Chapter 5 The Morning After Nothing

Mara POV

Sunlight burns through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

I wake up with silk pillowcases stuck to my face, black mascara streaking the white fabric like I'd been crying in my sleep. Maybe I had. My wedding dress is twisted around my legs, the corset digging into my ribs with the persistence of something that hasn't finished punishing me yet. For three beautiful seconds, I forget where I am.

Then I remember.

The ring on my finger. The contract with my name on it fifteen times. The door closing with that soft, expensive click.

I sit up slowly, my body aching from sleeping in a dress designed for standing and smiling and performing, not for collapsing face-first into a stranger's bed. The bedroom is exactly as pristine as it was last night-white walls, minimalist furniture, surfaces so clean they look like they've never been touched by human hands. Even with my suitcase exploded across a chair, the room refuses to look lived in. It absorbs the mess like it's already decided it won't be keeping me.

A clock on the nightstand reads 7:47 a.m.

I listen for sounds from the other side of the suite. Nothing. Lucien's either still asleep or already gone. Probably gone. Men like him don't sleep in. Men like him were probably born wearing suits, already thinking about quarterly earnings before they took their first breath.

I peel myself out of the wedding dress, letting it pool on the floor in a heap of ivory silk. Standing there in my underwear, I catch my reflection in the full-length mirror across the room and make the mistake of looking.

There are red marks on my ribs from the corset, angry and deep. My hair is a disaster. My eyes are puffy from whatever crying I did in my sleep, the mascara etched into the fine skin beneath them like something that's been there for years.

I look exactly how I feel.

The shower in my ensuite bathroom could fit six people comfortably with room left over for their opinions. Multiple shower heads come at me from three angles. The floors are heated. Everything is white marble, cold and magnificent. I turn the water up until it hurts and stand there, letting it strip away yesterday's makeup, yesterday's performance, yesterday's version of myself who smiled at cameras and said 'I do' in a dress that wasn't really her and meant it for none of the reasons she was supposed to.

When I finally emerge, wrapped in a towel, I hear voices downstairs.

I pull on jeans and a sweater from my suitcase-my real clothes, soft and worn and mine, not whatever designer prison uniform Patricia will deliver later today.

The floating staircase feels strange under my bare feet. Everything in this house feels strange. Too large, too still, too designed to impress people who don't live here.

The voices lead me to a dining room I didn't see on last night's tour. Smaller than the formal one, which is to say it only seats eight instead of twenty. Windows overlook a garden that's been landscaped within an inch of its life. I pause in the doorway, taking in the scene.

Lucien sits at the head of the table, perfectly dressed in a charcoal suit. His dark hair is styled. His tie is knotted with the kind of precision that implies someone did it twice to get it right, or that he is simply incapable of doing anything imprecisely.

The Wall Street Journal is spread in front of him. He doesn't look up.

"Good morning, Mrs. Cross!" A woman in her fifties appears from the direction of the kitchen, warm smile already in place. Her accent is faintly Chinese, her movements efficient and unhurried in the way of someone who has belonged somewhere for a very long time. "I'm Mrs. Dahlia, the housekeeper. Would you like coffee?"

"Yes, please." I slide into a chair across from Lucien, acutely aware of my damp hair, my bare feet, my general failure to look like someone who belongs at this table. "And Mara is fine. You don't have to call me..."

"Mrs. Cross prefers coffee black," Lucien interrupts, not lifting his eyes from the paper. "Two sugars."

Mrs. Dahlia nods, already turning back toward the kitchen.

I stare at him. "I take my coffee with cream."

"You took it black at the wedding reception." He turns a page with precise, unhurried movements. "I assumed that was your preference."

"I took it black because I was nauseous and needed caffeine as quickly as possible." I lean back in my chair and look at him steadily. "I normally drink it with cream."

He finally looks up. His steel-blue eyes do the thing they always do-assess first, react never. A brief, clinical survey that takes in the damp hair and the sweater and whatever my face is doing, and then sets it all neatly aside.

"Noted." He returns to his paper.

Mrs. Dahlia returns with coffee-black, two sugars-alongside a plate of fresh fruit, pastries, and what appears to be a perfectly constructed gourmet omelet. She sets everything in front of me with the kind of quiet reverence usually reserved for royalty or people who might leave a review.

"Thank you." I reach past the coffee cup and wrap my hand around the cream pitcher myself.

Lucien's jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. He says nothing.

I pour cream until the coffee turns the color of warm sand. Add one sugar, not two. Take a slow sip and hold his gaze while I do it, because I have approximately nothing left to lose this morning and I'd like him to know that.

"Did you sleep well?" I try, aiming for something that resembles normal human conversation.

"Fine." He doesn't look up.

"The house is beautiful."

"Yes."

"Very... modern."

"Mm."

I stab a strawberry with more force than necessary. This is going to be a long two years if every morning feels like sitting across from a very expensive wall.

"Do you always read through breakfast?" I try again, because apparently I'm a person who pokes things.

"Yes." He turns another page. "The market opens in thirty minutes."

"Right, of course. Heaven forbid you miss the opening bell."

That gets his attention. His eyes snap up to mine and stay there.

"Do you have a problem with how I spend my mornings, Mrs. Cross?"

"I have a problem with being ignored in my own house."

"This isn't your house." His voice is cold, precise, each word placed like a legal objection. "It's mine. You're living here as part of our arrangement."

The words hits. I feel them in my sternum, which is embarrassing, because I knew this. I signed fifteen copies of this exact truth and I should not be surprised to hear it out loud.

I set down my coffee cup carefully, willing my hands steady. "Message received."

He studies me for a long moment, something unreadable moving behind his expression like weather behind glass. Then he folds the newspaper with sharp, deliberate movements-the kind that suggest even this small act is governed by a system.

"I have meetings all day." He stands, buttoning his jacket. "I'll be home late. Don't wait up."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

He pauses halfway to the door, his broad shoulders carrying some tension he hasn't decided to name.

"Patricia will be by at ten with your new wardrobe and schedule." He doesn't turn around. "Try to be presentable."

Then he's gone. No goodbye. No backward glance. Just the sound of expensive shoes on marble, then nothing.

I sit alone in the dining room, surrounded by furniture, wondering how long a person can live in a house where she's treated like an unwanted houseguest in her own life.

Mrs. Dahlia returns, her expression carrying the particular warmth of someone who has seen this before and chosen kindness anyway.

"He's always like this in the mornings," she says gently, refilling my coffee without being asked. "Very focused on work."

"Does he ever eat breakfast?" I gesture to his untouched place setting, the pristine silverware that was never moved.

"Not usually. Coffee only." Mrs. Dahlia begins clearing his side of the table with practiced efficiency. "He works very hard."

I'm sure he does. You can't build an empire by wasting time on things like eating breakfast, or acknowledging the person sitting across from you, or basic human warmth.

"Mrs. Dahlia?" I catch her attention before she can disappear back into the kitchen.

"Of course, dear."

I wrap both hands around my coffee cup, let the warmth seep into my palms.

"How long have you worked for him?"​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​