The first rule of being Jasper Croft's wife was simple: don't touch the desk.
My fingertips hovered over the cold, black lacquer of his monolithic workspace, not quite making contact. It was his sacred ground. His kingdom of spreadsheets and strategy. My kingdom was… well, it was the twelve rooms of this penthouse, each one a perfect, airless magazine spread. Five years of marriage, and I still felt like a guest who'd overstayed her welcome.
"Anya?" His voice, smooth and distant as a radio announcer's, came from the doorway.
I pulled my hand back as if burned, turning with a practiced smile. He stood there, a silhouette against the sunset bleeding over the Manhattan skyline. Jasper Croft at thirty-eight was a study in controlled power. Charcoal suit that cost more than my first car, perfectly fitted. Hair the color of dark walnut, not a strand out of place. But it was his eyes that always got me—a gray so pale they seemed to absorb light, giving nothing back.
"You're home early," I said, my voice too bright in the quiet room.
"Board meeting was moved." He didn't come in. He never just came in. He assessed, then occupied. His gaze swept over me, a quick audit. I knew what he saw: Anya Petrova-Croft, thirty-two, acceptable. The blush-colored silk blouse, the tailored trousers, the diamonds at my ears—his mother's, a loan, not a gift. All assets properly displayed.
"I was just admiring the view," I lied, gesturing vaguely to the window. I'd actually been looking for a hint of us. A photograph, a trinket, anything that proved this was a home and not a corporate leasing office. I'd found nothing.
He walked in then, his Italian shoes silent on the Persian rug. He went straight to the built-in bar, pouring two fingers of Scotch without asking if I wanted one. He never did.
"Mikael Vance is making noise again," he said, his back to me. "Pushing for the merger with his European group. He's brought new numbers."
I wrapped my arms around myself. "Do you want me to cancel the dinner with Eleanor on Saturday?" Eleanor Vance, Mikael's daughter. My weekly "social strategy session" with her was a subtle piece on Jasper's chessboard.
He took a slow drink, then finally looked at me. "No. Keep it. We need the… rapport."
Rapport. Not friendship. Never friendship. Everything was a lever, a tool.
"Okay," I said. The word tasted like dust.
He studied me, those pale eyes missing nothing. "You're quiet today."
"Am I?" I forced another smile. "Just thinking about the gala next week. The seating chart is a nightmare."
A faint, almost imperceptible line appeared between his brows. My small talk bored him. It bored me, too. I wanted to scream, Do you ever look at me and see a person? Do you remember the woman who laughed with you that one weekend in Vermont, before all of this?
Instead, I asked, "How did the Q4 strategy call go?"
He finished his Scotch, placing the crystal tumbler down with a precise click. "It went. We're finalizing the liquidity events." He said it the way another man might say, 'We're ordering pizza.'
"Liquidity events," I repeated, the term cold and financial in my mouth. "Sounds important."
"It is." He picked up his tablet, his attention already gone, scrolling through some document. "It's what will secure everything. Make it permanent."
My heart did a stupid, hopeful little jump. Permanent. Did he mean… us? Was this his icy way of saying this marriage, this arrangement that had started with a handshake and a prenup thicker than my old college dictionary, was becoming real?
"Jasper," I started, my voice softening without my permission. A moment of unexpected vulnerability, hanging in the air between us.
He looked up, waiting. Efficient.
I lost my nerve. "Will you be home for dinner? Cook made that sea bass you like."
He was already moving toward his desk. "I'll try. Don't wait. I have to review these filings."
And just like that, the door to whatever moment that might have been clicked shut. I was dismissed. I stood there for a second, watching him. The sharp line of his jaw, the intense focus that left no room for me. He was already in another world, a world of numbers and conquests where I had no passport.
I left, the silence of the penthouse swallowing me whole.
.....
Hours later, buried in the cool, thousand-thread-count loneliness of my bedroom, my laptop chirped. A new email. The sender was a jumble of numbers and letters. The subject line was blank.
My stomach tightened. Spam, probably. But something about it felt… intentional. I almost deleted it. But the silence was so loud.
I clicked.
There was no message. Just a single PDF attachment, labeled innocuously: CROFT_BOARD_MEMO_Q4_FINAL.pdf
My professional curiosity, the part of me that had graduated top of my class in business finance a lifetime ago, prickled. Jasper never shared board memos. That world was locked away.
I opened it.
The header was all familiar branding. The Croft Holdings eagle. The formal typeface. TO: Board of Directors. FROM: Jasper Croft. DATE: Today. SUBJECT: Q4 Strategic Review & Liquidity Events.
I started skimming. Jargon about market positioning, asset reallocation, vertical integration. My eyes glazed over. Then, a subheading: "Portfolio Optimization & Non-Core Asset Divestment."
And there it was. My world ended not with a bang, but with a bullet point.
Item 7b: Petrova Merger Integration. The assimilation of the Petrova holdings is complete and performing at 102% of projected synergy targets. The initial marital alliance with Anya Petrova has served its primary purpose as a strategic liquidity event, solidifying the assets under our control. The emotional overhead has been contained and is deemed negligible. Recommend proceeding with the Vance merger as the next logical step. The original alliance can be comfortably sunsetted post-transaction.
I read it.
Then I read it again.
The words didn't change. They just sat there on the screen, black and white and utterly final.
Strategic liquidity event.
Marital alliance.
Emotional overhead… negligible.
Sunsetted.
A sound escaped me—a choked, airless thing that wasn't a sob or a laugh. It was the sound of my own understanding breaking.
I was a line item. A sub-clause. A piece of financial engineering with an emotional overhead that was contained.
Five years. Five years of careful smiles, of public appearances where his hand on the small of my back felt like a brand, of lying awake next to a man who slept like a mannequin. Five years of hoping the ice would crack, that the contract would somehow become a covenant.
I'd been a fool. A romantic, idiotic fool playing house in a billion-dollar doll's palace.
The screen blurred. I realized I was shaking, a fine, violent tremor that started in my hands and radiated out until my teeth chattered. I wrapped my arms around my middle, trying to hold myself together. The beautiful silk of my blouse felt like a costume. The diamonds in my ears were tracking devices.
I heard his footsteps in the hall. Measured, confident. He paused outside my door. I stared at the wood, my breath stuck in my throat.
"Anya?" he called, his voice muffled. "I'm heading out. Don't wait up."
He didn't wait for an answer. His footsteps receded, followed by the definitive thud of the front door closing.
The silence he left behind was different now. It wasn't empty. It was full of the echo of those words. Liquidity event. Sunsetted.
I looked back at the screen. The memo glowed, a cold, blue-white rectangle of truth in the dark room.
My fingers, clumsy and cold, found the keyboard. I hit 'Reply.' The cursor blinked in the empty field, a tiny, mocking heartbeat.
What could I possibly say? How dare you? Too emotional. I saw the memo. Too weak. I loved you. The most pathetic sentence in the English language.
I didn't write any of them.
I just sat there, in the exquisite tomb he'd built for me, and watched the cursor blink. On. Off. On. Off.
Like a countdown.