THE SOUND THROUGH THE WALL

Rosa’s Pov

One suitcase sat by the door. That was everything I owned that still mattered.

The housekeeper waited near the elevator with her hands folded. Older woman, gray hair pulled back, a uniform pressed so sharp it looked painful.

"Mrs Gosling?"

"Rosa is fine."

"I'm Greta." She didn't smile, didn't frown either. "Mr. Gosling asked me to show you to your room."

"My room."

"Down the hall from his." Greta's eyes flicked to my suitcase, then back to my face. "Separate."

"Of course it's separate."

She led me past white marble floors, past a wall of windows showing half of Manhattan glittering below us, past a kitchen that looked like it had never once been used for actual cooking.

"This is yours." Greta opened a door onto a room bigger than Sophie's entire apartment. Cream walls. A bed that could fit four people. Not one personal item anywhere.

"It's beautiful," I said, because it was, and because I didn't know what else to say standing in a stranger's house that was apparently also my house now.

"Mr. Gosling left early this morning." Greta set my suitcase on a bench at the foot of the bed. "He didn't say when he'd return."

"Does he ever say?"

Something flickered across her face. Not quite a smile. "Rarely."

She left me alone after that.

I sat on the edge of the bed and called Sophie before I could lose my nerve.

"Tell me everything," Sophie said the second she picked up.

"It's a museum." I flopped back against pillows that smelled like nothing, like money, like a hotel room that had never been slept in. "White everywhere. No photos. No mess. Nothing that looks like a person actually lives here."

"Is he there?"

"He left before I even arrived."

"Seriously?"

"There's a housekeeper named Greta who shows me where things are and tells me he's unavailable." I pressed a hand over my eyes. "I moved across the city for a marriage and so far I've met a maid and an empty apartment."

"That man better show up tonight."

"I'm not holding my breath."

"Rosa—"

"I'm fine, Sophie." I sat up, looked around the room that wasn't mine, would never feel like mine. "I knew what this was. A business deal. Stability for the baby. That's all I signed up for."

"You signed up for more than that in Vegas."

"Vegas was tequila and bad decisions."

"Vegas was also real, and you know it." Sophie's voice softened. "I heard how you talked about him on the phone after. That wasn't just tequila."

I didn't answer that.

"Call me later," she said. "I want updates."

"There won't be much to report."

"Call me anyway."

I hung up and sat in the silence of a room too big for one person.

The hours moved slow. I unpacked what little I had, hung my three good shirts in a closet built for a hundred. Found the kitchen again around six, decided I'd cook something simple. Pasta. Garlic, olive oil, whatever vegetables Greta had stocked in a refrigerator that looked like it belonged in a magazine.

Greta found me chopping onions an hour later. "You don't need to cook, Mrs. Gosling."

"Rosa."

"Rosa." She watched me work for a moment. "There's a chef who comes twice a week."

"I like cooking." I didn't look up from the cutting board. "It's the one thing that still feels normal."

She nodded slowly, left me to it.

I made enough for two. Set the table for two, actually used the dining room instead of the kitchen counter, lit one of the candles I found in a drawer because some stubborn, hopeful part of me thought maybe tonight would be different. Maybe he'd walk in and see the effort and something would shift between us.

Eight o'clock came and went. Then nine. Then ten.

I ate alone at a table built for twelve people, my plate the only one with food on it, the candle burning down to nothing while I scrolled my phone and pretended I wasn't waiting for the sound of an elevator.

Eleven thirty, I finally heard it.

The elevator chimed. Footsteps crossed the marble floor, slow, tired-sounding. I sat up straighter, half-rose from the couch where I'd moved after giving up on the table.

"Daniel?"

No answer.

I caught a glimpse of him passing the living room doorway, jacket slung over one arm, tie already loosened. His eyes found mine for exactly one second.

"Long day," he said. Not even said, really. Muttered.

"I made dinner. There's some left if you—"

He was already gone, his bedroom door clicking shut down the hall before I finished the sentence.

I stood there holding the rest of my words in my mouth like they'd never had anywhere to go.

I cleared the table myself. Blew out the candle. Walked back to my room and lay down on a bed too soft, too cold, too empty for someone who'd been pregnant for exactly five weeks and married for exactly five weeks and somehow felt more alone than she had the night Marcus left her at the altar.

I almost drifted off.

Then I heard his voice through the wall.

Low. Controlled. The particular tone of someone trying not to be overheard and failing anyway because the walls in this place, for all their marble and money, weren't nearly thick enough.

"No, I haven't signed anything yet." A pause. "I'm aware of the timeline."

I sat up slowly.

"The situation's changed." Another pause, longer this time. "There's a pregnancy involved now. I need to know what our options look like once the child is born."

My stomach dropped straight through the floor.

"I'm not asking you to rush it. I'm asking you to have the paperwork ready." His voice stayed flat the entire time, like he was discussing a hotel acquisition instead of a wife three rooms away. "An annulment after the birth is still cleaner than a divorce. Fewer complications. Less exposure for the company."

I pressed my hand against my mouth so he wouldn't hear me breathing.

"Just have it ready," he said again. "I'll let you know when."

The call ended. Silence settled back into the apartment, thick and final.

I sat in the dark with both hands pressed flat against my stomach, staring at the wall between his room and mine like it might give me some answer.

He'd told me this was about the baby. He'd told me stability mattered, that he wouldn't let his child grow up the way he had.

He hadn't told me he was already planning the exit.

I lay back down slowly, eyes wide open, staring at a ceiling I didn't recognize in a life I hadn't chosen, and I thought about cheap chapel rings and seven-word notes and a man who apparently meant every cold word he'd ever said to me.

Stability, apparently, came with an expiration date.

And he'd just told someone else exactly when the clock started.