The Contract Marriage

Chapter 4: The Move

Olivia’s POV

The announcement goes out Monday morning, and by the time, my train pulls into my stop, my phone is already doing something it's never done before, buzzing over and over with numbers i don’t even have saved.

Ashford Industries CEO Engaged To Longtime Girlfriend, one headline says, Who Is Olivia Bennett?, says another, under a photo someone dug up from her college graduation, blurry, five years old, her hair a different color, i almost turned around and walked back home.

But I don’t, because Ethan texted me by seven that morning, saying that I should not read the comments, just come to work like I normal do, It's what a real fiancée would do.

So i just go to work like normal, if normal means every single person on my floor finding a reason to walk past my new desk today. Priya brings me coffee I didn't ask for and doesn't bring up the headlines, which i realized is the nicest thing anyone's done for me all week. A woman from accounting i’ve spoken to maybe twice in two years stops to say congratulations with a look on her face that isn't really about congratulations at all.

By ten, I’ve been called into Ethan's office,

"You're moving in this weekend," he says, not looking up from his screen.

"Excuse me?"

"Section four," he says, "Shared residence during the term of the marriage, you read it."

"I read it, i didn't think it meant before we get married."

"The story only holds up if it looks real, reporters already have your building address, which means reporters will already be watching your building." He finally looks up, "Clara's, I mean, not that it's a real address for you, since you don't have a lease there either."

I feel my face go warm, half annoyance, half the sting of being reminded out loud that i basically had no address of my own since Daniel, "You checked."

"I check everything, it's how I don't get surprised," he turns his screen toward her, an email open, a moving company already booked, a time already picked, "Saturday, ten a.m. Bring whatever's yours, the rest can stay wherever it is."

"You didn't think to ask me if Saturday worked."

"Does it not?"

She opens her mouth to argue and finds, annoyingly, that it does,"That's not the point."

"Then what's the point?"

"The point is you're doing this thing where you decide everything and then tell me after, like I'm a line item," She hissed silently trying not to be heard,"I signed a contract, not a leash."

For a second he just looks at me, and i can't tell if i’m about to get fired from a marriage that isn't even a week old or if something else is happening behind his eyes, then, quiet, almost like he means it,"Fair."

"Fair?"

"I'll ask next time," he says it like the words cost him something to get out, like fluency in this particular language, the language of asking instead of deciding, isn't one he's had much practice in, "Does Saturday work?"

I almost laughed, "Yes, saturday works."

"Good." And just like that he's back to his screen, the moment folded away and put wherever he puts things he doesn't want sitting out in the open.

The apartment, it is exactly what i expected and somehow still surprising, high floor, glass on two sides, so clean it barely looks lived in, which i suspect is close to true. The movers carry in three boxes, everything i own that survived the breakup and the couch-surfing, and set them down in the middle of a living room bigger than Clara's entire apartment.

"That's it?" Ethan says, looking at the boxes like he expected more, or maybe like the smallness of it bothers him in a way he wasn't ready for.

"That's it."

He doesn't say anything else about it, but later, after the movers are gone and I start unpacking a box of books onto a shelf that's clearly never held a book in its life, i find a fourth box sitting by the door that wasn't there before, sheets still on, a note taped to the top in handwriting i haven’t seen yet, sharp and quick like everything about him, “For your room, didn't want you sleeping on borrowed sheets in your new house too,” that’s what it said.

I don’t know what to do with that, so i didn’t do anything with it except stand there holding it a second longer than i needed to.

Dinner that night is quiet, the two of us at opposite ends of a table that's too big for two people, takeout containers between us because neither of us, it turns out, is much of a cook.

"So how's this supposed to work," i said, breaking the silence,"Do we just, what, live like roommates who happen to be married?"

"Basically." He doesn't look up from his phone. "You have your space, I have mine, we show up together when we need to be seen otherwise we stay out of each other's way."

"That sounds lonely."

He looks up at that, something flickering across his face too fast for her to name it, "It's not supposed to be anything, it's a year."

"Right." I concluded as I poke at my food. "A year."

His phone buzzes on the table between us and i watched his whole face change before he even picks it up, like his body knew who it was before his eyes confirmed it.

"Who's that?" I asked, before i could stop myself.

He doesn't answer right away, he turns the phone face down instead, which is its own kind of answer, "Nobody you need to worry about."

"Is it Isabella?"

The silence that follows tells me everything his mouth won't.

"Finish your dinner," he says, standing and taking his plate to the sink even though it's still half full, "Big day tomorrow, first public thing, a gala, cameras, all of it, you'll want to sleep."

He's gone down the hall before i could say anything else, and Olivia sits there at the big table, alone with her plates and a name that clearly means something he isn't ready to hand over, and thinks that maybe this year is going to be a lot longer than expected.