All Chapters of THE TERMS OF OUR MARRIAGE : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Grief has a smell. It smells like overbrewed coffee, wilted funeral flowers, and strangers sitting too comfortably in your living room.Three days after we buried my parents, the house was full. Not with comfort but with opinions.Aunt Teresa stood in the kitchen wearing Mama’s apron like it had always belonged to her. Uncle Vittorio occupied Papa’s armchair, legs spread wide, flipping through company files he had no right to touch. Cousins hovered near the staircase, whispering in low voices that stopped when I walked past. They had come to “help.” I would have said something but I was too grief striken. If only Luca was here,he would have told Aunt Teresa to take off Mama’s apron and Uncle to get off Papa’s favourite chair and also probably make our cousins leave the staircase and Mama always warned us against just hovering around it.Luca was still in the hospital. I had just returned from a morning meeting with a neurologist who spoke gently about long-term rehabilitation and occu

Morning arrived without mercy.Elena had learned that hospitals did not care about exhaustion. Bills did not care about grief and hunger did not care about pride.The envelope waited on the small plastic table beside Luca’s bed. It was an unapologetic final notice in red ink. She stared at it long enough for the letters to blur.Across the room, Luca sat propped up by pillows, conscious now but weak, his movements slow and deliberate. Recovery had come in fragments—eye contact first, then speech, then careful physical therapy sessions that left him trembling. He was healing but healing cost money.“Elena?” he asked quietly, noticing her silence.She folded the paper before he could read the numbers on her face.“Just paperwork,” she lied.She could not darethat the amount was larger than the monthly stipend they received from Uncle Vittorio even if they saved it for three months.Larger than her savings. Larger than what remained of the jewelry she had sold.She had called Uncle Vittor

The sunlight poured into the Vale Manor study, golden but not warm, as if the world outside had forgotten how to care. Adrian Vale sat behind the massive oak desk, fingers steepled, eyes trained on the ledger before him, but he wasn’t reading numbers. Not really. He was listening.“Adrian,” Mr Giovanni Vale said, his voice steady but with a sharp edge Adrian hadn’t heard in years. The old man’s hands, gnarled with age but still firm, rested on the armrest of his chair. “We need to talk about your… future.”Adrian looked up, one brow arched. Future. That word had felt irrelevant since the day he had lost both parents. Since the day Camilla had betrayed him, emptied his accounts, and walked out of his life with no regard for loyalty or love. Since then, future had been just a concept for other people.“I don’t understand,” Adrian said flatly. “What do you mean?”Giovanni’s gaze was unyielding. He leaned forward, the weight of his years pressing into the room. “I mean your grandfather do

Sleep did not come to Adrian Vale that night. It hovered at the edge of consciousness and refused to land.He lay in a room too large, too quiet, too expensive for the kind of unrest clawing at his chest. The confrontation with his ex replayed in fragments. Her voice, her lies, his grandfather’s fragile hope cracking under reality. The words he overheard pressed against his skull like a migraine that would not fade.He turned sharply in bed, exhaling in frustration. The house felt suffocating. The portraits on the walls downstairs felt like silent judges. Even the air felt thick with expectation.By midnight, he gave up. He dressed without thinking too much about it. Black shirt. Dark coat. No tie. He did not inform anyone. He did not need permission to escape his own home. If rest would not come to him, he would drown the noise elsewhere.The club was alive in a way his house was not. Music pulsed. Lights bled red and gold across polished floors. Laughter and indulgence floated throu

Adrian did not look back at the bar.If he had, he would have seen Elena standing rigid behind the counter, jaw set, eyes burning with something close to hurt. But he didn’t look.He walked straight into the private lounge.The music dulled behind soundproofed doors. The lighting softened into gold instead of red. The air smelled of money and quiet indulgence.He sank into one of the leather seats and signaled for another drink. He wasn’t drunk but he wasn’t sober either.He was somewhere in between where words said too quickly begin to echo louder than intended.Two dancers approached him almost immediately. They were polite, practiced, smiling in the way the industry required.“Mr. Vale,” one purred softly. “Care for company?”He didn’t lift his eyes from the glass.“No.”The dismissal was calm, so they lingered.“We can make your evening better.”He looked up then, not angry, just distant.“I said no.”It wasn’t loud. But it was firm enough that they stepped back. They tried again