Elodie's POV
He's standing outside my door at eleven-thirty at night, and I'm holding the balcony key in my hand when I open it.
I locked the balcony door the moment I got home, like the mystery text told me to. Then I sat on the edge of the bed for two hours turning that key over in my fingers, thinking about Thornwick's laptop, the message I left on his screen, the phone call I made to the one person I trust at the hospital—and wondering how long before everything unravels.
Then he knocked.
His hair is a little messy. He's not wearing his suit jacket. He looks, for the very first time, like a person instead of a monument.
"I owe you an explanation," he says.
I step back and let him in.
We end up on the couch—opposite ends, a careful space between us—and we talk until two in the morning.
He tells me things I never expected.
He tells me that his father chose Calista. Not him. His father saw her at a charity event and said, "That woman is good for the company." And Thornwick—who had spent thirty-two years doing exactly what his father said—agreed to meet her. Then kept meeting her. Then got engaged, because his father's health was failing and the pressure was a wall he didn't know how to push against.
"Did you love her?" I ask, because I have to.
He's quiet for a long time.
"I was building toward it," he says. "I thought that was the same thing. I've since learned it isn't."
I think about all the dinner tables I sat at, watching everyone look at Calista. Watching my father's whole face change when she walked into a room. Watching my mother ask about her plans, her ideas, her opinions—and then look slightly past me when I tried to offer mine.
"My family didn't mean to make me invisible," I say. "I think it was just easier. Calista took up the right kind of space. I always took up the wrong kind."
"What's the wrong kind?"
"Quiet. Inconvenient. Occasionally correct about things nobody wanted to hear."
He makes a sound—short, surprised. It takes me a second to realize it was almost a laugh.
And that's the moment I stop thinking of him as Thornwick the monument. Because monuments don't almost-laugh at things you say at midnight. People do.
The next two weeks are strange and soft and nothing like I expected.
A routine grows without either of us planning it. He makes coffee at seven—strong, no sugar—and leaves a second cup on the counter. I started picking it up without comment on day three. By day eight, he started timing it so it was still hot when I came out of my room.
We eat dinner together most nights. Not formally. Just at the kitchen counter, with whatever Marcus makes. Thornwick reads contracts. I sketch in the margins of whatever book I'm holding. We don't talk constantly, but when we do, it's real.
He has opinions about everything—books, architecture, whether orange juice should have pulp. He's funnier than I expected. Dry, precise, sneaking up on you.
He asks my opinion on things. Portfolio decisions. A difficult email to the board. Whether a new abstract piece in the lobby of the office works. He leans over my shoulder to see what I'm looking at and listens—actually listens—when I answer.
I catch him watching me sometimes. Not the way men watch women in movies. More like he's trying to solve something.
I understand the feeling.
His COO, Marlowe, comes by on a Thursday. She's sharp and quick and exactly the kind of woman I'd be afraid of at a dinner party.
She shakes my hand and says, "So you're the one who killed the lowball offer on Meridian."
"Adjusted it," I say.
"Saved it," she says. "Reese was ready to tank the whole thing out of stubbornness." She gives Thornwick a look I can't fully read, then back to me. "Keep her around."
Thornwick says, "She's my wife, Marlowe. She's not a consultant."
"Could be both," Marlowe says, and leaves.
I don't say anything. But for the rest of that evening, I feel something warm sitting in my chest that I don't entirely trust.
The family dinner is on a Saturday.
I know within five minutes that it's going to be bad. His aunt calls me "the substitute" to her husband, not quietly enough. His cousin asks, with a bright smile, whether I'm worried about what happens when Calista wakes up. His father—frail but sharp—looks at me the way people look at a crack in a wall and says, "You're smaller than I expected. Calista had presence."
I smile. I eat. I say the right nothing words.
Then his aunt says, "It must be so hard for you, dear. Playing dress-up in someone else's life."
The table laughs.
And Thornwick puts his fork down.
"That's enough."
His voice is flat and final and the table goes still.
"Elodie is my wife. She is the reason our Meridian deal is still standing. She is the reason this family still has a functioning company to squabble over." He looks at his aunt. "You'll treat her accordingly. Or you won't be invited to the next one."
The drive home is silent.
I watch the city lights blur past the window and try to hold my face together. I've gotten good at that. Twenty-six years of practice.
Then a tear gets through. Just one. I turn toward the window so he won't see.
He sees.
He doesn't say anything for a long moment. Then his hand finds mine in the dark of the backseat. Not romantic. Just steady. Solid.
"They're awful to you," he says.
"I'm used to it."
"You shouldn't be."
Three words. That's all. But something cracks open in my chest that I've kept locked for years, and I don't pull my hand away, and neither does he, and the whole drive home I'm terrified—not of him, but of what it means that those three words are the kindest thing anyone has said to me in longer than I can remember.
We get home at half past ten. He goes to his study. I go to my room.
I'm almost asleep when my phone lights up.
Unknown number.
My mystery protector.
I sit up fast.
But the message isn't a warning this time.
It's a photo.
A screenshot of a text conversation—and I recognize both numbers. One is Senna's. The other is a number I'd know anywhere, because it's in my own contacts.
It's Thornwick's.
The conversation is dated four days before our wedding.
Senna: "She can't find out the real reason. Not yet."
Thornwick: "She won't. I'll make sure of it."
I read it again. Then again.
My hands are shaking.
The man who just held my hand and said I shouldn't be used to being treated badly—had been working with my sister behind my back before I ever walked into that wedding.
There's a second message from the unknown number, sent immediately after the photo.
"Ask him why he really agreed to marry you. It wasn't the merger. It was never the merger. And when you find out the truth—remember: I warned you first."
I stare at the wall of the bedroom I demanded. The painting I hung in the living room. The coffee cup he left for me this morning, still warm.
Then I think about his hand in mine on the drive home.
And I don't know anymore if a single thing about the last two weeks was