Chapter 8: After The Spotlight
633 Words
The applause didn’t feel real.
It echoed through the grand hall like a performance Maya wasn’t sure she had agreed to star in.
Flashes of cameras burned into her vision as she stood beside Nathaniel Cole, her hand still lightly resting on his arm—the position he had placed her in the moment they stepped onto the stage.
His wife.
The word still didn’t feel like hers.
Nathaniel didn’t look at the crowd. Not really. His attention stayed forward, composed, unreadable—like the chaos around them had nothing to do with him.
But Maya felt everything.
Whispers. Stares. Questions that no one dared ask out loud.
And then the first journalist spoke.
“Mr Cole! When did the marriage take place?”
Another voice followed immediately.
“Why was it kept secret for so long?”
“Is this a real marriage or a business arrangement?”
That last question hit harder than the rest.
Maya felt her fingers tighten slightly on his sleeve before she could stop herself.
Nathaniel finally moved.
Not away from the questions.
But closer to her.
Just enough that only she could hear him.
“Smile,” he said quietly.
It wasn’t a request.
It was control.
Maya lifted her gaze slowly. The crowd was still watching. Waiting.
So she smiled.
And the cameras exploded again.
When the ceremony finally ended, it felt less like relief and more like escape.
The ride back to the estate was silent.
Maya stared out the window, watching the city lights blur into streaks. Her reflection in the glass looked unfamiliar—too composed for what she felt inside.
Nathaniel sat beside her, phone in hand, already detached from the moment they had just survived.
“You handled it well,” he said after a while.
Maya let out a small breath. “I didn’t have a choice.”
A pause.
Then he lowered his phone slightly.
“You always have a choice,” he said.
She turned to him immediately. “Do I?”
That question finally pulled his attention fully onto her.
For a moment, the air between them changed—less public, less controlled.
“Most people think they understand what they’ve agreed to,” Nathaniel said carefully. “Until the world finds out.”
Maya frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”
But he didn’t answer.
Instead, he looked away again, as if the conversation had already gone too far.
Back at the house, everything looked the same.
Too normal.
Too quiet.
As if nothing life-altering had just happened in front of thousands of people.
Maya walked ahead of him into the living room, finally letting out the breath she had been holding for hours.
“This is insane,” she said under her breath. “They all think we’re—”
“Married,” Nathaniel finished simply.
She turned to him. “We are married on paper. That’s different.”
That made him stop.
For the first time that night, his expression shifted—barely, but enough for her to notice.
“You think paper is what defines it?” he asked.
Maya didn’t answer immediately.
Because something about his tone made her unsure if she was arguing with a contract…
or something more complicated than that.
Nathaniel stepped past her, loosening his tie.
“Get some rest,” he said, voice returning to calm. “Tomorrow will be worse.”
Maya frowned. “Worse how?”
But he was already walking away.
And just before he disappeared down the hallway, he said something that didn’t sound like reassurance at all.
“It’s not the world I’m worried about seeing us now.”
It was the first time Maya truly felt it.
The marriage wasn’t the secret.
Whatever Nathaniel was hiding…
was huge.
- Writer
