The next morning, I woke to a quiet house, the kind of silence that felt heavier than any argument. I had signed the contract, made my promises, and yet… a strange unease gnawed at me.
Breakfast was cold and lonely. Alexander was already gone, leaving only a neatly folded note on the table:
"Business trip. Don't expect me home before dinner."
I crumpled it in my hands. He had always been distant, but lately… his absences felt sharper, colder, almost deliberate.
That afternoon, while walking past a high-end café on the way to meet a client about my parents' struggling business, I saw him. Alexander—laughing, smiling even—with a girl I didn't recognize at first glance. My stomach twisted.
Her laughter… light, careless, familiar. My heart sank as the realization hit. It wasn't just any girl. It was his childhood friend—the billionaire's daughter he had mentioned once in passing.
The cruel reminder of our arrangement hit me like a slap. All those nights I stayed within the bounds of our "contract marriage," all the careful distance I maintained… and now this.
I wanted to confront him, to demand answers. But I couldn't. The contract made it impossible to overstep. To act on feelings. To question his choices.
And yet, my heart, traitor that it was, ached anyway.
I turned away, pretending not to see, but deep down, I knew one thing: this marriage, even in name only, had already begun to change me… and Alexander might not be the man I thought he was.
That evening, I arrived home to find him waiting. For the first time, he didn't speak immediately. He just looked at me, an unreadable expression in his eyes.
"We need to talk, Emilia," he said finally.
His tone was low, serious… and yet, there was something in it I hadn't heard before: a hint of… regret?
My pulse quickened. What had he seen? What did he know? And most importantly… would this be the night our carefully constructed boundaries began to crack?