2. A Wife By Contract

Claire's POV

Damien's words settled over the room with all the force of a collapsing building. "We will need to discuss the divorce arrangements this week."

For a moment, I wasn't sure I had heard him correctly. The candles flickered softly between us. The meal I had spent hours preparing filled the penthouse with the scent of garlic and rosemary. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, Manhattan glittered beneath the darkening sky.

Everything looked exactly as it had thirty seconds ago and yet somehow everything felt different. I stared at my husband.

My husband.

The phrase suddenly felt fragile and temporary like something that was already slipping through my fingers. Damien seemed completely unaware of the damage he had done. He was watching me carefully, but not because he knew he had hurt me. He was simply waiting for a response, waiting for a practical conversation, waiting to discuss lawyers and paperwork and financial settlements and waiting to discuss the end of our marriage.

I forced myself to smile, years of practice made it easier than it should have been. "Of course," I said. The smile felt convincing, well, at least convincing enough.

Damien nodded and the tension left his shoulders slightly as though he had expected the conversation to be more difficult.

The realization stung because for me, there was nothing easy about this. I looked down at my plate. At the dinner I no longer had any appetite for and at the life I had spent four years pretending was temporary.

Four years.

The number echoed through my mind. Four years ago, I had been sitting in a completely different room, listening to Damien Laurent make me an offer that changed my life forever.

At the time, I had believed I was signing a contract but I hadn't realized I was signing away my heart.

"Claire?" I looked up. Damien was studying me, his gray eyes narrowed slightly. "You seem distracted."

I nearly laughed, distracted, that was one way to describe it. My husband had just reminded me that our marriage was ending, and I was distracted. The absurdity of it almost made me smile. "I'm fine."

He continued watching me. The problem with Damien was that he noticed everything except the things that mattered. Eventually, he accepted the answer or at least pretended to.

The conversation moved on to business, schedules and an upcoming charity event, the usual things that filled the spaces between us. I answered when necessary and smiled when appropriate and nodded at the right moments all while my mind drifted backward through four years of memories.

Back to the day everything began.

I still remembered the exact moment Damien asked me to marry him not because it had been romantic, there had been absolutely nothing romantic about it in fact, it had happened in a conference room, the least romantic location in human history.

Three days earlier, Tiffany Morgan had disappeared. One day later, every major news outlet in the country was reporting that Damien Laurent had been abandoned at the altar and the story had spread like wildfire by the end of the week, investors were nervous, the board was panicking, the Laurent family was furious and Damien looked as though he hadn't slept in days.

I had been his executive assistant at the time which meant I spent most of my days preventing disasters, unfortunately, this particular disaster was beyond my pay grade or so I had thought.

The memory remained crystal clear. The conference room had been empty except for the two of us. Rain streaked the windows and Damien stood near the far end of the table his suit jacket had been removed and his tie hung loose around his neck.

The sight alone had told me how serious things were because Damien Laurent never looked disheveled, never. Not even after sixteen-hour workdays, not even during corporate crises and not even when his fiancée left him days before their wedding, yet there he had been exhausted, frustrated and cornered.

"Sit down, Claire."

The memory of his voice still sounded vivid in my mind. I had obeyed immediately mostly because I had never heard him sound like that before. He remained standing and for several seconds, neither of us spoke then Damien said something that changed my life. "I need a wife."

At first, I thought he was joking but then I realized Damien didn't joke at least not often and certainly not with that expression. I remembered staring at him waiting for the punchline but it never came. "What?"

His eyes never left mine. "I need a wife."

Even now, years later, remembering the conversation felt surreal. I had actually laughed not because it was funny because it was absurd.

"You are serious."

"Yes."

I had shaken my head. "Damien, I don't think that's something you can solve by opening a job posting."

To my surprise, the corner of his mouth had twitched then his expression returned to normal. "The board needs stability."

"The board needs therapy."

"Claire."

"They do."

The memory brought a small smile to my lips. I remembered how tired he had looked. How defeated and how human. It was one of the first times I had ever seen the man behind the reputation.

The billionaire, the CEO and the corporate prodigy, for a brief moment, he had simply been a man trying to hold his life together. "I need someone I trust."

The words echoed through my memory, someone I trust not someone I love and not someone I want but someone I trust. At the time, I hadn't thought much about the distinction but now I understood it perfectly.

I remembered sitting frozen in my chair unable to believe the conversation was actually happening. "What exactly are you asking?"

"A contract marriage."

The words had sounded strangely formal, almost clinical like a business proposal, perhaps that was intentional. Maybe Damien knew romance would have complicated things, maybe he wanted to remove emotion from the equation entirely. If so, he succeeded, at least on his side.

The details followed quickly.

Four years with public appearances, family obligations, financial compensation and absolute discretion and a clean divorce at the end. No surprises, no expectations and no misunderstandings.

Looking back, it almost sounded simple but at the time, it felt impossible. I should have said no, any sensible woman would have but instead, I had spent the entire night staring at the contract and then I signed it.

The memory still made me laugh at my own stupidity because I had genuinely believed I could keep my feelings separate. I had convinced myself that I was strong enough, practical enough and rational enough.

I had looked at those pages and thought:

You can do this. You can spend four years married to Damien Laurent without falling in love.

What an idiot I had been.

Across the dining table, Damien was saying something about a shareholder dinner and I nodded automatically.

My attention drifted again back to the contract, back to the signatures and back to the expiration date printed neatly on the final page.

Four years.

That number had felt enormous then but now it felt heartbreakingly short because somewhere along the way, pretending had stopped feeling like pretending. The dinners became real, the conversations became real, the quiet moments became real and worst of all, my feelings became real.

I had entered the marriage believing I could protect myself but instead, I had fallen completely and hopelessly in love with the man sitting across from me. A man who was already discussing the logistics of our divorce. The irony would have been funny if it didn't hurt so much.

Eventually dinner ended and Damien disappeared into his office to finish work as usual some habits never changed.

I remained alone in the kitchen. The silence felt heavier than normal. The apartment seemed larger and colder. I began cleaning simply because I needed something to do, anything.

Eventually I wandered toward my desk and my eyes settled on the drawer where I had hidden the baby shoes earlier that afternoon and slowly, I opened it.

The tiny white shoes sat exactly where I had left them and for several seconds, I simply stared then I reached inside and picked them up. The soft fabric rested against my palms. A gift that had seemed so full of hope only a few hours earlier.

My throat tightened because suddenly I wasn't looking at baby shoes anymore I was looking at a future that felt impossibly uncertain and for the first time since leaving the doctor's office, fear finally began to creep in.