Waking Up My Comatose Tycoon Husband

Aria Foster gently wrung the excess water from the washcloth and wiped her grandmother's brow. The rhythmic electronic beep of the heart monitor was the only sound in the sterile white room-

The door swung open without a knock, shattering the fragile peace.

She turned her head warily. "What are you doing here?"

Keith Foster stood in the doorway. His tailored suit looked dull and out of place under the harsh, antiseptic light of the room. He didn't look at Aria. He didn't look at the frail woman in the bed. His eyes, cold and calculating, swept over the machines keeping her alive.

"Can't even say 'Dad' anymore?" He let out a mocking snort. "I've got a golden opportunity for you. Hadley Sinclair in New York is dying. He needs a wife. You've hit the jackpot. Back in the day, Hadley was the richest, most talented man in New York. He never mixed with anyone. Never let a woman touch him." He paused, a note of schadenfreude creeping into his voice. "Too bad he's about to die now."

Aria recoiled from his outstretched hand and let out a cold laugh. "If it's such a great opportunity, why don't you go get yourself neutered and take my place? Selling your own daughter to a dying man-and you call yourself a father?"

Keith shot her an impatient look. "You think you have a choice? What about your grandmother? Aren't you going to take care of her?"

Watching Keith's cold, calculating demeanor, Aria gritted her teeth. After a moment's thought, the corner of her mouth curled into a dismissive smirk. "There's no way the Sinclairs would come all this way just to marry some country girl like me. The real target is my sister, isn't it?"

When Keith's eyes widened involuntarily, Aria knew she had guessed correctly. The moment she understood what he was really plotting, her gaze turned dangerously narrow. Under her stare, Keith actually felt a chill run down his spine.

"You think you can control me?" Aria's voice was low and sharp. "Like you always have?"

Keith quickly regained his composure. A smug smile played on his lips. He thought he saw her despair-or rather, he thought he did. He fed on it. He slid a thick leather folder onto the bedside table. The slap of leather against metal was jarringly loud in the silent room.

"The hospital administration called," he said, his voice flat, devoid of warmth. "They're stopping treatment tomorrow if the outstanding balance isn't paid."

The air in Aria's lungs turned to ice. She couldn't breathe. The sterile room suddenly felt suffocating, the walls closing in. Her hands gripped the bedrail, knuckles white.

Her gaze fell on the embossed crest on the folder's cover: a stylized, elegant S-the Sinclair family crest.

"They'll take care of everything," Keith said, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial hiss. "Past, present, and future. The best care money can buy. Helen will be transferred to a private facility."

Her hand trembled as she reached for the folder. She flipped it open. The words seemed to leap off the page, burning into her eyes.

Marriage Agreement.

Her eyes raced down the page, her heart pounding. She found the groom's name: Hadley Sinclair-the phantom heir of New York. A man who had been in a coma for five years after a brutal car accident. A living corpse.

A wave of nausea hit her so hard she had to grab the bedrail to steady herself. They wanted her to marry a dead man. A beautiful, wealthy, breathing corpse.

Her gaze moved from the damning contract to her grandmother's face. Helen looked peaceful in her deep sleep, her features softened by age and illness. She was the only person in the world who had ever shown Aria genuine love, the only real family she had ever known. The conflict inside her was a physical war-a tearing of flesh and spirit. It lasted only a moment.

Then her expression hardened into a mask of cold, brittle resolve.

She reached for the pen lying on top of the papers.

"Fine," she said. The word came out like a shard of glass, empty of emotion.

She met Keith's triumphant gaze, a flicker of something dangerous in her own eyes. "But you listen to me. If anything happens to my grandmother-if her care is compromised in any way, if a nurse is even five minutes late with her medication-I will personally tear the Foster family apart. The first family of New York? Then I'll rip a hole in the New York sky. And when the sky falls, the tallest will be the first to hit the ground. The Fosters will be the first to die. Do you understand me?"

Keith's smile faltered. The raw venom in her voice, the cold certainty in her eyes, made him tremble for a moment. This wasn't the voice of the quiet, obedient girl he had raised to be his pawn.

She had money. She could have paid for her grandmother's care herself. But the moment that money moved, everything would fall apart. Once those funds surfaced, Keith would realize she wasn't as helpless as he thought. He would transfer Helen to a hospital he controlled and use the old woman's life as leverage forever. And that pendant-that small silver locket, the only clue her biological parents had left her, the only key to finding out who she really was-would be lost to her forever. So she had to play the part. The poor girl with no way out. The desperate bride with nothing left to lose. She let Keith believe he had won. She signed her name, listening to the scratch of the pen like the slam of a cage door, and told herself this wasn't surrender. This was entry. She would take what she needed, and then end all of this.

She signed her name in firm, decisive strokes-Aria Foster.

Keith snatched the contract off the table and let out a breath of relief. "There's a car waiting downstairs. You're going to Sinclair Manor. Now."

She straightened up and walked out, her steps unwavering.

Downstairs, a sleek black Rolls-Royce was parked at the entrance, its opulent presence drawing stares from doctors and patients alike. The driver, a man named Mr. Miller, stood by the open door. He regarded her with a neutral, professional gaze-neither welcoming nor judging.

The drive to the Sinclair estate was a blur of city lights. Each passing streetlamp felt like a distant, dying star in a galaxy from which she was being exiled. Soon the city gave way to sprawling suburbs, and then to a private road winding through a dense, dark forest.

Finally, they passed through a pair of colossal iron gates. A mansion loomed into view-a sprawling, Gothic behemoth of stone and shadow, lit against the night sky like a dark and lonely castle.

Aria stepped out of the car. In her worn jeans and faded T-shirt, standing before that mountain of old money and power, she felt impossibly small.

The heavy oak doors swung open before she could reach them. A stern-faced older woman in a crisp black housekeeper's uniform stood silhouetted in the doorway. Mrs. Hicks.

Her eyes raked over Aria-from her scuffed boots to her plain face-and her lips curled into a barely concealed sneer of disdain.

"So," Mrs. Hicks said, her voice dripping with condescension, "you're the girl from the Rust Belt."

Aria said nothing. She kept her face a blank canvas, giving the housekeeper nothing to feed on-no anger, no fear, no emotion at all.

The grand foyer was cavernous and cold, lined with portraits of stern-faced Sinclair ancestors who seemed to judge her from their gilded frames. The silence was heavy and oppressive.

A woman began to descend the grand staircase, a river of diamonds around her neck, her silk dress whispering with each step. Vivian Sinclair-Hadley's stepmother.

She stopped halfway down, looking at Aria as if she were something unpleasant she had found on the bottom of her shoe. Her voice, when she spoke, was sharp and imperious.

"Put her in the north wing," she commanded Mrs. Hicks, not even bothering to address Aria directly. "Away from the family."