THE BILLIONAIRE'S FAKE BLIND WIFE

Chapter Six: My Husband Can See

Elena woke up the next morning in a bedroom bigger than her entire old apartment, sunlight pouring in through windows that stretched from the floor almost to the ceiling. For a second, lying there, she forgot where she was. Then it came back to her all at once, the diner, the wedding, the dark glasses coming off in that quiet side room, and she remembered exactly what kind of life she'd agreed to.

She found Alexander in a room downstairs that Helen had called the study, though it looked more like an office than anything meant for reading. He sat behind a desk covered in papers, glasses off, sleeves pushed up, looking more awake and alert than she'd seen him look since they met.

He didn't notice her right away, too focused on whatever he was reading, and Elena took a moment just to watch him. This was clearly who he actually was. Not the quiet, careful man in the wheelchair. This version, sharp and focused, moving through papers like he still ran half the company he was supposed to have lost interest in.

"You don't knock," he said, without looking up.

"The door was open."

"Not an invitation."

"Duly noted," Elena said, stepping inside anyway. "What is all this?"

Alexander glanced up at her, weighing something for a second before he answered. "Company reports. I still run Blackwood Holdings. Just not from where anyone can see me doing it."

"How does that even work? I thought you were supposed to be, what did your assistant call it, incapable of managing the business."

"That's what everyone believes," he said. "In reality, I make every major decision through people who report directly to me and nobody else. My uncle thinks he's running things day to day. He isn't. He's following instructions he doesn't know are mine."

Elena moved closer, glancing at the papers on his desk without really understanding most of what she was looking at. "Your uncle."

"Marcus," Alexander said. "My father's younger brother. He's been acting head of the company since the accident."

"You don't trust him."

Something shifted behind Alexander's eyes, quick and controlled. "I don't trust anyone completely. But there are people I trust less than others."

"Is he one of the people you think might have tried to kill you?"

The question landed heavier than Elena meant it to. Alexander set down the papers in his hand and looked at her directly, like he was deciding how much of an answer she'd actually earned.

"He's on the list," he said finally.

"Who else is on it?"

"That's not something I'm giving you on your second day in this house."

"You said you'd tell me the truth," Elena reminded him. "That was the deal."

"I said I'd tell you the truth," Alexander said. "I didn't say I'd tell you all of it at once. Trust isn't something I hand out because somebody asks for it."

Elena crossed her arms, annoyed but not entirely surprised. "Then what exactly am I allowed to know?"

"Enough to keep the act believable," he said. "Enough to understand why certain things happen the way they do in this house. The rest, you earn."

"That sounds like something someone says when they don't actually plan on telling anyone anything."

For the first time, something close to a real smile crossed his face, there and gone almost too fast to notice. "Careful. You're starting to sound like you actually care about the answer."

"I care about not getting killed for a secret I only half understand," Elena said. "That's not the same thing."

"Fair enough."

He went back to his papers, and Elena took that as her cue that the conversation was over for now, at least on his terms. She turned to leave, then stopped at the door, looking back at him.

"How do you do it," she asked. "Pretend to be someone broken every single day. Doesn't it wear on you?"

Alexander didn't look up right away. When he finally did, something in his expression had changed, something tired underneath the sharpness.

"Every day," he said quietly. "But it's better than the alternative."

"Which is?"

"Being actually dead instead of just pretending to be less than I am."

Elena didn't have anything to say to that. She left the study without another word, walking back through the long hallway lined with old portraits of Blackwoods who had lived and died in this house long before either of them showed up, and found herself wondering, not for the first time since she married him, exactly how deep this secret really went, and how far it would eventually pull her in.