CHAPTER 2: Signed In Ice
591 Words
The next day came with a flurry of activity. A stylist, a tailor, and a lawyer arrived at Ava’s apartment, crowding her tiny space with garment bags and contracts. Leonardo didn’t come. He simply sent instructions—and money.
The first half of the payment had already been deposited into her account. Ava stared at the numbers in disbelief for a long time before the reality truly sank in. This was real. She was really going to marry him.
She sat numbly as a woman with icy blonde hair and scarlet lips measured her for her wedding gown.
“No lace,” Leonardo had instructed through his assistant. “No tulle. Keep it clean. Simple. Elegant.”
It wasn’t a wedding. It was a business transaction with a dress code.
When the tailor left, Ava sat on her bed, surrounded by silence. The apartment that had once felt suffocating now felt hollow. Like she’d already begun leaving it behind.
Two days later, they stood in front of a private judge inside Leonardo’s penthouse. No flowers. No guests. Just a contract, a man in a suit, and a vow she barely remembered making.
“I do,” she said softly.
Leonardo said nothing until prompted. Then he looked at her, his eyes unreadable.
“I do.”
When the judge declared them husband and wife, Ava felt no joy. Just cold.
They didn’t kiss. Instead, Leonardo turned to his assistant and nodded.
“It’s done. Move her things into the penthouse.”
Ava followed him into the elevator, the gold wedding band on her finger feeling more like a shackle.
“You don’t believe in rings?” she asked, noting the absence of one on his own hand.
“I don’t believe in pretending.”
“And what is this then, if not pretend?”
Leonardo turned his head slowly. “Survival.”
Later that night, she wandered into the kitchen, barefoot and in sweatpants, hoping to find something familiar—food, warmth, maybe even silence she could call her own.
Instead, she found Leonardo at the island, sleeves rolled up, nursing a glass of red wine. He looked like he belonged on a magazine cover, not in a kitchen.
He glanced up. “Hungry?”
She opened the fridge. “Do you ever eat actual food, or is this place just for show?”
“There’s pasta in the drawer,” he said. “Top right. And a pan under the stove.”
“You cook?” She raised an eyebrow.
“I survive,” he said, sipping his wine.
Ava pulled out the pasta and began boiling water. Silence stretched between them like a tightrope.
Finally, she broke it. “What was she like?”
He looked up slowly. “Who?”
“Your stepmother.”
Leonardo’s jaw tightened. “A vulture. She married my father for his money, and now she wants the company too.”
Ava stirred the pasta. “And your mother?”
“Died when I was twelve. Cancer.”
A flicker of something crossed his face, but it was gone in a second.
She nodded quietly. “I’m sorry.”
He didn’t respond. Instead, he rose from his stool. “You don’t need to be sorry. Just remember your place.”
And just like that, the wall was back up.
But Ava had seen a crack—and beneath all the ice, something raw still lived.
When he left the room, she whispered to herself, “So do you, Mr. Blake. So do you.”
- Writer
