Grace woke to silence.
The kind of silence that meant she was alone. She lay in the guest-room bed, listening to the penthouse hold its breath around her. No sound of water running. No sound of someone moving through rooms. No sound of her husband existing anywhere in this space.
She checked her phone. 7 AM. Too early for him to be gone for the day. Too early for anything except the beginning of something she wasn't ready to understand.
When she got out of bed, she found coffee waiting in the kitchen. Fresh. Still warm. There was a note on the counter in handwriting she was beginning to recognize as his.
Had early meeting. Coffee's fresh. —S
That was it. Not good morning. Not see you tonight. Just confirmation that the coffee was still drinkable and that he'd thought of her only long enough to leave instructions.
Grace poured a cup and stood in the center of the penthouse, trying to understand what it meant that her husband left before dawn without saying goodbye.
She explored the apartment like it was a museum exhibit. His office door was locked, which meant he'd taken the key. The living room furniture was arranged perfectly but never sat on. The television was off. No books lay open. No signs of life beyond professional necessity.
His bedroom door was closed.
Grace didn't knock. She didn't try the handle. She simply stared at the closed door and understood that this was a boundary he'd set. Behind that door was the part of his life that had nothing to do with her. The part he didn't want her to see.
Everything was spotless. Expensive. Empty. Like a hotel designed for a man who'd forgotten how to live in actual spaces. Every piece of furniture looked like it had been ordered from a catalog by someone who'd never actually sat in a room. Every painting looked like it was hanging there because an interior designer had placed it on a grid and said this is where art goes.
Grace made breakfast hoping Sebastian would smell it and come back.
He didn't.
She made scrambled eggs and toast and bacon. She set the table with real plates instead of eating from the counter. She arranged everything like a photograph from a magazine meant to convince people that homes could contain happiness.
By 9 AM, the food was cold.
She threw it away and cleaned the dishes, listening to the silence stretch out like something alive.
At noon, the housekeeper arrived. A woman named Maria who was professional and kind but who didn't speak English well enough to have a real conversation. She cleaned around Grace like she was furniture, and Grace was grateful for it. Grateful not to be acknowledged. Grateful not to have to explain why she was wandering the penthouse alone on the second day of her marriage.
Grace made lunch. A salad. Fruit. Something light that wouldn't go to waste. She ate alone at the table, staring out at Manhattan, and tried to remember what it felt like to have someone care whether she'd eaten or not.
By dinner time, she'd stopped cooking for two.
She microwaved leftover pasta the housekeeper had prepared and ate standing up at the kitchen counter. The penthouse was darker now, the city lights beginning to glow beneath the windows. Somewhere out there, Sebastian was doing important things. Making important decisions. Building important empires.
And here she was, a wife he'd bought and installed in his home like an investment he was too busy to check on.
Her phone buzzed. Lily again: "Seriously, you need to call me. I'm getting worried."
Grace didn't call. She texted back: "I'm fine. Just settling in."
Lily's response was immediate and didn't believe her: "You're not fine. Nobody is fine on day two of a contract marriage. Call me."
Grace silenced her phone.
At 11 PM, she heard the elevator open.
Sebastian had come home. Grace's heart lifted without permission, her body responding to his presence even though her mind knew better. She got up from bed, where she'd been lying awake reading a book she wasn't paying attention to, and tried to figure out what the protocol was for greeting your husband at midnight.
She heard him moving through the living room. Heard him in the kitchen, probably getting water or checking the coffee for tomorrow. Heard him heading toward his office, not toward her suite.
She waited for him to knock on her door.
He didn't.
Grace heard his office light turn on. Heard him settle in for more work. He'd come home and chosen work over the fact that his wife existed in this space. She was sharing an apartment with someone who'd effectively forgotten she was there.
She lay back down and stared at the ceiling.
This was what the next 365 days would feel like. Waiting. Watching. Existing in the same penthouse as a man who preferred his office to his wife. Existing in a marriage that was technically real but functionally empty.
Grace thought about Lily in California. Thought about saying yes to her offer. Thought about walking out right now, taking whatever Lily would give her, and disappearing from Sebastian Sterling's life before she disappeared from her own.
But she'd signed the contract. She'd committed to a year. And beyond that, she had nowhere to go. No money yet. No independence yet. Just the promise of five hundred thousand dollars if she could make it to day three hundred sixty-five without shattering completely.
Through the penthouse walls, she heard the soft sound of typing. Sebastian was working. Creating something. Building something. Living a life that had absolutely nothing to do with the girl in the guest room who'd made him breakfast he never came home to eat.
At 1 AM, Grace heard his office light turn off.
She heard him walk down the hallway.
She heard him pause outside her door again.
This time, she held her breath.
She waited for the knock. For any acknowledgment that she was real. That she mattered. That their marriage meant something beyond a signature on a contract.
His footsteps continued.
He kept walking.
Grace heard his bedroom door close softly. Heard the lock click into place. A physical barrier between them. A reminder that whatever this marriage was, it didn't include access to each other.
She rolled over and buried her face in the pillow.
Two days down. Three hundred sixty-three to go.
Her phone buzzed one more time. A text from an unknown number: "Grace, this is Lauren. Mr. Sterling's calendar shows a charity gala this Saturday. You'll need to attend. I'm arranging the dress. The event is in the Hamptons. You'll leave Friday afternoon. Mr. Sterling will meet you there for appearances only. Please confirm receipt of this message."
Appearances only. That's what their marriage was. A series of public moments stitched together with silence and separate bedrooms and cold kisses meant for photographers.
Grace typed back: "Confirmed."
She set her phone down and lay in the dark, listening to the penthouse breathe around her. Somewhere in this building, Sebastian was probably already asleep or already back to work. Somewhere, he was definitely not thinking about the girl he'd married.
But Grace was beginning to understand something about her husband. He didn't just avoid her. He avoided everyone. He'd built a life designed for one person. One office. One bedroom. One set of goals that had nothing to do with love or connection or the messy human experience of wanting someone.
He'd bought a wife because he needed one for paperwork, not because he was capable of having one for real.
And somehow, knowing that made it worse.
Because Grace was starting to see Sebastian Sterling not as a cold man who'd rejected her, but as a broken man who'd rejected the entire concept of mattering to someone. And she was beginning to understand that spending a year trying to reach someone who'd decided not to be reached was going to destroy her in ways that Marcus and Vivian and her father never could.
Her phone buzzed one more time. A calendar notification: "Gala in 5 days."
Five days until she had to stand next to her husband and pretend to be his wife while he looked through her like she was glass.
Five days to figure out how to survive this.