The day my boss asked me to become his wife for money, I thought humiliation was the worst thing that could happen to me. I was wrong. The real danger was that somewhere between the signatures, the staged photographs, and the lie we agreed to live, I might begin wishing the marriage were real.
Chapter 2
The Reyes house stood behind iron gates on several acres outside San Antonio, with limestone walls, old oaks, and windows tall enough to belong in a church. My mother called it a mansion. Adrian called it home.
At first, I called it uncomfortable.
The staff addressed me as Mrs. Reyes. Fresh flowers appeared in my sitting room every Monday. Noah had a nursery larger than the apartment bedroom where the two of us had once slept.
I kept waiting for someone to remind me that none of it belonged to me.
Adrian never did.
We established routines. Two dinners together each week. Business events when necessary. Sunday breakfast if neither of us had obligations.
At the table, he would ask, “How was your day?”
I would answer, “Noah threw oatmeal at the wall.”
“Again?”
“He has strong opinions about breakfast.”
One evening, Adrian came home with oatmeal in his hair.
I stared at him.
He wiped his forehead. “Your son ambushed me.”
“My son?”
“He likes you better.”
“He knows character.”
Adrian looked offended.
Then he laughed.
It startled me because I had never heard him laugh that way before.
The strangest changes happened quietly.
I mentioned during dinner that rocking Noah to sleep in a dining chair was hurting my back. The next evening, an oak rocking chair appeared in the nursery.
I asked the housekeeper who bought it.
She smiled. “Mr. Reyes.”
Adrian never mentioned it.
Another night, Noah came down with a fever. I spent hours beside his crib, frightened even though the pediatrician assured me it was only a virus.
Around two in the morning, Adrian appeared in the doorway.
“Any change?”
“Not much.”
He came in and sat on the rug.
“You should sleep.”
“I can’t.”
“Then I’ll stay awake too.”
“You have a meeting at seven.”
“I own the company. They can wait.”
For the next hour, we sat on the floor beside my son.
No cameras.
No investors.
No reason to pretend.
That frightened me more than the contract ever had.
My mother noticed too.
During one of her visits, she watched Adrian kneel to tie Noah’s shoe before dinner.
When he left the room, she looked at me.
“What?”
“You tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Mom.”
“He looks at that boy like he belongs to him.”
I swallowed.
“And he looks at you worse.”
“Worse?”
“Like a man trying not to fall in love.”
I nearly dropped the plates.
“Please stop.”
She shrugged. “I’m old enough to recognize trouble.”
The first time Adrian kissed me, it happened after a charity gallery event downtown.
He had sent a navy-blue dress to my room that afternoon. The note inside said only, You’ll look beautiful.
I wore it against my better judgment.
When I came downstairs, Adrian stood by the front door adjusting his cuff links. He looked up and went completely still.
“Too formal?” I asked.
“No.”
“Too much?”
“No.”
“Then why are you staring?”
He cleared his throat.
“You look exactly right.”
At the gallery, photographers gathered near the entrance. Adrian rested a hand against my back and guided me through the crowd.
I had expected the touch to feel staged.
It did not.
Later, we escaped to a balcony overlooking the River Walk.
“You hate these things,” I said.
“Deeply.”
“Then why host them?”
“Because wealthy people enjoy standing near expensive paintings while pretending they understand them.”
I laughed.
He watched me.
“What?”
“You do that often now.”
“Do what?”
“Laugh around me.”
I looked away.
“You make that sound like a business achievement.”
“Maybe it is.”
“You married me for appearances.”
“I know.”
“To seem stable.”
“I remember the contract, Maria.”
“And now?”
His face changed.
“Now you make me want to be the man everyone thought I was pretending to be.”
I could not speak.
On the drive home, the silence between us felt alive.
He finally said, “I wasn’t always like this.”
“Like what?”
“Controlled.”
I smiled faintly. “That is a polite word.”
He accepted the insult.
“My parents spent thirty years married and twenty-five of them making each other miserable. When my father died, my mother admitted she had wanted to leave for decades but was afraid of starting over. I decided love was mostly a story people told themselves because loneliness sounded worse.”
I stared through the windshield.
“I thought that too.”
He glanced at me.
So I told him about Evan.
Not everything. Enough.
When I finished, Adrian’s hands tightened slightly on the steering wheel.
“He left you pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“And never came back?”
“No.”
“He’s an idiot.”
“You don’t know him.”
“I know enough.”
When we reached the house, neither of us got out immediately.
Adrian turned toward me.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For the fact that someone taught you being abandoned was something you should expect.”
My throat tightened.
Then he leaned closer.
Slowly.
Giving me every opportunity to move away.
I did not.
The kiss was gentle and uncertain, nothing like the businesslike man who had once placed a marriage contract in front of me.
When we separated, he whispered, “Tell me to stop.”
I should have.
Instead I said, “I don’t want you to.”
After that, the invisible line between arrangement and marriage disappeared one quiet inch at a time.
We never discussed changing the contract. We simply began living beyond it.
Adrian read bedtime stories to Noah.
I waited up when Adrian traveled.
He started calling my mother Elena instead of Mrs. Alvarez.
I learned he hated mustard, loved old Westerns, and secretly fed bacon to the dog even though he denied it.
Then came the birthday gala.
The ballroom glittered beneath crystal chandeliers. I wore emerald silk, Adrian wore black, and people told us we looked perfect together.
For once, the compliment made me happy.
Then I saw a man across the room.
Shorter hair.
Older face.
Same careless smile.
The past does not always knock before entering your life.
Sometimes it lifts a champagne glass from across a ballroom and smiles straight at you.
Evan Parker had come back.
