Married To The Man Who Ruined Me

Chapter 10: A Glimpse Behind the Mask

The next three days were a blur of silence and distance.

After that night in the hallway, after she’d found him bleeding, after she’d helped him to his bathroom, after she’d cleaned and bandaged the wound on his side while he sat on the edge of his bathtub and watched her with eyes she couldn’t read, Jordan had retreated behind walls she couldn’t breach.

The wound was shallow, he’d said. A disagreement with someone who disagreed more violently than expected. Nothing to concern her. Nothing to worry about. He’d handled it. He always handled it.

Esther had wanted to ask more. Wanted to know who had hurt him, why, whether it was connected to the deal he’d mentioned, the traditionalist partner, the reason he’d needed a wife in the first place. But he’d stood up, pulled his shirt down, and walked her to the door of his room like she was a guest who’d overstayed her welcome.

“Thank you,” he’d said. “I’ll remember this.”

And then he’d closed the door, and she’d stood in the hallway, her hands still stained with his blood, and wondered what she’d just done.

Now, three days later, they were preparing for their first public appearance as husband and wife. A business dinner. Important clients. The kind of event where Jordan needed to perform, and she needed to perform beside him.

A stylist had come that afternoon. Hair, makeup, a dress she hadn’t chosen, deep green silk that draped across her shoulders and fell to the floor, elegant and understated and exactly what a billionaire’s wife should wear. Esther looked at herself in the mirror and saw a stranger. Someone polished. Someone expensive. Someone who belonged in Jordan Kingman’s world.

“Ready?”

She turned. Jordan stood in the doorway of her room, dressed in black, his hair freshly cut, his face the mask she’d come to recognize. The wound beneath his shirt was hidden, the incident in the hallway erased, everything about him controlled and perfect.

She didn’t know which version of him was real anymore. The man who’d touched a sunflower petal like it was something precious. The man who’d let her bandage his wound without complaint. Or the man standing before her now, cold and distant, looking at her like she was a prop he needed to inspect before a performance.

“Ready,” she said.

The dinner was held at a private club in the heart of the city, the kind of place where memberships were inherited rather than applied for. Esther had walked past it a hundred times, had always assumed she’d never see the inside. Now she walked through its doors on Jordan Kingman’s arm, and every eye in the room turned to watch them enter.

She felt it immediately, the weight of their attention, the curiosity, the hunger for something to talk about. Esther Morretti. The woman who’d slapped him. The woman who’d married him three days later. The scandal that wouldn’t stop giving.

Jordan’s hand was at her back, warm and steady, guiding her through the crowd. He smiled at her, a private smile, just for her and she saw the other guests register it, saw them recalculating what they thought they knew.

“You’re nervous,” he murmured, his lips close to her ear.

“I’m not nervous.”

“Your heart is racing. I can feel it through your dress.”

Esther’s face heated. She wanted to pull away, wanted to remind him that this was a performance, that none of it was real. But they were in public, and everyone was watching, and she’d agreed to play his wife.

“I’m fine,” she said through her teeth.

His hand pressed slightly, a reassurance or a warning, she couldn’t tell. “You’re more than fine. You’re magnificent. And they’re all wondering how I managed to convince someone like you to marry me.”

She looked at him. His face was the mask again, but his eyes—his eyes were something else. Something almost vulnerable.

“Maybe you should tell them,” she said. “That I’m the one who convinced you.”

His mouth curved. “My wife, rewriting history already. I knew I chose well.”

The dinner itself was a performance.

Esther watched Jordan work the room with the same skill she’d seen at the investor dinner, but this was different. This was intimate. Seven couples around a mahogany table, the conversation flowing like wine, Jordan at the head of it all, drawing everyone out, making everyone feel seen.

And through it all, he kept his attention on her.

His hand found hers under the table. His thumb traced circles on her palm while he discussed market trends with the man to his left. He leaned close to whisper something in her ear, a comment about the wine, a joke about the host and made her laugh, a real laugh, the kind she hadn’t managed in months. She saw the other women watching them, saw the envy in their eyes, and felt something she didn’t want to name.

Possession. Pride. Something dangerous.

“You’re good at this,” she said during a lull, when the conversation had shifted to the other end of the table.

“At what?”

“Being my husband.” She met his eyes. “The hand-holding. The whispering. The way you look at me like I’m the only person in the room.”

Jordan’s expression didn’t change, but something in his eyes shifted. Darkened. “Maybe I’m not performing.”

The words hung between them. Esther’s heart stuttered. She opened her mouth to respond, to deflect, to remind him of the contract, the terms, the year that would end with her walking away.

But before she could speak, the man across the table raised his glass. “To the happy couple. Jordan, I have to say, when I heard you’d married, I assumed it was a business arrangement. But watching you two tonight…” He shook his head, smiling. “You’re clearly in love. Congratulations.”

The table raised their glasses. Esther raised hers, her hand steady, her face a mask she was learning to wear. Beside her, Jordan was equally composed, equally convincing, the perfect husband toasting his perfect wife.

She drank, and the wine tasted like ash.

The car ride home was silent.

Esther stared out the window at the city passing by, her mind churning through everything that had happened. The hand-holding. The whispering. The way he’d looked at her when he said maybe I’m not performing. The man at the table, so certain they were in love, so certain their marriage was real.

She didn’t know what was real anymore. Didn’t know if the warmth in Jordan’s eyes was calculation or something else. Didn’t know if her own racing heart was fear or desire or some terrible combination of both.

The car pulled up to Kingman Tower. The driver opened the door, and Jordan helped her out his hand on her elbow, steady and careful, the way a husband might help his wife. She let him. Didn’t pull away. Didn’t know if she wanted to.

The elevator ride was silent too. Jordan stood beside her, his face unreadable, his hands in his pockets. The numbers climbed. Forty-five. Forty-six. Forty-seven. The doors opened. Esther stepped into the penthouse, and for a moment, she thought he would go to his room, would retreat behind the walls he’d built, would leave her alone with her questions and her doubts.

But he didn’t.

“Esther.” His voice stopped her halfway across the living room. She turned. He stood in the doorway, the city behind him, his face half in shadow. “In the car. You asked if any of it was real.”

She waited. Her heart was pounding so hard she was sure he could hear it.

Jordan moved toward her, slowly, each step deliberate. When he was close enough to touch, he stopped.

“I don’t know how to answer that,” he said. His voice was different. Rougher. The mask was slipping, she could see it, cracks in the control he’d spent a lifetime building. “I’ve spent years being exactly what people expect me to be. The ruthless businessman. The cold billionaire. The man who doesn’t feel anything because feeling anything is weakness.”

He reached out, slowly, and touched her face. His fingers were warm against her cheek. Gentle. Almost tender.

“You make me want to feel something,” he whispered. “And that terrifies me more than anything I’ve ever faced.”

Esther stared at him. At the cracks in his mask. At the raw thing underneath, the thing he’d been hiding from her, from everyone, maybe from himself.

“Jordan”

“Don’t.” His thumb brushed her lip, silencing her. “Don’t say anything. Not tonight. If you say something, I won’t be able to pretend anymore, and I need to pretend. I need to remember why we’re here. What this is.”

He stepped back. Dropped his hand. The mask slid back into place, but she’d seen it, the man underneath, the one who touched sunflower petals like they were precious, who let her bandage his wounds, who looked at her like she was the only real thing in his glass tower.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said. And then he walked away, down the hallway, into his room, closing the door behind him.

Esther stood in the living room, surrounded by her books and her photographs and her sunflowers, and felt the weight of what had just happened settle over her.

He was her enemy. He’d destroyed her family. He’d bought her with a contract and locked her in a cage but she’d seen him. The real him. And the real him was nothing like the man she’d spent six months hating.

Her phone buzzed in her bag. She pulled it out, distracted, still thinking about his face, his voice, the way his thumb had brushed her lip.

The message was from an unknown number.

“You think you know who you married. You don’t. Ask him about the fire. Ask him about the night his father died. Ask him what really happened to Morretti Industries before it’s too late”.

Esther stared at the screen. Her hands were shaking. She read the message again, then again, the words blurring and refocusing.

The fire. His father. What really happened to Morretti Industries. She looked up, toward the hallway where Jordan had disappeared, and felt something cold settle in her stomach.

She didn’t know what game she’d walked into. But she was starting to understand that she didn’t know the rules. And neither, perhaps, did he.