FORCED MARRIAGE, CEO'S LITTLE WIFE

Chapter Four

Sophie's Saturday nights arrive like a dare. I’ve spent the whole day inside, moving from bed to couch to window and back again, letting the afternoon sink into the walls. I wash a single mug, fold a towel that doesn’t need folding, and check my phone for nothing. Rain taps the fire escape in a steady, needling rhythm. The city is out there, pulsing, and I’m not a part of it. Maya pads out of her in socks and an oversized sweatshirt, with her hair up and a pen stuck behind her ear. She stops when she sees me sitting in the dark without the laon. “You didn’t leave once,” she says, not unkindly. “Not even for coffee. “I made some here,” I lift the empty mug up. “Got to save money somehow, right? “You made a sludge.” She crosses her hands and gives me the face she makes when she’s about to press. “It’s Saturday. You used to love Saturdays. “I used to love having disposable income,” I say, aiming for a joke then missing.She comes closer, leans a hip on the arm of the couch, and studies me. “You’re wearing that face again. “What face? “The one that says ‘if I sit very still and breathe very shallowly, maybe the ceiling won’t fall in.’” Her voice softens. “Go out tonight Soph. Please. Just for a couple of hours. See something that isn’t the apartment or gallery. Let the world nicely touch you for once.”I think of the bills in my bag. I think of the gallery’s polished floor and Mrs Carisle’s tight mouth. I think of being twenty-five and watching myself shrink, week by week, into someone I don’t recognize. “I’d rather sleep.”“You don’t sleep,” she says gently. “You worry with your eyes closed.”I huff out a breath that could be a laugh if I tried harder. “Where would I even go? “Anywhere. There’s a rooftop bar on Eleventh— Talon? You like views. Put on lipstick. Take an umbrella.” She nudges my knee with her knuckles. “Just go to be someone who isn’t carrying the world for a night. I’ll be here when you get back.”The rain thickens at the window, trailing bright lines down the glass. I picture the skyline from the high floor, the city smudged and shimmering. I picture myself in it. Not Sophie the dependable, the one who stretches groceries, edits resumes, and keeps a brave face. Just a woman… on a Saturday. “I don’t think I won anything root too bar appropriate,” I say. Maya disappears into her room and returns with a black dress slung over her arm and the clean, citrus smell of her perfume. “Borrow this and my gold hoops. Hair down. “You're bossy.” “Only when I’m right.” She presses the dress into my hands and kisses my forehead. “Go. I’ll finish my paper and pretend to be grown up later.”I change. The dress skins on my knees, simple and lowkey, the kind of thing that turns invisible until the light hits it. I brush my hair out, paint in a thin eyeliner, and step into the night with her umbrella and the little courage she’s lent me. Rain streaks the streets, soft at first then decisive. Taxis just pass, headlights washing the pavement. The air smells like wet concrete and possibility. I walk fast to keep myself from second-guessing, keeping my head down until the semi na appears, a rectangular or gold light pitched above the sidewalk like a promise. Inside, the elevator opens into the glass. The room glows, all warm wood and soft music, the city falling away at every side. Couples lean close to the tables. Laughter spills in low ripples. Bartenders move like they are choreographed. This place is not for me, I feel that in the soles of my shoes— and still, I cross the bar and claim a corner as if I belong. The bartender clocks my damp hair and the single ring on my finger and gives me the mercy of a smile. “What can I get you? “Something small,” I say. “Something that won’t make me sell a kidney.” He suggests a house spritz. I nod. It comes pale and cold with a slice of orange that looks like a tiny sun. I take a sip and let the view do the work the drink can’t: the river a dark line, windows like constellations, rain softening the edges of everything. I try to unclench. I try to remember what it feels like to not always be bracing. That’s when I feel it. A gaze. Not the casual glance people throw around the room like spare change. This feels focused— cool and deliberated. Like it’s specifically for me. I look over my shoulder. He stands a few steps away, half shadowed, speaking to no one. The suit is black and perfect, the fabric taking the light without giving anything back. Confidence in the line of his shoulder, in the way he occupies space like he paid for the square footage of the air. My eyes find his, and in them there’s no color I can name— just depth. Darker than black, the kind that holds and reflects at the same time. My throat goes dry. I tell myself to look away first. I don’t. He crosses the distance like he owns it. “Is the view as good as they say? His voice was low, controlled, carrying just enough to reach me and no one else. “It depends on what you're looking at,” I say, surprising myself with how steady I sound. One corner of his mouth lifts. Not a smile. Permission. “And what are you looking at? “Proof that the city’s a story and not just a debt collector with good PR.” He takes it without flinching, as if people speak to him in riddles all the time. He nods at my glass. “Do you mind if I join you?”Every sensible instinct I own says no: strangers, bars, money, power. The woman I’ve been all day— tired, shrinking— wanted to say no, go home, pull a blanket over her head. But the other woman, or the one Maya pushed toward the door, tips her chin and says, “It’s a free barstool.”He sits. The bartender brings him something dark, no menu consulted, and places it without a word. It’s a small thing, that quiet deference, but I clock it. This man is used to yes. The first minutes thread by on small talk that isn’t small. He asks what I do, and when I say I work at a gallery he doesn’t ask for gossip or discounts. He asks which pieces I anchor to when the day is heavy. He asks what color I see in the winter daylight. When I answer, his attention doesn’t wander. It’s unnerving to be listened to like this, like my thoughts are a currency he recognizes. He offers to buy me another drink. I should refuse. But I nod. The spritz gives way to something citrus and sharp, then a glass of water tucked between them like a breath. The rain presses harder against the glass, sweeping the city clean and blurring the edges again. And for a time the noise in my head stills.