Thirty days to marry, or he’d lose Chicago. That’s how he put it — as if a whole city sat in his palms like a snow globe he was afraid someone would shake. The rain fell in silver needles under Wabash, slicing through the air in thin, cold lines.
The L rattled above us, every passing train shaking drops loose from the metal ribs of the bridge. I sat on a flattened cardboard box wearing a trash bag poncho and reading a battered paperback from the discount bin at the State Street Goodwill. Chapter twelve, almost to the twist.
I wasn’t sleeping. People like me don’t get to sleep much under bridges — not even on quiet nights. He stepped close enough that I could smell the life he came from.
Cedar. Ink. Boardrooms.
Money that never touched the ground. A trace of stress, like something on the edge of breaking. “My name is Damen Sinclair,” he said.
The last name landed like a business card thrown on a desk. Sinclair. Everyone in Chicago knew it.
Sinclair Media. Sinclair Holdings. Sinclair Tower.
His father’s empire — cold, impressive, impossible to climb. But he didn’t wear arrogance the way most rich people do. His posture held something else:
Desperation.
“I need a wife,” he said, wiping rain from his sleeve. “It’s legal. A year.
You’d have food, shelter, a salary, a fresh start.”
I raised an eyebrow and looked at his shoes — good leather, bad choice for Chicago in March. Then at the skyline — black glass knifing the clouds. “What’s in it for you?” I asked.
He swallowed. “Thirty days,” he said. “If I’m not married in thirty days, everything reverts.”
“Everything?”
He nodded.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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