Under the Lawyer's Obsession

Chapter 5:Rules and cracks

Rose Calloway walked out of city hall legally married to a man she had met four days ago.

The thought arrived and sat there, too large to process properly, as Cassian's driver pulled the car away from the curb and the city slid past the windows in its usual indifferent rush.

"Here." Cassian held out a folder.

Rose looked at it. "What's this?"

"The contract. It's been finalized." He set it in her lap when she didn't take it fast enough. "I'd like you to read it properly tonight, not skim it. But I'll go over the essentials now."

"The essentials?"

"We won't share a bedroom." He said it like he was reading a grocery list. "The penthouse has two wings. You'll have the east side, I have the west. There's no reason for that to change."

"Okay…"

"No public statements about the marriage without running them by me first. That includes social media — anything you post, anything Lily posts if it involves you and me, gets approved before it goes up."

Rose frowned. "You want to approve Lily's i********:?"

"I want to approve anything that becomes part of the public record of this marriage. That's not negotiable."

"That's fine by me."

"Public appearances, firm dinners, client events, anything I need you present for — I'll give you as much notice as I can. You must always accompany me."

"That's okay, as along as you tell me before hand."

"I know," he said, and something about the way he said it made her look over at him. He was watching the road, not her, but there was something almost like approval in his voice. "One more thing."

"Go on."

"You don't ask about my personal life." His voice didn't change registers at all, which was somehow the thing that made it land harder. "Not what I do outside the office. Not who I see. Not where I go when I'm not with you. That stays separate."

Rose looked at him for a moment with narrowed eyes. "I understand that this may not be a marriage built on love, but I refuse to be known as a woman who was cheated on. I will not accept infidelity."

“I took vows, and I intend to honor them. You can be assured of my faithfulness, and I expect the same from you.” Cassian replied sharply.

"Right." She looked back down at the folder in her lap. "Of course."

"Do you have questions?"

She did. She had approximately forty questions, most of which she didn't have the energy to ask right now. She picked one.

"What do I tell people? If they ask how we met."

"The truth, mostly. I was your uncle's estate attorney. We met through legal proceedings. Fell for each other faster than either of us expected." He said it so cleanly it barely sounded like a lie. "People like a story that started professionally and became personal. It reads as real."

"Does it," Rose said, quiet.

"It will," Cassian said, "if we're both careful."

She nodded. Turned the folder over in her hands without opening it. The car moved through an intersection, stopped at a light, moved again, and Rose found she had run out of things to ask.

She looked out the window instead.

"Everything okay?"

The rough edge in his voice broke through the fog of her own thoughts. Rose turned her head and gave him a small smile. "Of course. I should really say thank yo—"

"You don't need to." He gave her a curt nod before she could finish, already turning to his driver. "Raymond, change of plans. We need to drop by the apartment first, then head to the airport."

"Yes, sir."

Rose swallowed and fisted her hands in her lap. Now what? Did they talk? Not talk at all? How did any of this work?

Surprisingly, he was the one who broke the silence.

"I might be out of reach for a few hours each day, depending on my meetings, but I'll get back to you as soon as I can." He was staring straight ahead, and for a moment she couldn't tell if he was talking to her or the windshield. "If something comes up with Bryan — or Dana — and they give you any trouble about the marriage, leave me a message. Don't talk to either of them until you hear back from me."

"If everything goes as planned, I'll be back in a week at most." He paused. "If you wish, you can accompany me."

"Oh — thank you, but I can't. I need to work on the coffee shop, and as much—"

"You're right," he interrupted before she'd finished. "I'd rather go myself as well."

She nodded and looked out the window, not entirely sure she'd hidden her relief well enough. Him being away for a week meant seven more days to come to terms with what she'd just done. She'd take every extra minute she could get.

"Where are you going, exactly?" she asked, realizing she had no idea.

"London."

"Oh. I've always wanted to visit London — anywhere in Europe, really. You're lucky you get to travel. I don't know if lawyers do a lot of that, but—" She paused, waiting for him to fill the space, if only to keep the conversation limping along.

"Do you have a client in London?" she tried again, already knowing it was pointless.

Cassian lifted his wrist, checked his watch, and shook his head — an answer to nothing in particular. "Raymond, take the next turn. Get us out of here."

*What had she gotten herself into?*

If she couldn't manage a single conversation with the man, what exactly were they supposed to do for the next twelve months? Sit across from each other in silence?

She pressed her palm against her stomach like she could hold everything in — the emotion, the disappointment, every plan that had quietly rearranged itself in the last four days — but it was already too late.

The first tear slid down her cheek before she could stop it. She brushed it away fast with the back of her hand, telling herself there was no reason to cry, but the others kept coming anyway. Within minutes she was crying properly — silent, steady, the kind of crying that didn't make a sound but didn't stop either. She was distantly aware her mascara was probably a disaster. She didn't check.

The car slowed. Stopped.

Rose opened her eyes and realized they'd pulled up on the wrong side of the City entirely. She turned to say something to Cassian and the words died in her throat.

His jaw was tight, his brows drawn together, eyes moving over her face with an intensity that made the air in the car feel thinner. She tried, uselessly, to wipe away the evidence without a mirror to guide her.

"This is the wrong—"

"Take her to the apartment," Cassian said to the driver, already reaching for the door. "I'll get to the airport on my own."

Then his expression shut down entirely — flat, closed, unreadable — as he looked at her one last time.

"This was a mistake," he said. "We shouldn't have done this."

Rose was still staring at the space where he'd been sitting when the door closed behind him, leaving his bride, thirty minutes married — alone in the back seat.

‘This was a mistake.’

Not exactly the words a woman wanted to hear a half hour into her marriage.

She hadn't thought so either.

The rest of the ride passed in a blur of blue-tinted silence. By the time Raymond pulled up in front of her apartment, she had already wiped her face clean, as though nothing had happened at all.

She stepped out of the car, thanked him softly for the ride, and he nodded, telling her to call whenever she needed one.

Inside her apartment, she slipped out of the cream dress, folding it with careful hands and placing it aside as if it carried more weight than fabric. Then she sat on her bed, drawing her knees to her chest, staring at her phone without really seeing it.

After a while, she lay back and let her gaze drift to the ceiling, allowing the events of the day to settle over her like dust that refused to clear.

She must have drifted off, because the sudden buzz of her phone jolted her awake.

Half-asleep, she reached for it, expecting a message from Lily.

Instead, she found a message from an unknown number.

“You don’t know who you just married.”

She read i

t once.

Then again.

And a third time.

Each reading felt colder than the last, the words sinking deeper, turning heavier in her chest.