Something Is On Fire

MOON

Three days after I'd agreed to assume my cousin's identity, my future husband's family had sent in a contract — a solid marriage contract with clauses that were ironclad and requirements that had me rethinking the deal I had made with my uncle.

I had a curfew, as well as a set amount of social events a year I was expected to attend.

I had to go off social media and right at the bottom of the last page was an NDA — I kid you not — written more boldly than the word marriage.

I was to never disclose any discussions heard from the family, or had with my husband after the marriage ended.

I was to, in quote, be ready to give birth and leave the child without issue and not expect a shared custody scenario.

In a nutshell, I was simply a baby-making machine, a means to an end and a part of me was beginning to think my uncle accepted this offer in the first place with the full intention of having me take his daughter's place.

After signing the contract with shaky hands and watching my uncle sign his, the lawyer who brought the papers — a lean, dark-haired man with a slight Irish accent and a permanent scowl on his lips — looked me dead in the eye and said, "Congratulations Mrs. O'Brien. We leave in thirty minutes."

I blinked in confusion, "What?"

"Do well to pack your necessities, Mr. O'Brien doesn't tolerate tardiness and he wants to meet with you before he leaves for work this morning."

The lawyer simply responded, completely oblivious to the fact that I just signed a contract that was akin to selling my soul to the devil and that my body and mind needed time to catch up.

One glare from my uncle and I was scrambling up the stairs, throwing everything my hand could reach into my old suitcase and in less than twenty minutes I was dragging my bag down the stairs.

The lawyer regarded me with a somewhat empty look in his eye before he nodded, his scowl deepening as he shook hands with my uncle and then walked out. My uncle then turned to me and the smile on his face was wider than I'd ever seen him smile. Genuine joy made his eyes light up in a way that made my chest ache.

I'd always known my uncle didn't love me as he claimed to in public, I'd always known that loneliness was going to be my only companion as long as I carried the weights of my parent's death and the pain of not being loved by my only remaining family.

But I...I don't know what I expected to happen. Maybe I expected hesitance? A few words of encouragement perhaps?

"Well?" The look in his eyes darkened into one of irritation, "are you just going to stand there?" He scoffed. "Get the fuck out! There's no place here for you anymore...Mrs. O'Brien." He added the title with clear mockery in his tone.

My throat closed up and burned with the severity of emotions that I bit back down, swallowed and burned even more from the ache that remained.

"Goodbye, Uncle Edmund."

He waved me away like I was nothing. I dragged my suitcase out of the mansion I'd lived in since I was 10 years old and tried to convince myself that I felt nothing. Even as my limbs weighed me down, even as my eyes betrayed me and I felt wetness spill down my cheeks.

No, moon. Think about college, think about art...think about baring your soul out on a canvas with no judgment or ridicule.

A canvas that doesn't talk back or hit you or call you a two faced bitch. A degree with your actual name on it. Think about that.

The car waiting outside was black and long and the leather inside smelled expensive, smelled like I'd stepped into someone else's life.

I slid in, folded my hands in my lap and kept my eyes forward because my hands were still shaking and I didn't want the lawyer to see.

He didn't look at me anyway.

He sat on the opposite end of the seat with his tablet propped on his knee, one finger pressed to his earpiece, voice dropped so low I only caught fragments. Arrival time. Paperwork. And then once, careful and deferential in a way that made my stomach tighten, Mr. O'Brien.

I turned back to the window.

Cillian.

I'd seen it at the bottom of the contract, a neat signature that sealed both our fates.

Cillian O'Brien.

I tested it under my breath, barely moving my lips.

My husband's name.

I'd signed Aphrodite's name beneath it with ease the way I always did. The fact that her signature came out of my hand cleaner than my own at this point was probably the saddest shit about my life.

The car kept going.

And going.

The streets widened. Buildings thinned. Until we slowed at a massive black gate that towered over us like a building on its own.

I pressed close to the window like a child as I took in this part of town I'd never been in.

A gated community. The roads inside were immaculate and the houses sat back from them at careful distances, some of the mansions were visible, some weren't, each house more luxurious than the last.

Now I understood why my uncle had seemed so eager, the O'Briens, whoever they were, were powerful enough to own a property in a community where only governors, senators and visiting royalty lived.

It took twenty more minutes of driving past the houses of the rich and powerful before the car finally stopped in front of a property.

It was a house with two storeys, white walls and dark brown window frames with ivy climbing up the side like it belonged there. A front garden with flowers I didn't know the names of spilling color along a neat stone path and hedges trimmed so precisely they looked almost self conscious about it. It was smaller than I'd imagined. Much smaller than the other houses we'd passed. Not a mansion. Not columns and gates within gates. Just a house. A beautiful one, but still.

I wasn't sure what I was expecting.

Someone opened the car door for me, I didn't register the driver's face before he walked away. The air smelled sweet, like flowers and fruit and I'd almost relaxed at the scent, almost.

My legs were unsteady on the path. I gripped my bag strap tighter and followed the lawyer to the front door.

He pushed it open and I walked in and stopped dead.

The hallway alone.

Art covered the walls. Real art, not prints, not the kind of tasteful nothing my aunt ordered in bulk. Paintings that made my chest tighten from three feet away. Sculptures tucked along the ceiling's edge, clearly chosen by someone who didn't just own things but actually looked at them. My fingers twitched at my sides. Nine years inside the Alexander house and not a single thing on those walls had ever once made me feel anything.

These did. These made me want to cry for a completely different reason and I hadn't even been inside two minutes.

Then I heard the lawyer speak behind me.

"Mr. O'Brien." He said in a clear greeting.

My head snapped up.

He was at the far end of the hallway and the first thing my brain registered was height. He was really fucking tall, easily six four, maybe five, and I was not short but something about the sheer fact of him made me feel it. His hair was auburn, deep and burning at the edges where the light caught it, like something between brown and fire that couldn't make up its mind. Freckles dusted his nose and cheekbones and the line of his jaw, scattered across lightly tanned skin, and his face was—

God.

Full lips pressed flat, a sharp, angular jaw covered in short stubble that was a shade darker than his hair. Green eyes, like a rich forest that didn't encourage visitors looking directly at me with an expression so completely indifferent that my stomach dropped all over again for an entirely different reason than fear.

He was...he was...

"I—hi, I'm Aph—" My voice came out wrong. I swallowed. "I'm Aphrodite. Aphrodite Ale—"

"You can leave." Were the first words that left his lips, his voice low, yet so deep I felt it graze against my skin in confusion.

I blinked in confusion.

Then realized he wasn't talking to me.

The front door clicked shut behind the lawyer and the hallway got very quiet very fast and it was just the two of us and all that art. The air felt alive with every breath I took, sweat trickled down my back as I struggled to find the right words.

He looked at me like he was trying to decide where to put me.

"I'm Aphrodite," I tried again, because apparently I had nothing else. "We're—you know. Married. As of—"

"I know who you are."

"Right." My face went warm. "Of course. I just thought maybe we could talk or—"

"Kitchen is through there." He nodded left without looking. "Housekeeper comes Tuesdays and Fridays. Help yourself to whatever's in it."

He turned toward the staircase.

My mouth fell open. "Are we not going to—I mean we just got married, shouldn't we at least—"

"Your room is the second door on the left." Already on the third step. "My office is at the end of the hall." He paused, like he was thinking his next words carefully. "Don't go in. My room is across from yours. Don't knock unless something is on fire." Another pause. "Don't speak to me unless it's necessary." The chill in his tone made me freeze in place as my mind struggled to catch up with my ears.

Then he turned around and walked away leaving me standing there, jaw on the floor and bottom lip trembling.

Rude.

He was just. So. Unbelievably. Rude.

Beautiful and cold and apparently allergic to basic human decency and I was going to be living with him for three years. Three years. I was going to be living with this man and producing a child for him and he couldn't even finish a full sentence in my direction.

I located the room meant for me without much difficulty and locked myself in it.

The room was beautiful. Soft white walls and a window that looked over the garden and a bed that was the kindest thing my body had felt in longer than I could remember.

I sat on the edge of the bed.

Pressed my face into the pillow.

The sob came out small and muffled and I only gave myself the one.

Tomorrow, I told myself. It was the first day of college. It would make everything easier, better.

Or so I thought.