DOMINIC
Three months.
I thought about that on a Tuesday morning in November, standing at the kitchen window with my coffee while Elena was still in the shower and the city was doing its grey early-morning thing outside.
Three months since a fake bride got on a plane and I had stood in a hotel suite with a woman I did not know who had just married me. Three months since a contract was signed while two lawyers argued over the word required. Three months since the first sticky note appeared on my office door.
I thought about who I had been three months ago.
Not so different on the surface. Same office. Same company. Same controlled space. Same careful distance from anything that asked too much.
But underneath — different. Something underneath had shifted without my permission and I was
