Chapter 5: I Had Married A Dead Man 

Xena.

The ceiling in Dante's room was different from the one in the guest room.

I noticed that first, which probably said something about the state of my brain. 

I stared at it and waited for regret to arrive.

It didn't.

What arrived instead was a very thorough physical awareness of every decision I had made in the last several hours, and the sound of Dante moving somewhere to my left.

I turned my head.

He was standing at the foot of the bed, buttoning his shirt from the bottom up. He glanced at me when he noticed I was watching.

"You're surprisingly difficult to read," he said.

I blinked. "Is that a compliment?"

"It's an observation." He did the second to last button. "Though in this context I suppose it functions as both." The last button. He reached for his cufflinks on the dresser without looking for them. "You held your own."

"I'm aware."

The corner of his mouth moved. Not quite a smile but I'd take it.

I sat up, pulling the sheet with me, and looked around for my gown.

"There are clothes in the room you were assigned," he said, answering the question I hadn't asked. "The ones you'll actually want to be seen in."

"And if I told you I didn't ask."

"I'd say you were looking at the floor like it owed you something." He picked up his jacket. "Breakfast is downstairs when you're ready. Take your time."

He left without the door making a sound.

I sat in the middle of his bed in last night's undone gown and breathed in the quiet for a moment.

Okay.

I had slept with my contract husband on the night I signed the contract. That was definitely a normal thing to happen. 

I was filing it under decisions made with full awareness and no apology. 

I got up.

The clothes in my assigned room were exactly my size like he said. I didn't examine that too closely.

I showered, dressed, and stood at the window for exactly two minutes. Then I went downstairs.

The kitchen was filled with coffee smell with morning light spilling through wide windows.  Dante was at the island with a cup and his phone, still in his shirt from upstairs. He looked up when I came in and nodded toward the coffee without a word.

I poured a cup and leaned against the counter.

"The journalists," I nudged. "You mentioned last night —"

"Already running." He didn't look up from his phone. "The first piece goes live this afternoon. Forensic analysis of the video, sourced anonymously. By evening it will have been picked up by three more outlets."

I wrapped both hands around my mug.

"You had all of this prepared before the gala."

He set his phone down then. Looked at me evenly. "Yes."

"How long have you been watching the Yale household?"

A pause. Not long — just enough to tell me he was deciding how much to give me.

"Seven years," he said flatly. 

I stared at him. "Seven years is a long time to watch a family you belong to."

"I don't belong to them." His voice didn't change but I could hear a slight pain in them. "Not in any way they're currently aware of."

I set my mug down. "What does that mean?"

He looked at me for a moment.

"My father had me ordered to be killed seven years ago. Falsified evidence of an accident overseas and restructured the Yale conglomerate in Adrian's favor with me removed from the equation." He picked his coffee back up. "As far as the Yale family and most of Chicago is concerned, Dante Yale died seven years ago."

The kitchen was very quiet.

"You're supposed to be dead," I said.

"Technically."

"And Adrian doesn't know you're alive."

“You're quick to catch up"

I picked my mug back up.. A dead man. I had married a dead man. I had done considerably more than marry him last night and he had been a dead man the entire time and I was only finding this out now over morning coffee.

"When were you planning to tell me this?"

"Before it became relevant." He met my gaze. "It just became relevant."

I opened my mouth —

The television on the far wall, which had been running a morning news program on low volume, shifted tone to a tense one, that meant a breaking segment. The anchor's voice lifted. I turned toward it without thinking.

'—confirming this morning that Adrian Yale, son of prominent Chicago industrialist Gerald Yale, is set to wed Hannah Cross in a private ceremony scheduled for two weeks from today. The announcement comes just days after Cross was reported found alive following a three year disappearance, the circumstances of which are currently—'

Hannah's face filled the screen. Then Adrian's. Then both of them together, holding hands.

Two weeks.

"They're not wasting any time."

I said it mostly to myself. I hadn't meant it to land out loud.

"No." Dante's voice came from just behind me. Closer than I expected. "They're not."

I didn't turn around. I kept watching the broadcast until it cycled to the next segment and Hannah's face disappeared.

"Good," I said.

He didn't respond to that. But I felt him still standing there, and the silence he offered was something that didn't have an agenda attached to it, and I noticed that specifically because everything else about this man so far had.

I wasn't sure what to do with it.

The doorbell suddenly rang, jolting us both from her position.

The housekeeper moved toward the entrance. Dante was back at his phone. I immediately moved for a second cup of coffee at the island, going over the contract details he had left printed beside the fruit bowl like homework, which I was choosing not to comment on.

I heard the door open and hurried footsteps followed by a clipped male voice.

"I need to see Yale. It's urgent. Is he —" A pause, the housekeeper saying something low. "Yes I know the hour. Tell him it's Darwin."

Darwin? Why did that sound familiar?

The man came through the kitchen doorway with the energy of someone who had been moving since he woke up.  His jacket was slightly off, like he'd put it on in a car. He was already talking before he'd fully entered the room.

"Yale, I just got word that the forensic piece is running this afternoon which means we need to move the contract renewal before Gerald catches wind of —"

He stopped.

I had turned on the barstool when the footsteps came in, coffee mug halfway to my mouth.

We looked at each other.

The kitchen was very quiet.

“Xena?” His eyes widened in shock. 

I choked on my coffee.