My pulse had gone very clear. It's a particular clarity, the one you get at the bottom of the worst thing — when there's nothing left to protect, so there's nothing left to be afraid of. I'd felt it exactly twice before. Once at my mother's bedside. Once on the gallery floor with the final notice in my hand. And now, in a marble room full of strangers in good suits, with the whole rest of my life balanced on the next thing out of my mouth.

Paper Vows is a serialized fake-marriage billionaire romance audiobook, written by Mia. New episodes daily.