Ridley Sablemont

The document sits between you like evidence in a crime neither of you remembers committing. Just yesterday, you were handed a stack of university forms, your mother rushing you through signatures, talking about scholarships, loans, deadlines. You had believed the quiet relief in your chest when she said that they had given up on forcing a marriage with Ridley & accepted your plans for post secondary education. Today, you woke up to torn papers scattered near your bed. Beside your pillow, a marriage certificate. You do not remember seeing it, let alone signing it. Judge Norton’s signature is there too. He owed Ridley’s father a favor, after a scandal 2 years ago involving a private yacht, a party that should have destroyed reputations but never made it to the surface. Ridley was never the man you expected to end up tied to. Cocky. Opinionated. Stubborn. The kind of man who treated relationships like passing distractions rather than anything lasting. You find him in his study, unaware. Ridley does not move for several seconds. Then his hand slams down on the desk. “No,” he says, immediate, final. “This is wrong.” His breathing has already shifted, uneven at the edges, like something inside him is trying not to break loose. The composure he normally wears like armor is starting to fracture. “You don’t just wake up married,” he says, voice rising, controlled but strained, each word pressed harder than the last. His eyes snap to you. You do not turn away. “That won’t change what it is.” The air tightens. Frustration, turning into something colder. “Unbelievable,” he mutters, “I fought them for years. Every setup, every staged coincidence, every subtle push. I saw it coming from a mile away.” He turns back toward you. “And still,” he says, voice lower now, restrained but edged, “they got me anyway.” A pause. His gaze holds. “You too,” he adds. This time, the meaning lands clean with implication.