Enemies under one roof

My husband had been in my life for six hours, and I had already imagined his death four different ways. None of them were realistic. I was a woman who cried at insurance commercials. But a girl needs a hobby, and mine, apparently, was plotting the downfall of Daniel Sterling while wearing a borrowed wedding dress and a smile so fake it hurt my molars. "Smile for the camera, Mrs. Sterling," someone shouted outside the courthouse, and a hundred flashes went off like tiny lightning storms. "I am smiling," I said through my teeth. "You look like you're being held hostage," Daniel murmured against my ear, his hand settling at the small of my back. It was warm, steady, and entirely too confident, like he'd been touching me for years instead of minutes. "Try looking at me like I'm not the man who ruined your life." "That's the only way I know how to look at you." "Then look at me like I'm the man who's paying your mortgage." I stepped on his foot. Not by accident. He didn't even flinch, just smiled for the cameras and squeezed my waist in a gentle, warning pulse that sent heat racing straight to places I had not authorized. That was the first lesson of being married to Daniel Sterling. He could win a fight without ever raising his voice, and he could lose his composure of mine without ever seeming to try. Here is what you need to know. Two years ago my father's company, Bennett Freight, collapsed in a single week. Contracts vanished, lenders called in debts, and a buyout offer appeared from Sterling Holdings so low it felt like spit. My father signed because he had no choice. Six months later, he was gone, and everything the Sterlings touched turned to gold while everything we owned turned to bills. So when the bank threatened to take our house and Daniel Sterling's lawyer slid a marriage proposal across a table like a hostile takeover, I said yes for exactly one reason. Not the money, though God knows we needed it. I said yes because a wife gets keys. A wife gets access. A wife can walk into the heart of the Sterling empire and find the proof that they destroyed my family. I would be the perfect wife. And then I would burn his house down. His penthouse, by the way, was obscene. Sixty floors up, all glass and marble and moody lighting, like a vampire had hired an interior designer. I walked through it in my wedding dress, dragging the hem behind me, and tried not to look impressed. "Your room is the one at the end of the hall," Daniel said, tossing his keys into a dish. "Mine is the one beside it." "Separate rooms. Thank God." "Don't thank him yet." He turned, loosening his tie, and the look in his eyes was dangerously amused. "There's a catch." There was always a catch. "Which is?" "My grandfather has people. Staff, board members, a cousin who would sell his own mother for my shares. If we're not sharing a bedroom, they'll know the marriage is fake." He shrugged. "So we share a bedroom." I stared at him. "You're joking." "I never joke before dinner." "We are not sharing a bed." "It's a very large bed." He walked past me, close enough that his sleeve brushed my arm, close enough that I caught that irritating scent of cedar and expensive soap. "Rules, Sophia. I wrote them on the plane." He pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it over. I unfolded it with the grim enthusiasm of someone reading a restraining order. One. No falling in love. Two. No interference in each other's private lives. Three. No pretending this marriage is real. "Number one is insulting," I said. "Number two is easy. And number three seems unnecessary since nobody in their right mind would believe this." "Humor me." "I'd rather hex you." "Noted." He smiled, slow and wicked, and my traitorous heart tripped over its own feet. "Now. Unzip me, would you?" I blinked. "I beg your pardon?" "The dress, Sophia." His eyes glittered. "You've been fighting that zipper all afternoon. I'm offering to help." My face went hot enough to cook breakfast on. "I can manage." "Of course you can." But he was already behind me, and I felt his fingers at the nape of my neck, light as breath, as the zipper began to slide down. It moved slowly, one inch at a time, and every inch made the room feel smaller. I could feel his breath on my skin. I could feel the exact distance between us, which was nearly none. "Breathe," he murmured. "I'm breathing." "You're not." I was not. I let out a shaky exhale, and the corner of his mouth, which I could see in the dark window reflection, curved. His knuckles brushed the bare skin of my back, and the contact was so small and so devastating that I nearly forgot every curse I'd ever planned for him. "There," he said, voice a notch lower than before. "All done, Mrs. Sterling." "Don't call me that." "It's your name now." "It's a typo," I snapped, and fled to the bathroom to hyperventilate in private. By the time I came out in my pajamas, a hideous flannel set with cartoon avocados my mother had packed, Daniel was already in bed, shirtless, reading something on a tablet with the serene arrogance of a man who had never once been told no. The sheets were charcoal. The bed was the size of a small country. And I climbed into the farthest corner like a woman boarding a lifeboat. "Nice pajamas," he said without looking up. "They were a gift." "They're an assault." I turned off my lamp and lay in the dark, listening to him breathe. Twenty minutes passed. Thirty. I told myself I was waiting for him to fall asleep. I was not. I was lying there thinking about his fingers on my zipper, and that was a problem for tomorrow. Around two in the morning, I heard him get up. Soft footsteps. A door opening somewhere down the hall. I counted to sixty. Then I slipped out of bed and followed. His study was at the far end of the penthouse, a dark room that smelled of leather and old paper and secrets. A lamp glowed on the desk, and behind it, Daniel stood with his back to me, staring at an open drawer, as still as a statue. I should have gone back to bed. Instead I crept closer, until I could see what he held. A photograph. Two men shaking hands in front of a warehouse, laughing like old friends. One of them was a young, smiling Daniel Sterling. The other was my father. My heart stopped. Daniel's head turned slowly, and his eyes met mine in the lamplight, stripped of every smirk, every joke, every defense. He looked like a man who had been caught carrying a bomb he'd been trying to defuse for years. "Sophia," he said hoarsely. "I can explain." "My father told me he never met you." My voice shook. "Not once." "He lied to you." Daniel took a step toward me, and for the first time since I'd known him, his hands were trembling. "Because I asked him to." The photograph slipped from his fingers and fluttered to the floor between us, and I realized, with a cold, falling horror, that the man I'd married for revenge had been part of my family's story from the very beginning.