Chapter 2 A HOUSE OF STRANGERS

The silence in the penthouse wasn't peaceful.

It was oppressive.

Too modern. Too austere. As if someone had designed the perfect gallery of wealth and forgotten to add a dash of character. White or black or silver, everything. Expensive but sterile. No pictures on the walls. No clutter. No past.

Just a single endless corridor of doors opening to more silence.

Elise walked through it barefoot, her fingers tracing up against smooth walls, her reflection always seeming to be in mirrors she did not want to look at.

She was a wife now.

Or at least the papers said so.

But nothing in her life seemed like marriage. Not the absence of love. Not even the absence of touch. It was the absence of presence.

Damian had barely spoken to her since their wedding. He wasn't cruel-just cold. Businesslike. Detached. Like a CEO orchestrating a merger. Not a man who had sworn an oath. Not a man who had claimed her before witnesses.

Some nights, she caught him on the phone in his study, low and commanding as he spoke. She passed in front of his study once, and caught bits of him talking Italian. Hard. Forceful.

And before she could overhear.

He worked all day long. Shuffled all day long.

And stayed by himself.

---

Gabrielle appeared every morning at nine. Exactly. On point. Always something Elise could not criticize.

"Elise, there's a gala this weekend," she said, handing her a tablet. "Mr. Lancaster would like you to be photographed. The foundation donors want to see the wife."

Elise raised an eyebrow. "The wife. Not me?"

Gabrielle didn't blink. "You are the wife. That's all anyone need see."

---

Elise did not protest. She did not scream or bang a door. That was not how she was raised. She had been trained in silence. Submission. Refinement.

But the silence within this home was not the same silence she knew.

It was calculated.

There was no room for warmth within these walls. Only roles.

---

She stepped out onto the penthouse balcony that afternoon. The sky stretched out before the city, and the wind tugged at her silk robe as if to inform her that there was still a world out there.

She'd left the building six days.

Not once.

Not for a cup of coffee. Not for air. Not even for herself.

And that terrified her.

She sat down in one of the lounge chairs and tried to remember the last time she had felt free.

College, maybe. When she'd taken that creative writing course behind her father's back. When she'd filled notebooks with characters and secrets and longing. Before it was taken from her.

Before debt became her family's god.

A sudden voice startled her.

"You'll get sunburned."

She looked up.

Damian stood by the glass door, one hand in his pocket, eyes cold and uninflected.

Elise blinked. "It's not even noon."

He emerged out onto the terrace, sleeves rolled back, tie removed, for once not looking like the face of a financial magazine.

"You've barely left this apartment," he said to her.

"You commented?" She sounded more astonished than she'd anticipated.

"I pay attention to things," he said.

She reclined back, crossing her arms. "Do you observe, too, that I am suffocating in silence?"

His face turned somber. "You knew what this was."

"Yes. I did. But to know and to feel are not always contradictory."

Damian stood quiet for a second. Then he turned to the balustrade on the railing at the far side of the balcony and stared out over the city like a king looking out upon his dominion.

"This world is cruel, Elise.".

She stood up slowly. "And that excuses cruelty from you?"

He turned around.

"No. But it makes sense."

They gazed at each other for a very long time.

Then he turned and went away.

Just like he always did.

---

That night, Elise couldn't sleep.

She wandered into the kitchen, made tea she didn't drink, and stood barefoot before the window, staring out at the headlights coiling through the streets below like veins in a city too awake to sleep.

She wasn't crying.

Not exactly.

But her chest ached in a grief-like manner.

Not for what she had lost.

But for what she had never had.

---

During the subsequent days, she tried to create a routine.

She read. She strolled through the endless rooms of the penthouse. She had short exchanges with the house staff-who were polite but plainly instructed not to get involved.

Gabrielle brought over timetables and made her model endless gowns.

And Damian was always a specter who appeared only when he had to.

A dinner. A photo shoot. A boardroom setting.

Always impeccably dressed. Always composed.

And never hers.

---

It was one day, late afternoon, that Elise entered the library.

She hadn't meant to. She'd been walking, trying to clear her head, when she saw the massive oak door. She pushed it open and entered.

Books lined the walls like armor. Hundreds. History. Literature. Business. Philosophy. It was the first time a room seemed to belong to someone.

She picked up a well-loved copy of Wuthering Heights and was flipping through the pages when a deep voice spoke behind her, "That one's been read too many times."

She spun around, startled.

Damian stood in the doorway, jacket off, sleeves rolled, eyes narrowed.

You read Brontë?" she inquired.

He entered the room. "Not now. But my mother did."

This was the first time he'd talked about her.

Elise tilted her head. "Is this your bedroom?"

"It was hers."

There was a moment of silence.

Elise turned the book around in her hand. "She had good taste."

"She had bad judgment," he replied. " Married the wrong man. Gave him too much power.".

Elise lifted her head gradually. "And you're punishing the rest of the world for it?"

Damian's lips twisted. A ghost of a smile. Or warning.

"You don't hold back as much as I figured you would."

"Maybe I'm tired of playing dumb for being here."

A silence fell. Not tense. Just... heavy.

Then he went to the window and looked out.

"I didn't want this either," he said.

Elise blinked. "Then why do it?

"Because power defends. And appearances prevail."

She looked at him. "Do you ever get tired of being cold?"

He looked over his shoulder.

"Do you ever get tired of being small?"

The words stung.

But they weren't mean.

They were truthful.

Brutal, but truthful.

She hung her head. "Yes. I do."

Damian looked at her for a long, long time. And then, quietly, he said, "Then stop waiting for someone to give you a louder voice."

And he walked away.

---

Elise remained in the library long after he departed.

She didn't weep.

Not because it didn't hurt.

But because, at last, she knew he saw her.

Perhaps not with tenderness.

But with clarity.

And maybe that was the beginning of something.

Something not romantic.

But something authentic.

And authenticity was more powerful than deception in rose petals.

---

The following morning, she awoke with determination.

She dressed herself. Chose her own shoes. Ate breakfast at the long, lonely table without waiting for anyone to invite her.

And when Gabrielle arrived with a schedule, Elise handed it back and said, "Cancel my afternoon. I'm going out."

Gabrielle blinked. "Mr. Lancaster-"

"Will be informed," Elise said. "But not asked."

And then she walked out of the penthouse, heels clicking on the marble, heart pounding in her chest.

Because perhaps she couldn't change her life in one night.

But she could start by taking one hour of it.