My Surreal Marriage: Life with a Billionaire

Chapter 10

After speaking, he no longer looked at me, nor did he bother with the mess on the floor or the interrupted meeting. He walked to the door, picked up another coat hanging on the coat rack behind it (thankfully, this one was intact), and put it on with a swift motion.

“I’m going back to the office to handle the interrupted matters.” He left those words behind, not looking at me or Keats, opened the door, and his tall figure disappeared into the corridor’s glow, leaving the heavy sound of the door closing echoing in the silent apartment.

I held Keats and stood there dumbfounded. The air still carried the sharp scent of his cedarwood cologne, mixed with the damp smell of water stains on the carpet, and the faint, animal-like odor of Keats, who had been startled.

On the floor, the water stain was slowly spreading. The expensive chair bore several white scratch marks, like ugly scars, silently mocking my helplessness and Keats’s “nature.”

“Meow…” Keats let out a soft meow in my arms, rubbing his little head against my arm, as if seeking comfort.

I lowered my head, looking into its innocent, amber-colored eyes, and a surge of overwhelming sadness welled up in my nose, blurring my vision. Compensation? Discipline? Boundaries?

In this small apartment filled with the things I cherish, all the friction and collisions reached their peak in that moment.

From the cold commands of the smart kitchen, to the intrusive financial news broadcasts, to the disaster Jieci had inadvertently caused... Each conflict was like a sharp file, ruthlessly carving a deep groove into the fragile bridge called “understanding.” Lucas Grayson, like a precision instrument, dissected life into countless quantifiable, optimizable, and controllable modules. Emotions were redundant code, chaos was a system error, and pets were unmanageable variables. He built walls of efficiency and rules, isolating everything he couldn't understand or control—the “temperature”—from the outside.

And me? I am like a stubborn craftsman, clinging to those “useless things” swept to the brink of collapse by the torrent of time: handwritten recipes, paper poetry collections, wild green plants growing on the windowsill, and this cat that doesn't follow the rules and scratches up expensive sofas. These are my anchors, the ways I perceive warmth and affirm my existence in this cold reality. In his efficient, cold world, my persistence seems so clumsy, so out of place, and even... so cheap.

I hold Keats and slowly slide down to the cold floor, leaning against the equally cold wall. Keats curls up obediently in my arms, emitting a soft purr. I looked up at the ceiling, where there was nothing but a vast, empty white expanse tinged with the dim yellow glow of city lights outside the window. A profound sense of loneliness, mingled with a vague fear of the next three years of contractual life, swept over me like a cold tide, completely submerging me.

In this marriage that began with a cold contract, we seemed to be accelerating toward opposite directions. Each collision deepens the chasm between us. Look back? The moment the agreement was signed, the path was already severed. Ahead lies an endless ice plain ruled by data and rules. And I, holding my “naturally free” cat, am like the last faint yet stubborn flame on the ice plain, unsure how much longer it can burn.