The moonlight didn't feel like a spotlight; it felt like a cold antiseptic wash exposing every fracture in my composure. I stood on that limestone terrace, the distant hum of Manhattan acting as the heartbeat I had lost. I was still pressing my hand into the silk of my gown, a reflex I couldn't shake even now that the audience was gone.
He's quite the director, isn't he?
The voice was like the snap of a dry twig. I didn't turn. I didn't have to. The scent of expensive iris and something metallic, like the taste of a copper penny, announced Julianna Rossi before she stepped into the silver light beside me. She had followed us. Or rather, she had hunted me down once the alpha had left the clearing.
I thought you left, I said, my voice sounding thin and reedy against the vastness of the park.
And miss the chance to see the paint crack? Julianna leaned against the balustrade, her white lace shimmering like bone. She didn't look at the view; she looked at me with the clinical pity of a jeweler examining a glass fake. Silas doesn't do anything for love, girl. He does it for symmetry. I left him at the altar, so he finds a replacement who is everything I'm not: quiet, desperate, and remarkably fertile.
She let the word hang in the air, a poisonous bait. I tightened my grip on my stomach, my nails catching in the delicate embroidery. You don't know anything about our life.
I know that three months ago, Silas Vane was a hermit living on Scotch and spite. And now, he has a blushing, pregnant bride who looks like she's waiting for the floor to swallow her whole. She stepped closer, her ice-blue eyes searching mine. How much is he paying you? Or is it a debt? Silas loves a good debt. It's the only thing he finds more erotic than power.
I felt the phantom weight of the contract in Silas's desk, the signed papers that had cleared my brother's medical arrears and bought his place on the transplant list. My silence was her victory.
Be careful, she whispered, leaning in so close her platinum waves brushed my shoulder. Silas doesn't just want a wife. He wants a revision of history. But biology is a difficult thing to forge, even for a man with his billions. When the months pass and that boy doesn't arrive, do you think he'll let you just walk away? He'll burn you to keep himself warm.
Before I could find a retort, the heavy brass doors groaned open. Silas stood there, his silhouette cutting a jagged hole in the light from the ballroom. He didn't look at Julianna. He looked only at me, his gray eyes unreadable, yet simmering with a dark, proprietary heat.
The car is waiting, he said. His voice was a low vibration that seemed to command the very molecules of the air to be still.
Julianna straightened, her mask of cold elegance clicking back into place. We were just discussing the nursery, Silas. I was telling your wife how quickly time flies.
Silas walked toward us, his gait slow and predatory. He didn't stop until he was inches from me, ignoring Julianna entirely as if she were a ghost he had already exorcised. He reached out, his gloved hand cupping my jaw. His thumb traced the line of my lower lip, a gesture that was bruisingly firm.
My wife is tired, Silas said, his gaze locked on mine. And our private matters are no longer your concern, Julianna. They haven't been for five years.
He didn't wait for her to respond. He pivoted, his arm snaking around my waist with that same crushing strength, and led me away. We didn't go back through the Great Hall. He led me through a service corridor, down a stone staircase, and out into the humid night where the Maybach sat idling like a black beast.
The moment the door clicked shut, sealing us in the leather-scented vacuum of the backseat, the loving husband vanished. He shoved himself into the far corner of the seat, the distance between us feeling like a canyon.
Take off the jewelry, he commanded, his voice flat and bored.
What? I blinked, my heart still hammering from the encounter on the terrace.
The necklace. The rings. They go back in the vault tonight. He looked out the window at the blurred lights of Fifth Avenue. You don't get to keep the skin of the lie once the cameras are off. And you broke the first rule. You spoke to her.
She followed me, Silas! I couldn't just
You could have stayed silent. Silence is the only thing that doesn't leave a trail. He turned his head then, his eyes catching a passing streetlamp, turning them into chips of flint. Tomorrow, the nursery furniture arrives. The decorators will be at the penthouse at eight. You will look at swatches. You will pick out blankets. You will act the part of the nesting mother for the house staff.
How long? I whispered, looking at my reflection in the dark glass. I looked like a stranger—a ghost in a plum-colored shroud. How long do we keep this up?
Silas leaned over, his face inches from mine in the shadows. He reached out and placed his hand over my flat stomach, his palm heavy and cold. It wasn't a caress; it was a claim.
Until I've bled the Rossi name of every drop of its dignity, he whispered. Or until you forget who you were before I found you. Whichever comes first.
The car turned into the private underground garage of his tower, the iron gates swinging shut behind us with a heavy, final clang. The cage was closed. And as I looked at the man beside me, I realized that Julianna was wrong. Silas didn't want a revision of history. He wanted a sacrifice.
He didn't wait for the driver to open the door. He stepped out and began walking toward the private elevator, leaving me to scramble after him in the heavy silk gown. Every step was a reminder of the weight I carried a fake child, a fake marriage, and a real debt that was slowly swallowing my soul.
Inside the elevator, the ascent was silent and sickeningly fast. I watched the numbers climb toward the penthouse, feeling as though I were being raised to the gallows. When the doors opened, the apartment was dark, the floor-to-ceiling windows offering a panoramic view of a city that didn't care if I lived or died.
Go to bed, Silas said, heading toward his study without a backward glance. And remember, the decorators arrive at eight. Try to look happy. It's what mothers do.
I watched him go, his silhouette disappearing into the shadows of the hallway. I was alone in the dark, standing in a museum of a home, wearing a dead woman's jewels and carrying a lie that was getting heavier with every heartbeat. I moved toward the bedroom, my fingers finally releasing the fabric of my dress. My stomach felt hollow, a void that no amount of silk or silver could ever fill. I was a wife who wasn't loved, a mother who wasn't pregnant, and a woman who no longer owned her own name. The game had only just begun, and I already knew I was going to lose.