had financial security. The life I'd designed around never being vulnerable again.
"There has to be something—"
"Maya." James's voice cut through my desperation with surgical precision. "I've been your family's lawyer since before you were born. I watched your parents build something beautiful together, and I watched your grandparents struggle with their own fears about your future. They weren't trying to punish you. They were trying to protect you."
"By forcing me into marriage?"
"By ensuring you'd never have to face the world alone."
I hung up before he could say anything else, my fingers trembling as I set the phone down. Alone. That's what I'd been since I was fourteen years old, standing in a cemetery in the October rain while they lowered my parents into the ground. I'd made myself a promise that day, kneeling in the mud beside their graves while relatives whispered about trust funds and guardianship arrangements.
I'll never need anyone. I'll never be weak. I'll build something so strong that nothing can destroy it.
The memory hit me like a physical blow, sharp enough to double me over. My parents, Robert and Susan Reeves, brilliant and in love and convinced they'd have decades to watch their daughter grow up. They'd died on a mountain road during a late-night drive home from a business meeting, their car going off the guardrail in what police called a tragic accident involving weather and fatigue.
I'd built my entire adult life as a monument to their memory, proving that their daughter could succeed without depending on anyone else. And now my grandparents' final manipulation was going to tear it all down unless I could find someone to marry me in the next eighty-nine days.
The papers rustled as I swept them off the table, documents scattering across the hardwood like oversized snow. Trust agreements, legal precedents, financial projections—all of it worthless because the solution couldn't be found in law books or contracts. The solution was out there in the world of dating and romance and emotional vulnerabilities I'd spent fifteen years avoiding.
I walked to the windows, pressing my forehead against the cold glass. My reflection stared back—thirty years old in three months, successful, attractive enough, completely unprepared for the kind of relationship that led to marriage proposals. I'd had boyfriends over the years, careful arrangements with men who understood that my career came first, that I wasn't looking for forever. Now forever was exactly what I needed, and I had less than three months to find it.
"I'll buy love if I have to," I whispered to my reflection, the words tasting like ash and desperation.
My phone buzzed against the table, screen lighting up with a text from an unknown number: Elite Connections can solve impossible problems. Are you impossible enough?
I stared at the message, my heart hammering against my ribs. No one knew about my situation except James, and he'd never share client information. But somehow, someone out there knew I needed help, and they were offering exactly the kind of solution I'd been telling myself didn't exist.
My finger hovered over the reply button as rain continued its relentless assault on the windows, counting down the seconds until my world either expanded or collapsed entirely.