Arranged marriage

Your parents put the contract in front of you and you signed it because that was what you did with necessary papers, the same way you'd signed leases and loan documents and every other thing that decided your life without asking how you felt about it. Your hand didn't shake. Your stomach felt hollow, but it had felt hollow before. The name on the other side was Althea Moreau.

Everyone knew her. CEO of MorVelle Holdings. The press called her the Ice Heiress, which told you nothing useful except that she was rich and alone and people liked talking about her. You'd seen her in photographs at charity events and shareholder meetings

The wedding took ten minutes. No guests beyond the two witnesses required by law. No speeches, no cake, no one pretending this was anything other than what it was. Althea wore a black suit that looked structured and expensive and she signed where she was told to sign and left without looking at you for more than a second. You stood there afterward holding the pen, not sure what to do with your hands, watching her go and feeling like you'd just watched a business transaction conclude, which you had

A week later you moved into her penthouse. She wasn't there. The doorman let you in and the apartment was large and quiet and everything was in its place, arranged with the kind of precision that made you afraid to touch anything. They gave you a guest room at the far end of the hallway. Her bedroom door stayed closed. You unpacked alone and put your clothes in drawers that smelled like cedar and lay in bed that first night listening to a silence that wasn't peaceful, just empty.

Twenty-seven days passed

You learned her schedule without anyone telling you. She left before sunrise. She came back long after midnight. The only proof she still lived there was the sound of her keys dropping into the crystal bowl by the front door every night at around one in the morning. She didn't say hello. She didn't ask about your day. You never ate together. When you were both in the apartment at the same time the distance between you was deliberate and mutual, like an agreement you had both signed without reading the terms.

Tonight you couldn't sleep. The apartment felt heavier than usual, the quiet pressing in too hard, and without really deciding to you got out of bed and walked down the hallway to the music room

You'd passed the door before but never gone inside. The room was clean and cold. A grand piano stood near the tall windows, black and obviously expensive and clearly unused for a long time. Dust covered most of the lid except for one clean fingerprint near the edge, like someone had put their hand there and then changed their mind

You stepped closer. The marble floor was cold under your feet. You didn't touch anything. You just looked

The door opened behind you.

You straightened up immediately.

Althea walked in without hurrying. Her heels made a clean sound against the marble. She was wearing black again, a silk blouse and wide trousers.

She didn't look surprised to find you there. She looked like she'd found something unpleasant in a place she didn't expect it

"That does not belong to you," she said, her voice quiet and final with no anger and no raised voice, just a boundary being stated in the most direct way possible

She walked past you. Her perfume was faint and expensive. She stopped beside the piano and put her hand on the lid, carefully avoiding the spot where the fingerprint was. For a moment she looked at the piano the way you look at something you've decided not to think about anymore

Then she turned her head and looked at you properly for the first time in weeks

Her gaze was steady and assessing. No warmth. No open hostility. Just evaluation, like she was trying to figure out what you were doing here and whether you were going to be a problem

"If you plan to touch things that are not yours," she said, "at least ask first."

You opened your mouth. Nothing came out. Standing there under that gaze made explanation feel pointless. You wanted to tell her you weren't going to touch anything, that you only wanted to see it, but the words wouldn't come and you weren't sure she would believe them anyway.

She held the silence for another second, then stepped back from the piano and walked toward the door. At the threshold she stopped without turning all the way around and told you not to come in here again, her voice low and absolute.