The Contract Marriage

Chapter 5: The Claim

Olivia’s POV

I wake up somewhere that isn't mine, in a bed that's too soft, under a ceiling with no water stain shaped like a rabbit the way Clara's has, and it takes me a full ten seconds to remember why.

Right, married, well sort of.

The apartment is quiet in a way I'm not used to, no traffic under the window, no upstairs neighbor dragging furniture around at seven in the morning, just the hum of a building that was built to keep noise out instead of letting it in. I lie there a while, staring at the ceiling, listening for any sign that Ethan is awake, and don't hear one.

When I finally wander out to the kitchen, he's already there, in a t-shirt instead of a suit for once, which is somehow stranger to look at than the suit ever was. There's coffee made, two mugs sitting out, like it didn't occur to him not to make one for me, or like it did occur to him and he made it anyway.

"Morning," he says, not looking up from his laptop.

"Morning," I pour myself a cup, mostly to have something to do with my hands, "You're up early."

"I'm always up early."

"Right, I almost forgot who my boss is."

That gets the smallest twitch of something at the corner of his mouth, not quite a smile, but close enough that I count it. I sit across from him at the counter, and for a minute neither of us says anything, and it isn't uncomfortable the way I expected it to be, it's just quiet. Two people who don't know each other yet, learning what the quiet between them feels like before they have to fill it with anything real.

"There's a schedule," he says eventually, turning the laptop toward me, "Things we need to be seen at over the next few weeks, nothing big yet, a dinner here, an event there, i want you to look at the dates and tell me if anything's a problem before I confirm."

I scan the list, most of it means nothing to me, names of restaurants and charities I've never heard of, dates a month out. One line near the bottom catches my eye,Ashford Foundation Gala.

"What's this one?"

"Bigger than the rest, press, board members, half the city." He says it flatly, already moving past it, "Not for a while yet, we'll worry about it when it's closer."

"Okay," I hand the laptop back, "Nothing else jumps out."

"Good," He closes it, and for a second it looks like he might say something else, but whatever it is, he decides against it, and goes back to his coffee instead.

Work that day is ordinary in a way that feels almost funny after the last week. I answer emails, I sit through a meeting about a vendor contract that has nothing to do with my own contract, though I catch myself thinking the word twice as often as I used to. Priya brings me a muffin at eleven for no reason I can figure out except maybe kindness, and doesn't ask a single question about the ring on my finger, which I'm starting to understand is Priya's whole personality, seeing everything and saying nothing.

I text Clara on my lunch break, “Surviving, slept in a bed the size of my old apartment, send help or snacks, whichever's easier to carry.”

Clara sends back a string of question marks and then, a minute later, “Okay, but are you OKAY okay right?” And I look at the question longer than I mean to before I answer it.

“Fine, I think, ask me again in a month.” I responded to cut the tension.

It's not until I'm walking back from the elevator that evening, keys in hand, tired in the specific way a day of pretending makes a person tired, that anything shifts. The apartment door is already unlocked when I reach it, which I know shouldn't surprise me, since Ethan got home before I did most days this week but there are voices coming from inside. His voice, low, and a second voice under it, one I don't recognize at first, quiet, careful, familiar in a way that makes the hair on my arms stand up before my brain catches up to why.

I push the door open slowly.

Ethan is standing in the middle of the living room, still in his coat, like he hasn't been home long either and across from him, turned just enough that I can see her face in profile, is a woman I've never seen before in my life, except that I have, I realize, in the college photo Ethan keeps on the shelf by the window, the one I assumed was some cousin or old friend and never asked about.

The woman turns at the sound of the door, her eyes go straight to me, wide, startled, like she wasn't expecting anyone else to be living here.

"Oh," the woman says with irritation, "You must be her."

Ethan doesn't move, he just stands there, coat still on, keys still in his hand, looking at me like he's been caught at something and hasn't decided yet whether to explain it or just wait and see how bad it's going to get.

"Olivia," he says finally, and his voice has gone somewhere I haven't heard it go before, careful in an entirely new way. "This is….."

He doesn't finish the sentence because the woman finishes it for him.

"I'm his wife," she says.