Chapter 2 – You’re in the Breach of Our Marriage Contract[Part 2]
1005 Words
He catches my wrist mid‑swing, fingers closing around my skin with infuriating ease. Heat shoots up my arm, my pulse pounding against his grip.
“Let go,” I grind out.
His mouth curves, not quite a smile. “Make me.”
Then he kisses me.
There’s no hesitation. No question. His mouth crashes down on mine like a claim, a punishment, a benediction.
I mean to bite. To shove. To do anything but melt.
My body does what it’s always done around him: betrays me.
My free hand fists in his shirt, dragging him closer instead of pushing him away. He tastes like whiskey, smoke, and copper—my own teeth are in his lip before I realize I’ve bitten hard enough to draw blood.
He groans into my mouth, low and rough, and the sound goes straight through me.
Seven years of lonely hotel beds, of writing his ghost into every line, detonate in my chest.
I hate him.
I hate that I still remember exactly how his tongue moves against mine. I hate that my knees go weak the second his fingers tighten in my hair, angling my head so he can take more.
I hate that a part of me feels like exhaling for the first time in years.
I wrench myself back with a gasp, breathing hard. His chest rises and falls against mine, his eyes blown wide with something that looks disturbingly like pain.
A thin line of blood glitters on his lower lip.
“Still feral,” he says, voice rough.
I wipe the back of my hand across my mouth. Red smears across my knuckles—lipstick, blood - I don’t want to know.
“I hate you,” I whisper.
“I know.”
We stand there a heartbeat too long, the air between us thick with things that taste like goodbye and hello at the same time.
Then he reaches into his jacket.
For a stupid second, I think guns.
He pulls out a stack of neatly folded papers instead and sets them on the vanity beside my hand.
“What is that?” My voice sounds scraped raw.
“Evidence,” he says. “Of your very poor memory.”
My name in bold type glares up at me from the top page.
VEGA, LUNA CELESTE.
My stomach drops.
I pick up the papers with fingers that don’t feel like mine. The first sheet is a photocopy of something older, the ink slightly faded. The date punches me in the chest:
Seven years ago. Two days before my first tour bus left Brooklyn.
Back when I thought love and cheap champagne were enough to sign anything.
My gaze tracks down the page.
LEGAL UNION. CIVIL CEREMONY. THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
Then the words in the center:
MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE
Names:
DANTE ALESSANDRO MORETTI
LUNA CELESTE VEGA‑MORETTI
For a moment, the letters swim. The room narrows to that one blinking line.
“No,” I say. It comes out thin. “No. This is fake.”
“It’s not fake,” Dante replies. His voice has gone cold. “There are originals on file. Courthouse. Witnesses.”
Images slam into me—our first hotel room, sheets twisted around our legs, Dante’s arms around me from behind, pen in my hand, his voice in my ear: *It’s just for protection, little star. Sign here.*
I thought it was a joke.
The state of New York, apparently, did not.
“I was drunk,” I say. “We were—this was—”
“A legal marriage,” he says. “You are my wife, Luna. And you’ve been in breach of our contract for seven years.”
“Contract,” I repeat, numb.
He taps the second page: dense paragraphs of legal language. EXCLUSIVITY. NONDISCLOSURE. REPRESENTATION.
My eyes snag on one line:
The wife agrees to conduct her professional career in accordance with prior agreements made with the husband and his representatives.
My head snaps up. “What the hell does that even mean?”
“It means,” he says softly, “you don’t get to pretend I don’t exist while you build an empire on songs you wrote about me. It means you don’t get to slip my name into the most‑streamed track in the world and be surprised when I walk through your door.”
Anger slices through the shock, sharp and clean.
“You left me,” I snap. “With a note. Like a coward.”
His jaw clenches. “Sing for the world. Forget me,” he recites, eyes on my tattoo. “You got half of it right.”
“Don’t you dare—”
“I told you to forget me,” he cuts in, voice going lethal. “You didn’t. You broadcast me.”
He steps in again, close enough that the papers crinkle between us.
“So now,” Dante Moretti says, like he’s ordering a drink, not detonating my life, “we do this my way.”
“I’m not yours,” I say, every word ground out between my teeth. “Not your wife. Not your anything.”
He smiles then. Slow. Sure. Terrifying.
“The law disagrees,” he says.
His thumb drags once along my lower lip, smearing what’s left of my lipstick.
“Pack your things, Mrs. Moretti. Your tour is over. You’re coming home.”
Rage flares, hot enough to burn through the fear.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I snarl.
His fingers fall away. He takes a step back, collecting himself like he’s closing a file.
“We’ll see,” he says.
He walks out of my dressing room like he owns it.
Like he owns me.
The door closes softly behind him, leaving me alone with a marriage certificate, smeared lipstick, and the horrible realization that the man I wrote my first hit about may have been writing my contracts long before the world knew my name.
- Writer
