A Novel By Abdul Wahab
A story of silent devotion, unspoken love, and the moment goodbye became forever.
(Webnovel)
Chapter 1
A Deal Written in Ink
The rain fell softly over the Manhattan skyline the night Ethan Cole signed his life away.
He sat across from a dying man — a man who had once pulled him from the gutter, given him a home, a name, a future — and he did what any man of honour would do. He picked up the pen.
"You don't have to do this," Mr. Hartley said, his voice barely above a whisper, oxygen tubes resting beneath his nose.
"I know," Ethan replied simply, and signed.
The contract was three pages. It was elegant in its simplicity: Ethan would marry Sophia Hartley, the man's only daughter, for five years. He would care for her, protect her, and help her heal from the devastating heartbreak she had suffered at the hands of a man named Daniel — her first love, her first wound.
In return, Ethan would receive nothing. That was the part he'd crossed out and rewritten himself: nothing. He didn't want money. He didn't want property. He had enough of both.
What he wanted, he couldn't put in a contract.
— ✦ —
Sophia Hartley sat by her bedroom window that same night, watching rain streak the glass like tears she had run out of weeks ago.
She was twenty-six years old and felt ancient.
Daniel had left her eight months ago. He hadn't even had the decency to do it in person — just a message, three sentences, the kind of goodbye you gave a stranger. She had read it forty-seven times. She knew because she had counted.
Her phone buzzed. Her father.
"Sophia. I need to speak with you tomorrow morning. It's important."
She set the phone face-down and went back to watching the rain.
.
.
.
Chapter 2
The Stranger Who Became Her Husband
Sophia had met Ethan Cole exactly twice before she married him.
The first time was at her father's company gala, three years ago. He had been quiet, watchful, the kind of man who listened more than he spoke. She had barely noticed him.
The second time was the morning her father sat her down and told her about the contract.
She stared at Ethan across the living room of their family home — this man with dark, steady eyes and a jaw that looked carved from patience — and felt absolutely nothing.
"This is insane," she said flatly.
"I know," Ethan agreed.
"I don't love you."
"I know that too."
She turned to her father. "Papa, you can't be serious."
Her father reached across and took her hand. His fingers were thinner than she remembered. "Sophia. I'm not asking you to love him. I'm asking you to let someone take care of you — just for a while. Until you remember how to take care of yourself."
She looked back at Ethan. He hadn't flinched, hadn't shifted, hadn't tried to sell himself to her with a smile or a speech. He simply sat there, as if he had all the time in the world.
Something about that steadiness cracked something in her chest, just slightly.
She said yes. Not for love. Not even for her father, really.
She said yes because she was so tired of drowning alone.
.
.
.
Chapter 3
The Apartment on 5th
Their apartment was on the thirty-second floor of a building on Fifth Avenue, all glass and clean lines and a view of Central Park that Sophia couldn't bring herself to appreciate.
Ethan gave her the larger bedroom. He took the one nearest the front door, as if positioning himself between her and the rest of the world.
He cooked breakfast every morning — nothing elaborate, just eggs and toast, coffee exactly the way she liked it, which she never told him but he somehow figured out by the third day. He left for work before she woke up. He came home before she went to bed.
He never asked about Daniel.
She noticed that.
— ✦ —
Three weeks into their arrangement, Sophia woke at 2 a.m. to find the living room light on. She padded out in bare feet to find Ethan at the kitchen counter, reading over documents, still in his dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
"Can't sleep?" she asked.
He looked up. "Just finishing some things. Did I wake you?"
"No." She hovered awkwardly by the doorway. "I was already awake."
A beat of silence. Then he stood and moved to the kettle without a word, filling it, setting it to boil. He pulled out two mugs.
She sat at the counter. They drank chamomile tea at 2 a.m. and talked about nothing — a documentary he'd been watching, a bookshop she used to love in the Village. It was the longest conversation they'd had since the wedding.
She went back to bed feeling, for the first time in months, slightly less like a ghost.