The Contract Marriage

Chapter 3: The Test

Olivia’s POV

The dress i ended up in is Clara's, dark green, simple, the kind of thing that doesn't try too hard, which feels right for a woman about to walk into a room and pretend she belongs there.

"You look like you're about to give a court testimony, not meet your future in-laws," Clara says, fixing the zipper at my back, "Relax your shoulders."

"They're not my in-laws, they're his family, i'm just the girl he's using for a year."

"Sure, tell your face that, because right now your face looks like it's about to walk into a job interview it didn't study for."

The car shows up at six on the dot, black, quiet, driven by a man who says good evening, Ms. Bennett like he's said it a hundred times already even though this is the first. I sit in the back with my hands folded in my lap the whole ride, watching the city turn into wide streets and hedges and gates, the kind of neighborhood I had only ever seen from a train window.

The house isn't a house, it's the kind of place that has a name instead of an address. Ethan is waiting on the front steps when the car pulls up, hands in his pockets, dressed plain and expensive at the same time, the way people dress when they've never once had to think about what things cost.

"You came," he says, like there was a real chance she wouldn't.

"You paid me to."

Something flickers at the corner of his mouth, not quite a smile, "Right, come on, don't let my aunt hold your hand too long, she reads palms and she'll tell you something depressing about your love line."

"Is that a joke?"

"No," he says, already turning toward the door, "She really does that."

Inside, the house is all high ceilings and quiet, the kind of quiet that costs money, a woman comes around the corner first, mid-fifties, sharp in the face the same way Ethan is sharp, and she stops walking the second she sees me, like she's doing math.

"So this is her," the woman says, not to me, to Ethan, like i’m some package that just got delivered.

"Mother, this is Olivia," Ethan's voice goes flatter, if that's even possible, "Olivia, my mother, Margaret."

"Nice to meet you," i said, holding out a hand that Margaret looks at for a second too long before taking it.

"Is it," Margaret says, not really a question, and turns to lead us further into the house without waiting to see if we were following.

The dinner table sits ten and only holds five, there's Margaret at one end, a younger man who turns out to be Ethan's cousin, Grant, an aunt named Elena, who does in fact try to grab my hand before i had even sat down, and an empty chair i noticed nobody looks directly at.

"That's for Grandfather," Rosalind says quietly, catching me looking,"Nobody's had the heart to move it yet."

My chest tightens in a way i don’t expect and for a second i forget this whole night is a performance and just feel sorry for the family sitting around a table with an empty chair still pulled in like someone might walk through the door and sit in it.

"So," Margaret says, once the first course is out and the small talk has run dry, "How long have you two been seeing each other?"

I froze for half a second too long, but Ethan doesn't.

"Eight months," he says smoothly, cutting into his food like the lie costs him nothing at all. "We kept it quiet, work relationships get complicated when people know."

"Eight months," Margaret repeats, looking at me now instead of him, "And in eight months, you never once came up, not at Christmas, not when your grandfather was sick."

"I told you, we kept it quiet," Ethan says, an edge under the smoothness now.

and"You kept everything quiet Ethan, that's not new," Margaret sets her fork down, "I just find it interesting that the woman you've apparently been seeing for eight months has never been mentioned, and yet a wedding is apparently happening within the month, forgive me for finding the timing convenient."

The table goes quiet in the specific way a room goes quiet when everyone in it knows exactly what's being said underneath what's actually being said.

"The will was clear about timing," Ethan says. "I'm not going to apologize for moving fast on something I already knew I wanted."

I looked at him, it's the smoothest lie I’ve ever heard, delivered without a single c***k in his voice, and for a second i almost believed it myself.

"And you?" Margaret turns the full weight of her attention onto me, and i understood , in that moment, exactly why Ethan warned me about this family and not just his grandfather's will. "What do you do, Olivia?"

"I work at Ashford Industries, in operations."

"Of course you do," Margaret says it lightly, but it lands like something bad and insulting, "How convenient, falling for the boss."

"Mother," Ethan's voice cuts flat across the table, a warning in it that makes even Grant look up from his plate.

"I'm only saying what everyone at this table is not thinking Ethan, a will with a deadline, a relationship nobody's heard of, a wedding that's suddenly urgent," Margaret's eyes don't leave my face, "I'd be a fool not to ask questions, i raised you, i know exactly how you operate when you want something."

I feel my pulse pick up, i feel the folder of a contract sitting somewhere back at Clara's apartment, i feel every clause of it pressing down on me at once. I think about Ethan's rule from two days ago, no blurred lines, this is a job so she holds onto it like a rail.

"With respect, Mrs. Ashford," i said, keeping my voice even, "I understand why this looks fast to you, it looked fast to me too but I don't need Ethan's money and I don't need his name, I have my own job and my own life, and if you'd rather ask me questions than assume the worst about your son, I'm happy to answer them."

It's not entirely true, not the part about the money, but it comes out steady enough that even Margaret pauses.

Elena, of all people, breaks the silence with a small laugh. "Well, i like her already."

Margaret doesn't answer that, she picks her fork back up, and the rest of dinner moves along in careful, polite sentences about nothing, but i could feel me being watched the whole time, weighed, filed away under a category not yet decided.

It isn't until we’re leaving, Ethan walking me out to the car under a sky gone fully dark, that either of us say anything real.

"You didn't have to defend yourself like that," he says.

"Somebody had to, you just sat there and let her come at me."

"I was watching to see if you'd fold," he says it plainly, no apology in it, "You didn't, that's good. My mother will test you like that every chance she gets for the next year, if you fold once, she'll never stop."

"So that was a test."

"Everything with my family is a test," He opens the car door for me, and for a second, standing that close, i notice something tired behind his eyes that wasn't there in his office two days ago, "You passed, congratulations, welcome to the family."

It's not warm, the way he says it, but it isn't as cold as everything else he's said to me either, and that, more than anything all night, is what stays with me the whole ride home.