MINE UNTIL THE CONTRACT ENDS

CHAPTER THREE

LAYLA'S POV

"You may now sign the marriage certificate."

The judge slid the paper across the desk without looking up. No smile, no congratulations, no acknowledgment that two people had just legally bound their lives together. Just a pen and a dotted line.

I signed first. My hand was steady. I was proud of that.

Cole signed beside me, his signature clean and efficient, like everything else about him. Ryan witnessed it. That was the entire wedding. No flowers, no music, no one sitting in rows waiting to cry at the right moment. The whole thing was over in eleven minutes. I know because I counted.

We walked out of the courthouse into grey October morning and a black car idling at the curb. Cole held the door open. Not out of affection, I already understood that about him. He was simply a man who maintained appearances on principle.

I got in.

Neither of us spoke for the first ten minutes of the drive. I watched the city move past the window and tried to locate some feeling inside myself, grief, relief, fear, anything. What I found was a strange blankness, like the moment after a very loud sound when the silence feels thick.

My mother's treatment had started yesterday morning. The money had transferred at nine AM, exactly as he'd promised, and by noon Diana Reyes had been moved to a private room on the oncology floor with a new care team and a treatment schedule. She had cried. I had held her hand and smiled and told her everything was fine.

I had not told her what it cost.

"We'll go over the household arrangements when we arrive," Cole said without turning from his window.

"Alright."

"Edmund will show you to your suite. It's on the east side of the penthouse. Mine is on the west. We share the kitchen and the main living areas but those spaces have a schedule to avoid unnecessary overlap."

I turned to look at him. "A schedule."

"Mealtimes, primarily. It's simpler."

"We're scheduling mealtimes."

"Is that a problem?"

I faced forward again. "No. It's just very thorough."

"I find that thorough prevents complicated."

I almost laughed. Almost. "And if I'm hungry outside the schedule?"

"Then you eat." He glanced at me briefly. "It's a guideline, not a rule. I'm not unreasonable."

That was debatable, but I kept that thought to myself.

The penthouse was on the forty-fourth floor of a building in Midtown that looked like it had been designed to make ordinary people feel small. The lobby had marble floors and a security desk and a private elevator that required a keycard. Cole handed me one in the car without ceremony, the same way someone might hand over a parking stub.

When the elevator opened directly into the apartment, I stopped in the doorway.

I had seen nice apartments before. I had treated patients in this building twice during home visit rotations. But nothing had prepared me for this, floor to ceiling windows across three walls, city light flooding every surface, furniture that looked selected by someone who understood both beauty and restraint. It was not a showroom. It was a home that happened to be extraordinary, which was somehow harder to process than if it had been cold and sterile.

Edmund was waiting in the entryway. He was older than I'd expected, late sixties, slight, with a careful stillness about him that reminded me of people who had spent decades observing and very little time being observed. He shook my hand with both of his.

"Mrs. Ashford," he said. "Welcome."

The name hit me strangely. I kept my expression neutral.

"Layla is fine," I told him.

Something crossed his face, not surprise, more like quiet approval. "Of course. I'll show you to your suite."

Cole had already moved toward the west wing without another word. I watched him go, then followed Edmund down a hallway lined with framed architectural prints. I noticed the walls had lighter rectangular patches in places, the kind left behind when pictures are removed. Recent removals, judging by the color difference.

I didn't ask about it.

My suite was large and thoughtfully arranged, a sitting room, a bedroom, a bathroom with a soaking tub I would never have time to use. Everything was in muted blues and warm neutrals. Someone had placed a small plant on the windowsill. It was the only thing in the room that felt spontaneous.

"The wardrobe has been stocked according to the measurements your physician's office provided," Edmund said from the doorway. "If anything is unsuitable, I can arrange alternatives."

I opened the wardrobe. It was full of clothing I hadn't chosen, professional, tasteful, expensive. I touched the sleeve of a grey blazer and reminded myself that this was part of the arrangement. Public appearances required a certain image. I had read that in the contract. Clause eleven.

"It's fine," I said. "Thank you, Edmund."

He nodded and began to leave, then paused with his hand on the doorframe. He didn't turn around when he spoke.

"Mr. Ashford takes his coffee at six forty-five," he said. "He reads for thirty minutes after. That's the quietest part of his day. If you ever need to speak with him about something difficult, that's the window." He paused. "I've found it helps to know these things early."

Then he left.

I stood in the middle of my new suite in my wedding clothes, the same white blouse and dark trousers I'd worn to work yesterday because I hadn't known what else to wear, and I looked out the window at forty-four floors of sky and city and thought about what Edmund had just done.

He had given me a map. A small one. But still.

I changed into something from the wardrobe, made a note of the plant on the windowsill, and went to find the kitchen because I hadn't eaten since yesterday afternoon and even strange new lives require food.

Cole was already there, jacket off, sleeves rolled, reading something on his phone with a glass of water in his hand. He looked up when I came in.

"The kitchen is…"

"I can find things," I said, moving to the refrigerator.

He watched me pull out eggs and butter with the calm expression of a man cataloguing information. I ignored him, found a pan, and started cooking without asking if he'd eaten or whether I was using the right burner or any of the other small apologetic questions I might have asked a year ago.

After a moment he set his phone down.

"You cook," he said.

"I eat," I replied. "Cooking is a side effect."

Another silence. I cracked two eggs into the pan.

"Make enough for two," he said.

I didn't look at him. But something small and inconvenient shifted in my chest at the ordinariness of it, the two plates, the shared kitchen, the grey morning coming through the windows.

*This is a transaction,* I reminded myself. *That's all.*

I was reaching for a second pan when his phone rang. He answered immediately, and whatever he heard on the other end made him go very still. His voice when he spoke was low and controlled, but I had already learned in three days that controlled was not the same as calm.

"When did they find out?" he said.

A pause.

"How much do they know?"

Another pause. Longer this time.

He looked up and met my eyes across the kitchen. Something in his expression made my hand stop moving.

"I'll call you back," he said, and hung up.

The silence that followed was a different kind entirely.

"Is everything alright?" I asked.

He looked at me for a moment, really looked, the way he hadn't since the consultation room, and said four words that made the eggs in the pan stop mattering completely.

"My parents know about you.”