Chapter Three : Separate Rooms

The penthouse was exactly what I expected and nothing like I was prepared for.

Floor to ceiling windows. Ceilings so high they made you feel small in a way that was probably intentional. Everything in shades of charcoal and cold white and the kind of grey that costs money to achieve. It was beautiful the way a museum is beautiful  and impressive, immaculate, and not designed for anyone to actually live in.

I stood in the entrance with one bag.

One. Because that was all I'd had time to pack, ten minutes in my flat while Damien's driver waited downstairs and my neighbour watched from her doorway with enormous eyes and zero shame.

Damien's housekeeper, a small neat woman named Gloria who regarded me with cautious warmth, showed me to my room. It was bigger than my entire flat. The bed alone was bigger than my entire flat. There were fresh flowers on the dresser; white peonies, expensive, lovely and I stood looking at them for a long moment before I realised someone had put thought into that. Someone had decided a room needed flowers today.

I didn't know if it was Damien or Gloria and I was too afraid to ask.

I unpacked my one bag. It took four minutes. My things looked small and apologetic inside the enormous wardrobe there are two three dresses, two pairs of jeans, a cardigan I'd had since university, my good coat. I pushed them to one side and closed the wardrobe door and sat on the edge of the bed.

The mattress received me like a sigh.

I had been awake since four in the morning. I had made a wedding bouquet, attended a wedding, been the bride at that wedding, and was now sitting in a billionaire's penthouse in Vivienne's dress with a ring on my finger that wasn't meant for me.

I lay back and stared at the ceiling.

It was a very nice ceiling.

Dinner was at seven. Gloria knocked on my door at five past and I followed her to the dining room, which had a table long enough to seat twelve and was set for two at one end with the particular awkwardness of people who hadn't quite worked out how close was appropriate.

Damien was already seated. He'd changed into dark shirt now, no jacket, collar open at the throat and he was reading something on his phone that he put down when I came in. Not slowly, not pointedly. He just put it down.

"You should eat," he said, which I was fairly sure was the least romantic thing anyone had ever said to a person on their wedding day.

"I was planning to," I said pleasantly, and sat down.

Gloria served us quietly and efficiently and then disappeared in the way that good staff do, present only when needed. The food was extraordinary. I noticed this distantly, the way you notice a beautiful view through a window when the room you're in is tense.

We ate in silence for a while.

Not hostile silence. Just silence. Two people in a very large room with no script for what came next.

"You didn't eat at the reception," Damien said eventually.

I looked up. "There was a reception?"

"The drinks and photographs. You had nothing."

I hadn't realised he'd noticed. I'd spent most of it standing slightly apart from everyone, holding a glass of water, watching the Zhao family board members shake Damien's hand and take careful note of me with the polite intensity of people calculating a risk.

"I wasn't hungry," I said.

He considered that. "Are you nervous?"

"No." A beat. "A little."

He nodded, like that was reasonable. Like he appreciated the correction.

"There are rules," he said.

"You mentioned."

"I'd like to go through them properly." He set down his fork. Not impatient but just precise. "Separate rooms, obviously. Public appearances twice a week minimum, more during the merger negotiations. Breakfast together when schedules allow it's good for the staff to see normalcy. My assistant will brief you on the Zhao family before any dinners. You don't discuss the contract with anyone. Not friends, not family."

I thought of Vivienne. I know you'll fix it. You always fix everything.

"Okay," I said.

"Your shop." He reached beside his chair and produced a folder, which he placed on the table between us. "Investment agreement. I had it drawn up this afternoon. It's straightforward the full amount, no repayment clause, full creative ownership stays with you."

I stared at the folder. Then at him.

"You did this today?" I asked. "On your wedding day?"

"I gave my word," he said simply. Like that explained everything. Like for him, it did.

I pulled the folder toward me and opened it. Didn't read it because I couldn't focus on words right now but I looked at the numbers and felt something loosen in my chest. Something I'd been holding tight for a very long time.

"Thank you," I said.

He picked up his fork again. "Don't thank me. It's part of the arrangement."

I looked at him across the table. The way he said it felt like a door closing. Like he'd given something real and immediately needed to make it small.

I understood that instinct. I'd spent years doing the same thing.

"Okay," I said softly. "It's part of the arrangement."

We finished dinner. Gloria cleared the plates. Damien walked me to my door not warmly, not coldly, just present, just there and stopped in the hallway.

"Goodnight, Aria."

My name. For the first time all day, my actual name.

Not Miss Chen. Not you. Not the bride.

Aria.

"Goodnight," I said.

I closed my door and stood with my back against it in the dark for a long moment.

The ring was still warm on my finger.

I was in so much trouble.