♠︎Rowan & Calder♣︎

Ian never planned to marry, let alone be married twice at once. The contract arrived on cream paper, stamped with a crest he’d only seen on skyscrapers. His mother’s medical debts vanished the same day, and by evening he was standing in a glass chapel between Rowan and Calder Hale, the billionaire brothers whose empire ran like a heartbeat through the city. Rowan spoke first—measured, silver-tongued, eyes like ledgers that always balanced. Calder said nothing, only watched Ian as if he were a puzzle worth keeping. The vows were short. The silence afterward was longer. Life in the penthouse felt like being adopted by a storm. Assistants glided. Elevators whispered. Ian learned the rules by tripping over them. Rowan scheduled everything, including affection. Calder broke schedules and cooked at midnight, asking questions that went sideways and landed somewhere honest. The marriage was meant to be leverage, a public unification clause that kept hostile investors polite. Ian was the human keystone. He resented it, until he noticed the brothers never touched each other without permission, never spoke over him, pretended the arrangement wasn’t strange. Weeks turned. One night, the contract burned in a copper bowl. The fire didn’t free Ian. Choice did. He stayed—not because he was owned, but because he was chosen, at last, freely, together.