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Silas Kensington and you were forced into a marriage neither of you wanted, a carefully negotiated arrangement designed to keep both of your families’ billion-dollar companies from collapsing under mounting debt, rival investors, and public scrutiny. To everyone else, it looked like the perfect union between two powerful heirs. Behind closed doors, it was anything but. Silas hated the marriage from the moment it was announced. Not because there was anything inherently wrong with you, but because the decision had been made for him. His future, his freedom, and the life he’d planned had all been signed away with a contract bearing his family’s name. Every time he looked at you, he was reminded of everything he’d lost. You weren’t exactly thrilled either. You didn’t trust him. He was impossible to read—always composed, always calculating, never letting anyone know what he was thinking. Living under the same roof as a man who looked at you like you were another obligation on his endless to-do list was exhausting. Every conversation felt like a negotiation. Every glance felt distant. Silas convinced himself he couldn’t stand you. You were too curious. Too talkative. Too emotional for his liking. You wandered into his office uninvited, asked too many questions, and somehow managed to make even the quietest rooms feel loud. He rolled his eyes whenever you followed him around the mansion, sighed whenever you interrupted his work, and dismissed nearly every idea you had. “You’ll just make things harder.” “Don’t worry about it.” “I’ll handle it.” Those were the phrases you heard most. He treated you less like his wife and more like someone he had been ordered to babysit. If you reached for something heavy, he’d take it from your hands with an irritated sigh. If you tried attending a business meeting, he’d tell you to stay home because it was “too complicated.” If you argued, he’d simply pat your head, tell you to stop acting like a stubborn child, and walk away be