Beneath His Vows

Chapter Five — Ivy

I didn’t cry that night.

Not even after the door clicked shut and I was alone again in a house full of coldness and silence.

I sat on the edge of the bed for hours, the soft ticking of a clock somewhere in the distance the only sound keeping time. I tried to cry. God, I wanted to. But the tears just wouldn’t come.

Maybe they dried up with my pride.

Maybe they froze the moment Cassian Wolfe looked at me like I was nothing more than a debt being paid.

Collateral.

That’s what I’d become.

A pawn between two women — my mother and his. One clinging to secrets, the other cashing them in.

My body still hurt from the ceremony hours ago — not because anything happened, but because everything did. I’d signed a marriage license with a man who hadn’t even looked me in the eye. I wore a ring that didn’t fit. I was dressed in a department store white dress that reeked of panic.

And now, I was officially Ivy Monroe-Wolfe.

What a joke.

I curled tighter beneath the blankets, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember the last time I felt in control of my own life.

Definitely not when I walked down the courthouse steps beside Cassian, cameras flashing in our faces.

He hadn’t even touched me. No hand on my back. No guiding pressure on my arm.

It was like I didn’t exist.

And somehow, that hurt more than being hated.

Because at least hatred means someone sees you.

I must’ve fallen asleep sometime before dawn, because when I woke up, the room was already filled with soft daylight. I blinked against the brightness, heart thumping for reasons I couldn’t explain.

Then I remembered.

I was married.

To a man who barely looked at me.

I sat up slowly, my body sore from sleeping in one position too long, and that’s when I noticed the dress bag hanging on the closet door. Sleek. Black. Designer.

Next to it, a note sat on the dresser in Cassian’s handwriting.

“You’ll be picked up at 10AM. Wear this. Speak only when addressed.”

No signature.

Of course not.

I looked at the dress again — classic black, off-the-shoulder, tight at the waist and for a split second, I wondered if he chose it himself.

Then I caught myself hoping.

That was dangerous.

The car arrived precisely at 10. Not a minute late.

The driver didn’t speak. Just opened the door and waited. I slid inside, smoothing my dress, and tried not to stare at my reflection in the tinted window. I looked like someone else.

Someone expensive. Someone numb.

The car pulled up in front of the Wolfe Foundation Gala, and my breath caught.

The building was already lit up, cameras flashing as guests in glittering gowns stepped onto the red carpet. I was supposed to walk that? With him?

The door opened, and there he was.

Cassian.

Towering in a charcoal-black tux, eyes as cold as the night sky, hand outstretched not because he wanted to hold mine, but because he had to.

“Smile,” he said lowly, like a command.

I slid my fingers into his, pulse thudding. He didn’t squeeze. Didn’t even look at me.

We walked forward together, cameras erupting, shouting our names like we were some kind of royal couple.

“Mr. Wolfe! Mrs. Wolfe! Look this way!”

“How does it feel to be married, Ivy?!”

“Cassian, is it true she’s not your original fiancée?”

That made him tense — just slightly. I felt it through our joined hands.

I turned my head, smiled directly at one of the reporters, and said, “Cassian is a man who honors his promises. That’s more than I can say for most people in this room.”

Cassian turned to me sharply.

But I didn’t look at him.

Let him wonder.

Let him feel what I felt — just for a second.

Inside the ballroom, the music was soft, the light golden, and the space glittered with wealth. Women in diamonds, men in power. I recognized maybe two people, but I knew none of them were truly looking at me.

Until she walked in.

Elena Voss.

The woman Cassian was supposed to marry.

I didn’t need to be told — I could feel it.

She was everything I wasn’t — elegant, ice-blonde, viciously confident. And when her eyes landed on me, she smiled with a venomous tilt.

Then she walked right up to us, as if she owned the air between us.

“Cassian,” she said, voice like silk. “I heard the news. Congratulations.”

He didn’t respond. Didn’t even blink.

Then she turned to me. “And you must be Ivy. Wow. You’re… exactly what I expected.”

I smiled tightly. “A surprise?”

She leaned in, lowering her voice. “Disposable.”

Before I could speak, Cassian suddenly stepped between us.

“Elena. Enjoy your evening.”

His tone was sharp. Cutting.

She flinched, then smiled too sweetly. “Oh, I will. But I doubt she will.”

She disappeared into the crowd, and I exhaled shakily.

Cassian didn’t look at me, but his voice dropped low near my ear. “Don’t let her get to you.”

“Isn’t that your job?”

That made him glance at me.

His jaw tightened.

But before he could speak, someone else called his name. Another handshake. Another smile. Another distraction.

He let go of my hand.

And I was alone.

I found a quiet corner near the windows. Just for air.

That’s when a woman approached — older, elegant, and unfamiliar.

She didn’t introduce herself.

She just looked at me and said, “I knew your mother.”

I froze.

She smiled sadly. “You have her eyes. But not her spirit.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” the woman said gently, “I hope you survive this better than she did.”

Before I could ask what she meant, she vanished into the crowd.

And I was left standing there, heart racing, breath short, knowing there were so many things no one was telling me.

Cassian’s mother.

My mother.

Secrets that smelled of blood and power and regret.

And now I was tangled in the middle of it.

Later that night, after the gala, I sat in the back of the car beside Cassian, both of us quiet.

He didn’t speak.

Neither did I.

But as we neared the townhouse, I turned to him.

“Why me?” I asked. “Why not just pay off the debt? Why marry me?”

He didn’t answer right away.

Then he looked out the window and said, “Because some things can’t be erased with money.”

I stared at him. “But they can be punished?”

His jaw clenched.

And that was all the answer I needed.

Ivy

I turned away from him.

What was the point?

He’d said enough without saying anything. His silence was its own kind of cruelty — precise and strategic.

I didn’t know whether to hate him or pity him.

But pity didn’t survive long when you were married off like livestock.

When the car stopped in front of the townhouse, I didn’t wait for the driver to open the door. I stepped out first, heels crunching on the gravel, the chill of the night wrapping around my shoulders. Cassian didn’t follow right away.

He sat there in the backseat, watching something on his phone, as if I wasn’t there at all.

And maybe, to him, I wasn’t.

The inside of the house was silent — too silent. There was no warmth. No sign that two people had just become husband and wife.

There was only marble and glass and air that didn’t feel lived in.

I kicked off my heels at the door, letting them thud softly onto the tile. My dress itched against my skin, tight and suffocating. I wanted to scream. I wanted to tear it off and disappear into nothingness.

But instead, I walked into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water.

Behind me, I heard the front door close.

Then footsteps.

Slow. Measured.

Cassian.

He didn’t say a word. Just leaned against the doorway, jacket off, tie loosened. He looked like a man who’d just come home from work — if work meant emotionally destroying someone and calling it duty.

“You shouldn’t talk to Elena again,” he said casually.

I stared into the sink. “Why not? Is she off-limits? Still emotionally yours?”

“She’s dangerous.”

I laughed under my breath. “So are you.”

Silence.

He stepped into the kitchen, close enough to feel his presence, but not close enough to touch. He looked at me like I was a problem to be managed. A calculation.

“I don’t care who she is,” I said, turning to face him. “She doesn’t scare me.”

“She should,” he said. “She plays dirtier than I do.”

That made me scoff. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“It’s a warning.”

“You think I didn’t grow up around people like her? Women who smile while cutting you down in pieces? My mother was one of them.”

That gave him pause.

Just a flicker.

I stepped forward. “You don’t know me, Cassian. You think I’m weak. Or naive. Or desperate. But I’m none of those things. I may be stuck in this marriage, but don’t confuse silence with surrender.”

He stared at me, jaw locked, something unreadable flickering in his expression.

Then he stepped forward.

One step. Two.

Until we were breathing the same air.

And still, he didn’t touch me.

“You’re right,” he said quietly. “I don’t know you. And I don’t care to.”

The words sliced cleaner than any insult.

“I didn’t marry you for love. Or company. Or companionship. I married you to keep something buried.”

I swallowed. “So that’s it? You just plan to ignore me? Live your life like I’m a ghost in your house?”

“No,” he said coolly. “I plan to make you disappear from the headlines in three months. And from my life after six.”

My chest tightened. “So there’s a time limit.”

He didn’t respond. But his eyes said everything.

Six months.

And then what? An annulment? A quiet divorce? Another deal, another woman?

I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me scramble for scraps.

I walked past him, toward the staircase.

But then his voice stopped me.

“One more thing,” he said.

I turned.

His eyes were dark.

“If anyone asks, we sleep in the same bed.”

I didn’t sleep that night.

I just lay there in bed, stiff beneath the sheets, staring at the shadowy ceiling. The guest room was colder than the master bedroom, but at least it was mine. For now.

The house was quiet, but my mind wasn’t.

Every word. Every look. Every little cruelty repeated itself like a broken record.

I hated that he got under my skin. I hated that I felt anything at all.

But most of all, I hated that I wanted to understand him.

I wanted to know what made a man this hard. This sharp-edged. This numb.

No one becomes ice without first being burned.

But that wasn’t my job. That wasn’t my fight.

He made it clear — I was temporary. Decorative. A bandage on a wound I didn’t cause.

So fine. Let him keep his secrets.

I’d find my own power.

I’d figure out what my mother was hiding — why she was so desperate to marry me off. Why Cassian agreed. Why both of them danced around some past that