ALPHA’S CONTRACT BRIDE

Inside the walls

Remington Estate is not what I expected.

I don’t know what I expected exactly. Something cold maybe. Steel and glass and sharp edges everywhere — a physical extension of the man who owns it. Instead Mrs. Park leads me through hallways lined with dark wood paneling and tall windows that let the late afternoon light pour in like something warm and unhurried.

It feels like a home.

That bothers me more than I want to admit.

“Your suite is in the east wing,” Mrs. Park says. She is a small woman. Neat silver hair. The kind of face that has seen everything and reacted to none of it. “Mr. Remington had it prepared last week.”

Last week.

He had it prepared before I even signed.

I file that away without reacting. I’ve become very good at filing things away without reacting.

The suite is large. Larger than my entire apartment. A wide bed dressed in deep charcoal linen. A window seat overlooking gardens that are somehow still green despite the season. A writing desk in the corner with a small lamp already switched on like someone knew I’d arrive in the fading light and want it.

Small detail. Probably Mrs. Park’s doing.

I tell myself that.

“Dinner at seven,” Mrs. Park reminds me gently. “The dining room is at the end of the main hall. First left after the staircase.”

She leaves me alone.

I stand in the center of the room and breathe.

Then I do what I came here to do. I walk the perimeter of the suite slowly, touching nothing, cataloging everything. Two doors — one to a bathroom, one to a small dressing room already stocked with hangers. One window with a view of the garden and a locked iron gate at its far edge. The east wing stretches to my left based on the walk from the main entrance. Kade’s study, according to the contract, sits in the west wing.

Far enough that he won’t notice me moving at night.

Good.

I unpack methodically. Clothes first. Then the small leather notebook Victor gave me — a list of what to look for, where it might be hidden, how to move without drawing attention. I read it once more then slide it beneath the lining of my empty suitcase the way he showed me.

Victor’s voice moves through my head the way it always does when I need steadying.

You’re doing this for Elena. Remember that. Everything you do in that house — you’re doing it for her.

I close my eyes.

I remember.

Then I get dressed for dinner.

He’s already seated when I arrive.

Seven o’clock exactly and Kade Remington sits at the head of a dining table that could seat twenty, jacket gone, sleeves rolled to the elbow, reading something on his phone with the focused stillness of a man who is never truly off duty.

He doesn’t look up when I enter.

I take the seat to his left — close enough to be appropriate, far enough to be clear.

A woman I don’t recognize serves the first course in silence. The food is extraordinary. I eat because I need my strength and because showing discomfort is a luxury I can’t afford.

We don’t speak for eleven minutes. I count.

“You unpacked,” he says finally. Still not looking up from his phone.

“I’m here for a year,” I say. “It seemed practical.”

He sets the phone down then. Looks at me with that same measuring expression from the boardroom. Like he’s checking something against a list in his head.

“Do you ride?” he asks.

The question is so unexpected I almost miss a beat. Almost.

“Horses?” I ask.

“No. Motorcycles.” The corner of his mouth moves. “Yes. Horses.”

I look at him evenly. “Why?”

“The grounds are large. It’s the most efficient way to cover them.” He picks up his fork. “I ride at six every morning if you want to join.”

He says it the same way he says everything — like he’s reading a report. No warmth. No suggestion. Just information placed in front of me that I can take or leave.

I think about the grounds. The locked gate I saw from my window. The paths that might lead to parts of this estate not covered in the contract’s access clauses.

“I’ll think about it,” I say.

He nods once. Goes back to eating.

We finish dinner in silence. Comfortable for him apparently. A living, breathing thing for me — full of everything I’m not saying, everything I’m watching, every small detail I’m pressing into memory to examine later in the quiet of my room.

The way he eats without looking at his food because he’s always thinking about something else. The way he refills my water glass without being asked, without making it a gesture, without acknowledging it at all. The way he carries silence like other men carry conversation — completely naturally. Like it never occurred to him that silence needs to be filled.

I don’t know what to do with any of it.

I excuse myself at eight. He stands when I stand — automatic, almost unconscious — and I feel that small motion more than I should.

I walk back to my room.

I sit on the edge of the bed in the dark for a long time.

Then I open my notebook and write one line.

He is not what I was told.

I stare at it.

Then I close the notebook. Press it shut with both hands like I can seal the thought inside it.

It doesn’t matter what he is, I remind myself. It only matters what he did.

I lie down in the dark and wait for sleep that doesn’t come.

And somewhere on the other side of this estate, in a wing I’m not allowed to enter, I imagine a man doing exactly the same thing.