Chapter Two

Celeste's Pov

The contract was four pages.

Iris left it on the desk in my room that evening with a pen placed neatly on top like it was a hotel welcome form. I sat down and read every line twice. The language was clean and precise in the way that legal documents are when someone wants to make sure there is no room for argument later.

I was to reside in the estate. I was to carry an heir. I was to make no public statements about the arrangement without prior approval. In return I would have full financial provision, security, and at the end of the contract term, a settlement that would cover the rest of my life.

There was a line near the bottom that said consummation was expected within the first thirty days.

I put the pen down and stared at that line for a long time.

Then I signed it. Because not signing it was never actually an option and I was done pretending otherwise.

***************

Dinner that first night was the two of us at a table built for twelve. Nico sat at the head. Iris had someone place me to his right. The food was good and the silence was the kind that had weight to it.

I ate. He ate. I was not going to be the one who filled the quiet just to make things comfortable.

He spoke first. "You read the contract."

"All four pages."

"And."

"And I signed it." I picked up my glass. "You already know that."

He looked at me with an expression I couldn't fully read. Like he was categorizing me. Deciding which version of difficult I was going to be.

"I don't need you to be happy about it," he said. "I need you to follow the terms."

"I understand the terms."

"Good."

I set my glass down. "I have terms of my own."

That got a reaction. Small but there. "The contract is already signed."

"The contract covers what you need. I'm talking about what I need." I kept my voice even. "I want information before any decision that affects me directly. I want one afternoon a week where I leave the estate without an escort reporting back to you. And I want my sister to be able to visit."

He was quiet for a moment.

"The escort stays," he said. "They don't report the details. The visits can be arranged. The information depends on what the decision is."

It wasn't everything. It was more than I expected.

"Fine," I said.

We finished dinner without speaking again.

****************

I learned the shape of his days quickly. He was up before I was and already in his office by the time I came down. He worked through most of the morning, took calls I could sometimes hear the low register of through closed doors, and surfaced around midday looking like a man who carried everything and showed none of the weight. Lunch was separate. Dinner was together. That appeared to be the structure.

He was not unkind. That surprised me more than the coldness would have. He didn't speak much but when he did it was direct and he didn't condescend. He gave me space in a way that felt less like consideration and more like disinterest and I told myself that was fine. Disinterest I could work with.

What I could not work with was the inconsistency.

The third morning I came down and he was in the kitchen, not the dining room, the actual kitchen, standing at the counter with coffee and what looked like a newspaper and he looked up when I walked in and said good morning in a tone that was almost warm.

I stopped moving for just a second.

"Good morning," I said carefully.

He slid a second mug toward me without being asked. I hadn't told him how I took my coffee. He got it right anyway.

I sat down across from him and tried to remember if he had seemed like this the night before. He hadn't. The night before he had been distant and clipped and barely present. This version of him felt like a different frequency entirely.

I told myself people had moods. I told myself I was looking for problems because I was in a strange house and I was scared and my brain needed something to do.

I almost believed it.

***************

By the end of the first week I had mapped the estate. Not deliberately at first but I was not the kind of person who sat still in unfamiliar spaces. There was the main house, the east wing which was offices and a room Iris told me was for meetings, a separate structure at the back she described only as private, and the grounds which were larger than they looked from my window.

I asked Iris about the back structure on the fourth day.

"Storage and renovation," she said smoothly. "Nothing interesting."

She said it the way people say things when they have practiced saying them.

I nodded and let it go. Filed it.

Sera came at the end of the week. She sat across from me in the sitting room with her hands wrapped around her tea and she looked around the estate with wide eyes she was trying to keep neutral.

"It's not what I thought it would be," she said.

"What did you think it would be."

"I don't know. Colder."

"It is cold," I said. "It just has good furniture."

She almost smiled. Then it fell. "How is he."

"Functional." I looked at her. "Sera, why did you do it that night. The real reason."

She looked down at her tea. "I told you. The engagement—"

"The real reason."

She was quiet for long enough that I knew she was deciding how much to give me. That calculation on her face was one I had seen since we were children.

"Dante found out something about me," she said finally. "Something I couldn't let him hold over me for the rest of my life."

"What did he find out."

She looked up and opened her mouth.

Iris appeared in the doorway. "Mr. Voss would like a word, Mrs. Voss."

The name landed on me like a hand on my shoulder.

I stood up and looked at my sister. "We're not finished."

"I know," she said quietly. "Celeste, be careful tonight. Something feels different about him today."

I didn't know what she meant. I found out within the hour.