The Marriage Clause

Chapter 8

Zoe’s POV

A week passed in a strange, suspended blur of work and awkward, parallel existence. Will was a ghost in the penthouse, leaving before she woke and returning long after she had retreated to her room with Finn, the world’s quietest puppy. The signed prenuptial agreement sat in a drawer, a cold stone of finality. The moment in the foyer, the almost kiss, was a fossil from another era, never mentioned, rarely even looked at directly.

Zoe was buried alive in Naomi’s book. The current chapter was a proposal scene, set on a private yacht at sunset, and writing the dialogue made her feel physically ill. The words “forever” and “destiny” stuck in her throat. She needed air, real air, not the filtered, recycled atmosphere of the penthouse.

She left without a plan, pulling on a worn leather jacket and slipping into the city. A soft, persistent drizzle had begun, painting the sidewalks dark grey and softening the edges of the buildings. She walked without direction, her feet carrying her on a familiar path she had consciously avoided for weeks.

She found herself standing across the street from The Lost Chapter, her mother’s bookstore. The windows were fogged with condensation, but through the bleary glass, she could see the warm, golden glow of the lamps, the crowded, comforting ranks of books on sagging shelves. Her mother, a small figure in a cardigan, was helping a customer at the register. A deep, homesick ache bloomed in Zoe’s chest, so acute it stole her breath. This was her truth. This messy, loving, financially precarious place. Not the sterile perfection forty stories up.

She couldn’t go in. Not like this, wearing someone else’s life. She turned to leave, the ache now a sharp pain.

Then, a sound. A small, shivering whimper, almost lost under the patter of rain. She stopped, listening. It came again. She followed it into the narrow, damp alley that ran beside the bookstore. There, shoved against the wet brick wall, was a sodden cardboard box. Inside, a tiny, shaking form was huddled.

Zoe’s heart clenched. She knelt, not caring about the cold wetness seeping through her jeans. It was a puppy, maybe ten weeks old, a scrawny mix of black and white fur plastered to its fragile body. It looked up at her with eyes that were too big for its skeletal face, pools of pure, terrified misery.

“Oh, little one,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “No.”

She couldn’t leave it. Every instinct screamed against it. But the practical voice, the one that lived in a penthouse with a man of contracts and rules, argued loudly. You can’t. You live in a glass box with a no-pet policy. Will Thorne does not seem like a puppy person.

But the puppy trembled, and the practical voice lost. She carefully gathered the tiny, wet creature into her arms, feeling the frantic beat of its heart against her palm. It was so light. She tucked it inside her jacket, against her sweater, and pulled out her phone.

She called Leo.

Twenty minutes later, she was curled on Leo’s overstuffed, colorful sofa, wrapped in a crocheted blanket. The puppy, now towel dried and looking even smaller, was a warm, sleeping weight in her lap, a belly full of the chicken and rice Leo had scrambled together.

“You, my darling chaos magnet, have a hero complex,” Leo declared, handing her a steaming mug of tea. “First you adopt a emotionally constricted billionaire, now a tragic Dickensian orphan pup. What’s next? A bus full of singing orphans? A wounded baby bird you have to feed with an eyedropper?”

“He was in a box, Leo,” Zoe said, her fingers gently stroking the puppy’s velvety ear. “He was just… discarded.”

“I know, love. I know.” Leo’s voice softened. He sat beside her, his usual flamboyance muted. “It’s why you’re a fundamentally good person stuck in a fundamentally ridiculous situation. How’s the ice prince, anyway?”

Zoe sighed, leaning her head back. “Distant. Professional. Exactly as the contract states. It’s better this way. Cleaner.”

“Is it?” Leo asked, his gaze knowing. “Clean isn’t a feeling, Zoe. It’s a state of absence.”

The puppy sighed in its sleep, a contented little puff of air. Zoe looked down at it, this tiny life that depended on a chance encounter. She knew she couldn’t keep it. Leo’s landlord was famously strict. But the thought of taking this fragile being, who had already known abandonment, to a loud, impersonal shelter, made her chest tighten with a panic that felt primal.

That evening, she walked back to the penthouse alone, her clothes and hair carrying the faint, lingering scents of wet dog and Leo’s sandalwood incense. Will was home, earlier than usual, standing at the floor to ceiling window as if surveying his kingdom. He turned as she entered.

His eyes did a quick, assessing sweep, taking in her damp hair, her casual clothes, the absence of her usual work bag. “You’re wet,” he observed.

The statement was so simple it broke the dam. “I found a dog,” she blurted out, the words tumbling in a rush.

He blinked, once. “A dog.”

“A puppy. He was abandoned. In an alley. He’s at Leo’s apartment right now, but Leo’s landlord doesn’t allow pets, and I…” She trailed off, the momentum dying as she faced the implacable wall of his reality. She braced for a cool, logical refusal.

Will was silent for a long moment. He turned back to the window, his profile etched against the city lights. “Is it healthy?” he asked, his voice devoid of inflection.

“He will be. He’s just scared, and cold, and hungry.” She tried to keep the pleading out of her voice, to state facts.

Another pause, longer this time. He seemed to be working through a complex equation. “The building has a very clear no pet policy,” he stated finally.

“I know.” The two words were heavy with defeated acceptance.

“But,” Will said slowly, turning to face her fully, “my unit includes the private rooftop terrace. That space is deeded as part of my property, not a common area of the building. The language in the building’s policy regarding privately owned exterior spaces is notably ambiguous.”

Zoe stared at him, trying to parse the legalistic phrasing. “You’re saying…”

“I’m saying that if the animal remains primarily contained to the terrace, if it does not create a nuisance for other residents, and if you assume full responsibility for its care and well-being, the policy may not be enforceable in this specific instance.” He spoke like a lawyer arguing a subtle point before a judge. It was all clauses and contingencies.

“You’d let me bring him here?” The hope in her voice was fragile, afraid to be heard.

“It is a practical solution to an immediate problem,” he clarified, his gaze finally meeting hers, though it was carefully neutral. “The dog requires shelter. You are visibly distressed by its predicament. This arrangement alleviates the distress. It is logical.”

It was the most unromantic, clinical description of an act of kindness she had ever heard. There was no mention of compassion, of saving a life, of doing a good thing. It was framed as a problem solving exercise. But it was kindness. It was a loophole he had chosen to exploit, for her. For a stray.

“Thank you,” she whispered, the words thick with an emotion he hadn’t acknowledged.

He gave a single, brief nod. “I’ll have an appropriate outdoor shelter and necessary supplies delivered tomorrow. For the terrace.”

That night, lying in the dark of the guest suite, Zoe listened to the soft, white noise hum of the city. She thought of the puppy, safe and warm on Leo’s couch. She thought of Will, standing at his window, finding a way through the rules to allow a small, scared creature a place to stay. It felt like the first c***k in his imposing, cold exterior that had nothing to do with their contractual performance, and everything to do with a choice he made, quietly, in the dim light of a rainy evening.