My Surreal Marriage: Life with a Billionaire

Chapter 12

Silence reclaimed the room. The smile didn’t immediately fade from Lucas’s face. Its warm afterglow lingered in his eyes for a few seconds before receding like the tide.

He looked down at the dark screen, his thumb stroking its edge absently. The ghost of a tender smile still graced his lips, and he was wrapped in a rare, almost vulnerable quiet. The man who had been an ice-cold machine under the strobes just moments ago now seemed infused with a soul, radiating a real, human warmth.

I was rooted to the spot, as if petrified, my heart hammering against my ribs. What I had just seen and heard felt like a dream, too real and too surreal at once. It violently shattered my established perception of him—"corporate machine," "projection screen," "cold-blooded robot." All those labels had been utterly obliterated in the last few minutes by the man who smiled at a little girl like a true, loving uncle.

He wasn’t emotionless.

He just… kept his emotions hidden. Buried so deep, so securely, that he only let a sliver of his true warmth escape in a private corner, for a specific, cherished person.

Who was that little girl? He’d never mentioned her. That hidden gentleness was like a single ray of light, illuminating the unfathomable darkness behind his icy facade, but it also left me with a deeper confusion and a strange, unnerving flutter in my chest. This man was far more complex than I ever imagined.

Just then, the doorknob turned. I jumped back like a startled rabbit, my heart leaping into my throat.

Lucas pulled the door open. The moment he saw me standing there—pale-faced and wide-eyed with panic—the last traces of warmth vanished from his face as if they had never been. The frost sheeted over his eyes again. His jaw tightened. The unapproachable, glacial aura returned in full force. He looked at me, his brow furrowed with the annoyance of being interrupted and a hint of suspicion.

“What is it?” His voice was back to its usual flat, cold monotone.

“N-nothing,” I stammered, my throat dry. I couldn’t meet his gaze, my eyes darting instinctively to the phone in his hand. “The… the break is almost over. The assistant asked me to come get you…” I offered the flimsy excuse.

He gave a clipped “Hn” in response. His sharp eyes scanned my face, as if trying to decipher something from my flustered expression. In the end, he didn’t press. He simply stepped past me, his tall frame stirring the cool air, and walked back toward the studio without a second glance, as if the man who had been whispering endearments moments ago was a figment of my imagination.

I stood there, watching his back disappear down the hall, a cold sweat breaking out on my own. The air conditioning in the dressing room felt frigid against my bare skin, sending a shiver through me.

***

The strobes flashed to life again, their blinding glare swallowing me whole. I was back in front of the fake rose wall, and Lucas’s arm was once again wrapped around my waist with the same precise, cold detachment. The photographer was back to his energetic directing.

“Okay! Lovely! Now, Mrs. Grayson, tilt your head just a bit towards your husband… yes! Perfect! Mr. Grayson, look at your bride! Like she’s the most important thing in your world! Smile! Think of… think of that new billion-dollar contract!”

Lucas dutifully lowered his head, his gray-blue eyes meeting mine. His gaze was still deep, still cold, a programmed simulation of a loving look. But I couldn't see it that way anymore. Beneath that vast field of ice, I had caught a glimpse of a hidden, fiercely guarded warm spring. The genuine tenderness he had shown that little girl was seared into my memory, branded onto my understanding of him.

He executed the photographer's command perfectly, his lips pulling into that standard, soulless curve. But as I looked at him, at this man playing the part of a doting husband for the camera, the storm inside me refused to be stilled.

He wasn’t without feeling.

He was simply saving all his warmth for the little girl he called “sweetheart.”

And I, Claire Bennett, his wife in name only, was nothing more than a prop in his cold contract. An insignificant part of the backdrop standing next to his projection screen.

The strobes flashed, relentless. The shutter clicked like falling rain. We held the “intimate” pose, two figures in a fake garden of roses, performing a love story for the world to see.

The air, a suffocating mix of expensive perfume and the acrid smell of burning flashbulbs, closed in around me. Each flash felt like a cruel exposure of our absurd contract, illuminating the icy, very real chasm between us with a blinding, painful clarity.