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One hundred and sixty eight

Author: Ese Gwede
last update Last Updated: 2025-05-24 14:43:21

~Fallon~

The house was immaculate, as always.

Every candle on the side tables had been lit by the staff before they quietly disappeared. Every glass shone under the ambient light. The table was set — polished silverware, crystal glasses, flawless linen napkins — like we were hosting royalty instead of trying to remember how to sit across from each other without letting everything spill out.

Someone had arranged fresh gardenias in a vase at the center of the table — my favorite — and that made my chest ache a little.

Because Reid had noticed once, and maybe someone on the staff had noticed him noticing.

Or maybe it was just coincidence.

Either way, it felt like a memory waiting to happen, and I hated that it already hurt.

I wasn’t pacing, not really — just moving around the dining room, adjusting the already perfect edges of the tablecloth, straightening a plate here, smoothing a napkin there.

Waiting.

Pretending like I wasn’t.

When the front door finally clicked open, the tiny, ridicu
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  • Fallon’s Reid: An Arranged Contract   One hundred and eighty six

    ~Fallon~The lights were too bright.Not in the usual, flattering sense — not the kind you lose yourself in during shoots or interviews. These were surgical. Harsh. Unforgiving in their honesty. The kind of lights that dared you to flinch.I didn’t.I sat still, spine straight, hands folded neatly in my lap. A producer murmured something to the host. A makeup artist dabbed beneath my eyes — not because I needed it, but because she was nervous, and fidgeting helped.“Rolling in five,” someone called out.I didn’t blink. Didn’t move. Just kept my gaze locked on the middle distance.I had done photoshoots in Paris, red carpet interviews in gowns worth more than some mortgages. I had held my own against executives, sponsors, the ever-smiling shark tank that was my family.But nothing — nothing — felt as vulnerable as this chair. This moment.“Fallon,” the host said gently as the cameras turned on. “Thank you for being here. I know this hasn’t been easy.”I gave her the smile I’d perfected

  • Fallon’s Reid: An Arranged Contract   One hundred and eighty five

    ~Reid~She blocked me.Not just ignored.Blocked.No voicemail. No text bubbles. Just dead air and a wall I’d helped her build.To be fair, she had every right to. But now I was locked out of the one thing that had ever made me feel like I could be more than just my name.I didn’t move for a while. Didn’t speak. Just stood there in the middle of the library with my phone still in my hand like it might change if I stared long enough.But it didn’t.And for the first time in a very long time, I had no idea what to do.⸻The house had never been quiet like this before.It had always been curated silence — wealth disguised as calm. The soft steps of staff. The hum of tech. The illusion of stillness in a place built to serve.But now?Now it felt like a tomb.Every room I walked through was colder than the last. Her absence soaked into the walls like moisture. It lived here now, with me.I couldn’t escape it.Not in the kitchen, where she used to hum while drinking coffee out of my mug.N

  • Fallon’s Reid: An Arranged Contract   One hundred and eighty four

    ~Fallon~I turned my phone off two days ago.No silent mode. No notifications buried under banners. Just… off.Because every time I looked, there was another headline.Another photoshopped image of me smiling at some event next to Reid, cropped just right to imply betrayal.Another article that used the words “alleged” and “source close to the couple” to strip me down in public.They were rewriting me in real time.Recasting me as the girl who faked her marriage, leveraged her name, fooled the billionaire.They said I left because the deal ran dry.They said I left because I’d been playing a long con.They said I’d never loved him.And the part that gutted me wasn’t just that they were wrong.It was that Reid hadn’t said anything to prove them otherwise.____I’d kept the curtains drawn in every room.Not because I was hiding — not really.But because the world outside didn’t feel like mine anymore. The sunlight felt fake. Too clean. Too staged.There was something about this house —

  • Fallon’s Reid: An Arranged Contract   One hundred and eighty three

    ~Fallon~The silence in the new house was different.Not like the silence in the mansion, where every quiet moment still buzzed with the weight of what wasn’t being said. That silence had a pulse to it. A pressure. A storm waiting to crack.This silence was blank.Thin.The kind of silence that stretched across smooth marble floors and bounced off showroom walls. Nothing about the space invited emotion. No creases in the leather sofas. No half-read books on the table. No scent lingering in the hallway that reminded me of a life I couldn’t have.It was beautiful.And utterly empty.⸻I spent the first few hours wandering room to room, not touching anything. Just walking. Like if I kept moving, the grief couldn’t find me.The bedroom was too neat.The closet was too big.And every time I glanced at the king-sized bed, my chest caved in a little more.Because Reid wasn’t there.Not behind me.Not beside me.Not anywhere.I stood at the window for too long, watching the security gate clos

  • Fallon’s Reid: An Arranged Contract   One hundred and eighty two

    ~Reid~She didn’t slam the door when she left.She didn’t throw things. Didn’t scream. Didn’t make me the villain — not out loud, anyway.She just looked at me like she didn’t recognize the man standing in front of her anymore.And then she walked away.Three bags. No ring. No second glance.And I let her.Because I didn’t know how to stop her without admitting the one thing I still couldn’t say:Don’t go. I need you. I’m nothing without you.⸻After the car disappeared down the drive, I stood there in the foyer for a long time.I think part of me expected her to come back.To change her mind.To storm back inside and yell at me for letting her go so easily.But the silence was absolute.Even the staff had disappeared — giving me space, or maybe just afraid to witness the fallout.Good.They didn’t need to see me like this.Nobody did.I ended up in the study. Door closed. Lights off.I sat in the chair where I’d signed the contract with her name beside mine — a document meant to be c

  • Fallon’s Reid: An Arranged Contract   One hundred and eighty one

    ~Fallon~I didn’t say anything at first.Not when Reid walked into the sitting room, tension in every line of his body.Not when my parents sat perched on the velvet chairs like they’d summoned me to a hearing, not a conversation.And not when my mother crossed her legs, folded her hands, and said, “It’s time to start thinking clearly, Fallon.”Because I already knew what they were going to say.That the marriage had served its purpose.That it had always been transactional.That love had no place in contracts like ours — and weakness even less.What they didn’t know — what none of them knew — was how long I’d been unraveling behind the scenes.And how long I’d been holding on anyway.⸻Reid hadn’t looked at me since he sat down.Not really.He’d said a quiet hello when he walked in. Nodded when my mother launched into her usual carefully constructed monologue. Kept his jaw tight when my father mentioned the press.But he never looked at me.Not the way he used to.Not the way he did

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