Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Sera

I chose the cafe three neighborhoods away from anything connected to the Vance name. The place was small and half empty, the kind of spot where no one looked twice at two women talking over coffee that had gone cold. 

Nadia was already there when I walked in, same sharp eyes and same impatient way of tapping her spoon against the saucer. She stood up, hugged me once, then sat back down and stared at the faint bruise still visible under my makeup.

“You look like hell,” she said. “And you are still doing this. I told you playing house with that man for thirty days is a bad idea. It is lethal, Sera. He is not going to fall in love and change his mind. He is going to use the time to dig into every corner of your life and then discard you the same way he planned to from the start.”

I pulled the small leather notebook from my bag and opened it to the calendar pages I had marked in red. “I am tracking everything. Cycle dates, optimal windows, the whole thing. I only need one successful month. After that the rest of the plan moves.”

Nadia leaned in and lowered her voice. “And the account?”

“Funded. Offshore. Enough to disappear clean once the thirty days end and the papers are signed. New name, new city, no trail back to him or the company.”

She shook her head hard. “You are gambling with more than money. You are sharing a bed with a man who has spent three years treating you like furniture. What happens when the baby part actually works and he decides he wants control of that too?”

“I am not agreeing with you on this,” I said. “I know the risks. I calculated them. This is the only window I have left before the patent claim expires and Vance Global swallows the last of my mother’s work. I need the heir on paper. After that I vanish.”

Nadia sat back and studied my face. “You keep talking like there is something else under all of this. What is it? You said last time you still had not gotten the truth about that event. What event?”

I wrapped both hands around the coffee cup even though it was no longer warm. “My father’s disappearance. I have suspected for years that someone in Julian’s family had a hand in it. The timing, the way the lab records vanished, the quiet way everything got cleaned up right after the marriage was forced through. If it is fate that I ended up tied to them, then maybe the baby is the only way the truth finally comes out. I know Julian himself is a kind person under all that ice. He would never have been involved in something like that. But the rest of them? I need to know.”

Nadia’s eyes went wide. “No way. You think the Vances made your dad disappear? Sera, that is a different level of dangerous. You cannot just hope a pregnancy unlocks some family secret. You need to get out now.”

“I am not getting out until I have what I came for. The calendar is set. The account is ready. Thirty days. That is all I am asking from this.”

She tried to argue more but I shut it down. We went over the exit routes one more time, the contacts who would help with the new documents, the exact day I would leave the mansion and never look back. When I finally stood to go she grabbed my wrist.

“Be careful with him,” she said. “Jealous men are worse than cold ones.”

I left through the back door and took two different taxis before I headed home. I did not see the dark car that pulled out three vehicles behind me and stayed there the whole way.

*****

Julian

I was in the middle of a conference call when the security alert hit my phone. The detail I kept on Seraphina had been quiet for days. 

Suddenly the message chain lit up with photos and timestamps. Obscure cafe on the east side. Woman matching her description meeting another person for almost an hour. My first thought was not a friend. My first thought was a man she was hiding. 

The idea sat in my chest like something sharp and unwanted. I cut the call short and told my driver to get me home.

By the time I walked through the front door the house was quiet. Seraphina was in the sitting room with a book she was not reading. She looked up when I entered and the bruise on her cheek caught the light. I hated that I noticed it.

“Where were you this afternoon?” I asked.

She closed the book slowly. “Out.”

“That is not an answer. My security team followed you to a cafe across town. You met someone. Who was it?”

Her eyebrows lifted. “You had me followed.”

“I have you followed every time you leave this house. That was part of the arrangement whether you liked it or not. Who was the person, Seraphina? Or was it a man you were careful not to be seen with?”

She stood up and the book dropped onto the cushion. “It was a friend. We have known each other for years. She does not run in your circles so I doubt you have ever heard the name.”

“A friend.” I stepped closer. “You leave the house without telling anyone, sit in a place designed to avoid attention, and expect me to believe it was just coffee and conversation? Try again.”

“I do not need your permission to see a friend.”

“Under the terms you signed you do. Public appearances. Shared residence. No secrets. That was your list, not mine. So explain why my security team is sending me photos of you looking over your shoulder like you were trying not to be found.”

She did not back up. She moved forward instead until there was almost no space left between us. “You sound jealous, Julian.”

“I sound like a man who does not like being lied to.”

“I did not lie. I told you it was a friend. You are the one turning it into something else.” Her voice stayed level but her eyes stayed locked on mine. “Does it bother you? The idea that someone else might want my time? That I might have a life that does not revolve around waiting for you to come home and ignore me?”

I felt the control slip a bit. The thought of another man sitting across from her, hearing her voice, watching her mouth move, made something ugly and possessive rise up fast. I had spent three years not caring who she spoke to. Suddenly the idea of it was intolerable.

“You wanted thirty days of a real marriage,” I said. “This is what it looks like when I start paying attention. I want a name. I want a reason. And I want you to stop looking at me like you are enjoying this.”

She tilted her head. “Maybe I am. You have spent years acting like I did not exist. Now you are standing here demanding answers because I spent an hour with someone who is not you. That feels like progress.”

I reached out and caught her wrist before I could stop myself. The contact was too warm. She did not pull away. She stepped in closer until her chest almost brushed mine and the bruise on her cheek was right there under the light.

“You are playing a dangerous game,” I said.

“You are the one who signed the papers. You are the one who agreed to come home every night and act like a husband. If that includes getting angry when I leave the house, then maybe you should examine why it bothers you so much.”

The words landed harder than they should have. I realized in that moment that the jealousy was not about pride or image or the company. It was about the sudden sharp fear of losing any control I still had over her. She was supposed to be temporary. She was supposed to be easy to set aside. Instead she was standing in my house with a secret meeting behind her and a look in her eyes that said she knew exactly how to push.

I pulled her the rest of the way in. One hand stayed on her wrist. The other settled at the back of her neck. Her breath caught but she did not fight it. The cold exterior I kept in place for everyone else cracked right down the middle.

“You wanted thirty days?” I muttered against the side of her face. “Starting now, you do not leave this room unless I say you should.”

My grip tightened. I had to make myself stop before I crossed into something I would not be able to take back once the thirty days ended and she walked out the way she promised. But I could not let go.