LOGINTHOMASAt the formal confirmation of Edward's death, the waiting room gets impossibly loud. Sound gathers and rebounds, and Iris sits at the center of it utterly still, as though whatever force knocked the air from her lungs has also pinned her in place. Bloody silk pools around her feet, dulled now, the dress no longer ceremonial but accusatory, as if it has turned against her for believing the day might hold.The hallway outside the emergency ward has begun to swarm with the media, reporters all straining to get a photo of Iris, and I can't allow that to happen. She's starting to unravel, and the last thing I want is for her to have this image of her thrown in her face, over and over, for the rest of her days.I need to protect her.I keep my voice low when I speak, not because I'm afraid of being overheard, but because I know it's the better way to reach her:"Get up, Iris."She rises immediately, the movement costing her more than she intends to show. I feel the instability in her
HELENI know now that grief doesn't arrive the way that it's described in books and shown in movies. There's no dramatic collapse, no scream that tears itself from my chest. What comes instead is a narrowing, a sensation like the world has tilted slightly off its axis and everything is now sliding – quietly, relentlessly – toward an edge that I can't see yet. I stand in the hospital corridor and feel as though I've been misfiled, placed in the wrong life, the wrong hour, the wrong body.Edward is dead.The doctor's official words move through me without resistance, settling somewhere low and heavy. My son – my beautiful, careful boy, who did everything correctly, who followed the rules as though obedience itself might guarantee survival – has died on stone church stairs in borrowed sunlight. The unfairness of it is almost abstract, I can't touch the pain without dissolving into it.I don't allow myself to crumble; I watch instead.It turns out that hospitals are excellent places for w
IRISWhen we get to the hospital, my thoughts tumble like a box of toys down the stairs: Why a hospital if Edward is dead? Is he dead? Maybe he's just in a coma?But I know the truth, even if a doctor hasn't actually spoken the words to me. I saw his eyes after his father turned him over, saw them wide open staring at the sky, blue and blank; I saw the blood seeping from his head, blood that's now all over my dress, my hands.It's odd how everything happens far too quickly and also not nearly quickly enough. Hands guide me through doors that I don’t remember appearing in front of me. Someone asks me basic questions that I have no clue how to answer – my name (have I taken Edward's name even though I haven't officially changed my own?), the date (how can Edward's wedding day also be his death day?) – and when I hesitate, when my voice stutters on words that feel suddenly unreal, a nurse’s expression tightens with something like pity.A widow less than ten minutes into her marriage, she
EDWARDIt surprises me that I feel relief more than anything else, because I expected nerves, maybe even doubt. Instead there's only the quiet satisfaction of completion, of a job well done.What I don't feel is shame, not one iota of it. Yes, Iris is only twenty-four, and she's motivated by self-interest, as I am, but she also fully understands what this marriage is. The lawyers were clear, my father was brutal in hammering the point home. She doesn't pretend affection in private, and I don't demand it.But we're in public, and most critically, we're at our wedding, so the love charade is being carried out in full force and with great enthusiasm. She's clutching my hand as we walk down the aisle to the church doors, laughing and accepting congratulations. She looks like the happiest woman in the world, her green eyes sparkling as brightly as the massive diamond on her engagement ring, which she'll always wear with the more discreet gold band. One ring announces her marital status, th
THOMASI see the moment it hits her. The guilt. The fear. The horrifying discovery that she's already broken something sacred and expensive just by wanting.Most people never understand just how loudly their bodies speak, but I've built an entire life around hearing what others miss. It's how I've closed deals, demolished rivals, bent rooms toward the outcome that I wanted without ever raising my voice.It's how I became very, very rich. I didn't become a billionaire by mistaking reactions.Iris Caldwell feels my attention the moment it settles on her, as strong and sure as a physical touch. Her body answers before her sense can intervene, a subtle but unmistakable softening that moves through her. It's brief, almost invisible, but it's there:Arousal.I watch her realize it. I see those mint-green eyes change behind the veil: the flicker of panic, the way her focus collapses inward as the contract asserts itself inside her mind. I can almost hear the clauses snapping into place, the
IRISThe language of the marriage contract rises in my mind with merciless clarity, not as ink on paper but as something living, something with teeth. Fidelity – not merely of action, not limited to touch or sex or the crude mechanics of betrayal – but fidelity of response. Of attention. Of want. No entanglement, no flirtation, no acknowledgment (external or internal) of desire for any man other than my husband. Not even in passing, not even in imagination.Panic tightens my chest, as though something has cinched closed around my ribs. My pulse skitters, uneven and loud in my ears, and I have the disorienting sensation of having stepped onto unstable ground without realizing it. The thought arrives unbidden, cold and precise, and once it does I can't dislodge it:Is this a test?Thomas dominated the drafting of the marriage contract. He intimately understands its reach, its appetite, the way it was designed to close around me quietly and completely. He knows how it can be enforced, ho







