THE CONTRACT WIFE

chapter three:"THE CONTRACT WIFE"

Aria had packed light.

That was the first thing Damien's housekeeper — a soft-spoken woman named Mrs. Oluwaseun who had the warm, unshakeable energy of someone who had survived far worse than a billionaire's moods — noticed when she collected her at the lobby of Cross Tower's residential floors.

"Is this everything?" she asked, eyeing the single large suitcase and the battered laptop bag slung over Aria's shoulder.

"My sister's things are coming tomorrow," Aria said. "But yes. For now."

Mrs. Oluwaseun smiled like she approved of that somehow. "Mr. Cross is in a meeting until seven. I'll show you to your suite."

Suite. Aria turned the word over in her mind as they rode the private elevator to the fifty-eighth floor. She had been inside the building less than forty-eight hours ago to sign the contract. She had gone home, told Maya everything — watched her sister's eyes go wide, then wider, then fill with the particular kind of relief that only comes after weeks of genuine fear — and packed her life into one suitcase.

She had not allowed herself to feel anything about it until now.

The elevator opened directly into the penthouse level and Aria stepped out and stopped walking entirely.

The space was enormous. Floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides, the city burning gold in the early evening light below. Furniture that was clean and expensive and almost aggressively minimal — like a showroom designed by someone who associated comfort with weakness. A kitchen that gleamed like it had never been used. Fresh flowers on a table that probably cost more than her monthly rent.

It was beautiful.

It was also completely, utterly cold.

"Your suite is the east wing," Mrs. Oluwaseun said, leading her down a wide hallway. "Mr. Cross has the west wing. You share the main living areas and the kitchen. Meals are prepared by staff unless you prefer otherwise." She pushed open a door. "This is yours."

Aria stepped inside.

The bedroom was large and quiet with high ceilings and soft grey walls and a bed so vast it looked like a small country. A window seat overlooked the city. There was a writing desk, a walk-in wardrobe already stocked — she checked, and found clothes in exactly her size, tags still on, nothing ostentatious — and a bathroom with a tub she could have swum laps in.

"He guessed your size?" she asked.

"Mr. Cross is thorough," Mrs. Oluwaseun said simply.

After she left, Aria sat on the edge of that enormous bed and breathed slowly for a moment.

Six months, she reminded herself. For Maya. For the debt. For your degree. Six months and you walk away.

She changed out of her travel clothes, pulled her hair up, and decided to find the kitchen. She hadn't eaten since morning and she had a pharmacology exam in two days that she needed to study for.

She found the kitchen without difficulty.

She did not find the library without difficulty.

The penthouse was larger than it looked from the entrance — a maze of corridors that turned where she didn't expect them to, doors that led to unexpected rooms. She found a home gym. A wine cellar that occupied its own climate-controlled room. A formal dining space that could have seated twenty.

She was looking for somewhere quiet to study when she pushed open a door at the end of the north corridor and found the library.

It stopped her breath.

Three walls, floor to ceiling, every shelf filled. A rolling ladder on a brass rail. Two deep leather chairs by a fireplace that was lit despite the mild evening, because apparently Damien Cross heated his library regardless of the weather. A desk in the corner covered in papers and a single lamp casting warm gold light across the room.

Aria stepped inside without thinking.

She ran her fingers along the spines — medical texts, legal volumes, history, literature, things she recognized and things she didn't. There was a whole shelf of architecture. Another of philosophy. She pulled out a copy of Marcus Aurelius and turned it over in her hands.

Someone actually reads these, she thought. He actually reads these.

Somehow that surprised her more than the tub.

She was reaching for a second book when she heard the sound of running water.

She froze.

There was a door on the far wall — slightly ajar, warm light coming through the gap — that she had assumed was a closet.

It was not a closet.

She realized this approximately one second before the water stopped, the door swung fully open, and Damien Cross walked out in nothing but a towel, rubbing a second towel through his dark wet hair, completely unaware she was standing six feet away holding a copy of Meditations.

Aria's brain did several things simultaneously.

It noted, involuntarily and with unfortunate clarity, that Damien Cross looked exactly as devastating without a suit as he did in one — broad shoulders, lean muscle, a line of a scar along his left ribs that she filed away as a question for another day.

It then reminded her, firmly, that she was staring.

It then reminded him — via the sound of her sharply indrawn breath — that she was there at all.

Damien stopped walking.

He looked at her.

She looked at him.

The fire crackled.

"This," Aria said, her voice impressively steady given the circumstances, "is connected to your suite."

"Yes," he said. His voice was entirely unreadable. "It is."

"Mrs. Oluwaseun didn't mention that."

"No," he agreed. "She didn't."

Another beat of silence. He hadn't moved. She hadn't moved. The towel at his waist was doing its job — barely — and Aria was concentrating very hard on maintaining eye contact.

"I was looking for somewhere to study," she said.

"You found my library."

"I did. I'll leave."

"You don't have to."

She blinked. Of all the things she had expected him to say.

He crossed to the wardrobe on the far side of the room — moving past her close enough that she caught the scent of his soap, something clean and dark — and pulled out a shirt without particular urgency, like this was completely ordinary, like she wasn't standing in the middle of his private library trying to remember how to breathe normally.

"The library is shared space," he said, pulling the shirt on with his back to her. "I should have told you. Mrs. Oluwaseun showed you the ground rules?"

"The basics," she managed.

He turned around. Fully dressed now — dark shirt, grey trousers, feet still bare on the wooden floor. He looked at her with those unreadable eyes and she looked back at him and something in the air between them felt different from how it had felt in his office two days ago.

Closer, somehow. And not because of the distance.

"You said you had an exam," he said.

She stared at him. "How do you know that?"

"Your schedule was part of the contract review. Pharmacology, Thursday." He moved to the desk, shifted some papers. "You can use the library whenever you want. I'll knock before I come through the bathroom in future."

It was so practical. So entirely without drama. And yet something about the way he said it — quietly, without looking at her — made her feel like it cost him something small to offer it.

"Thank you," she said, because she was her mother's daughter and her mother had raised her to say it even to people who didn't deserve it, and Damien Cross — whatever else he was — had just extended something that looked a great deal like consideration.

He gave a short nod. Sat at his desk. Picked up his papers.

She sat in one of the leather chairs by the fire, opened her laptop, and tried very hard to concentrate on pharmacology.

She managed it. Mostly.

Except for the one moment, forty minutes in, when she looked up to check a reference and found him watching her from across the room with an expression she couldn't name — something quiet and focused and completely unguarded — and when their eyes met he looked back down at his papers immediately, like he hadn't been looking at all.

Aria looked back at her screen.

Her heart was doing something it had absolutely no business doing.

Six months, she told herself for the third time that day.

This time, she wasn't entirely sure she believed it.

⏭️ Chapter 4 Preview:

Their first public appearance together — a charity gala where Damien's ex shows up with an agenda, and Aria has to play the loving wife for the first time. But when a cruel comment is made about her background, it's Damien — not Aria — who draws blood...