Calculated Risks.

~ Gideon ~

“Is she actually that quiet, or is she just terrified of you?”

Adrian’s voice cut through the hum of the server banks in my private office. I didn't look up from the tablet in my hand. We were on the sixty-fourth floor of Helix Tower, and the city of Ravenport stretched out behind me in a grid of cold, electric blue. My focus remained on the quarterly projection for our logistics merger—a project that required precision, not gossip.

“She’s reserved,” I said. My voice was even, the tone I used for board meetings where the outcome was already decided. “It’s one of the reasons the contract works. She doesn't feel the need to fill every silence with noise.”

Adrian let out a short, sharp laugh and leaned back in the leather guest chair. He was my closest friend, which usually meant he was the only person allowed to be this annoying. “Reserved is one thing, Moore. But I saw her at the gala last night. When Selene started in on her dress, the girl looked like she was trying to phase through the floorboards. You didn't even blink.”

I finally set the tablet down. The memory of the gala was a smudge on an otherwise productive evening. Amara had spilled wine on herself—a clumsy, visible mistake in a world where visibility was a currency. I had walked away because staying would have validated the drama.

“Amara is an adult,” I replied, my voice tightening. “She understood the terms of the arrangement. I married a partner to stabilize the company’s image, not a ward who needs a bodyguard for social functions.”

“A partner,” Adrian repeated, his tone mocking. He stood up and walked toward the floor-to-ceiling window. “You’ve been married for a month. Tell me, Gideon, what’s her middle name?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but the word didn't come. I knew her age—twenty-four. I knew her father’s debt to the penny. I knew her signature was neat and small, tucked into the bottom right corner of twelve different legal documents.

But her middle name was a blank space.

“It isn't relevant to the contract,” I said, turning back to my monitor.

“Right. Strictly business.” Adrian shook his head. “Just a reminder, the Moore Family Foundation dinner is next week. Your mother is already planning the seating chart. If you don't want your ‘partner’ to be eaten alive by your cousin again, you might want to at least learn her favorite color.”

“She’ll manage,” I said. It was a mantra I used to convince myself that my indifference wasn't a choice, but a strategy.

After Adrian left, the silence in the office felt heavier than usual. I tried to go back to the spreadsheets, but the numbers seemed disconnected from the reality of the mansion waiting for me at Moore Crest. I thought about the way Amara had looked in that emerald dress—a ghost haunting a marriage that only existed on paper.

I reached for the HR file I kept on the Kline family. I scrolled past the debt ledgers and the warehouse deed. I found her birth certificate.

Amara Rose Kline.

The name felt strange in my head. Rose. It was a soft name, one that didn't fit the clinical nature of our life together. I closed the file and stood up, walking to the window. Down below, the lights of Ravenport blurred into a single, glowing streak.

I was a man who calculated risks for a living. I had calculated that Amara was a safe bet—a woman who would take up as little space as possible and ask for even less. But as I stared at the dark reflection of the tower, I wondered if I had missed a variable.

I had married her for her silence, but for the first time, that silence felt like it was hiding something I wasn't prepared to lose.

I picked up my phone and called Maribel, the head housekeeper. “Is my wife in her rooms?”

“She’s in the library, sir,” Maribel answered. Her voice was clipped, echoing the same dismissive tone she used when Amara wasn't around. “She’s been there since she returned from the boutique with Miss Selene.”

“Thank you.”

I hung up and headed for the elevator. I told myself I was going home to check on a business asset. I told myself that knowing her middle name changed nothing. But as the elevator descended, I couldn't stop thinking about the red stain on her dress and the way she hadn't cried.