All Chapters of Wife for Hire: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Camilla The rice always burns a little at the bottom when I make it the way my mother did. I never fixed the recipe. Didn't really want to, if I'm honest. Some things you're supposed to inherit exactly as broken as they came to you. "It's sticking again," Luz said from the kitchen table, not even glancing up from her homework. Nine years old, and she already knew that smell better than I did most nights. "It's supposed to do that." I scraped the bottom of the pot anyway, mostly to give my hands something to do. "The burnt part is the best part, mija. Abuela used to fight your tío for it." "You always say that." "Because it's always true." She smiled at her math worksheet like she wasn't going to give me the satisfaction of laughing. Two hundred square feet, a water stain shaped like Texas on the bathroom ceiling, a couch older than she was. It was enough. She was in it, the door was locked, and for one more night nobody could take any of it away. We ate at the table, a rule I in

Camilla The bus dropped me four blocks short because the driver said traffic near the financial district wasn't worth fighting, so I walked the rest in shoes that weren't made for four blocks of concrete. Exhaust and the sugared smell of a churro cart on the corner gave way, block by block, to something cleaner. Cologne. Cut flowers from a shop I couldn't afford to walk into. Money has a smell, it turns out, and it's mostly the absence of every other smell.The building didn't look real up close. Sixty floors of black glass. A lobby big enough to swallow my whole apartment building twice over. The marble was polished enough that I could see the scuff on my own boots, looking back up at me. I'd worn the good coat. Standing under that ceiling, it still felt borrowed. Like, I don't belong in any way.Security checked my ID against a list. My name was already on it. Printed clean, the kind of clean that costs money. That sat wrong in my stomach the whole ride up. This whole thing is wro

Camilla Teresa showed up at six thirty with a curling iron in a grocery bag and didn't bother knocking twice."You didn't sleep," she said, not really a question, setting up shop on my bathroom counter."Not really.""Sit down. Nobody needs to know that from the outside." She huffed.Luz sat on the closed toilet lid in her cute pink skirt and white tee, one of the few good dresses I can afford, watching the whole production like it was better than cartoons. She'd known Teresa her whole life, four years of borrowed sugar and babysitting favors between our two apartments. Teresa is the closest thing to a friend I have, and now she's here helping me get married. The irony. I don't want her to know what I am going through, and I did not want anyone to be at that wedding."Are you gonna wear a big dress? Like a real wedding dress?" Luz asked, a whole question mark on her face."It's not that kind of wedding, Mija." Teresa looked at me. "It's a small wedding," I faked a smile."Is there ca

Camilla Our old apartment had one bedroom. Luz and I were together all night long, sharing the room since our parents’ deaths. We got a full-size mattress, but we couldn’t fit very well due to its saggy center part, which took us quite some time to adjust. I used to lie awake sometimes in the saggy bed. Just listening to her breath and thinking, at least I have her. At least I know exactly where she is. My room here didn't feel like a bedroom. It’s more like some kind of hotel suite nobody actually stays in. Cream walls, a bed big enough for four people, a nice-looking chaise by the windows nobody will ever be sitting on… nothing that tells me who sleeps there! No photos. No clutter. Nothing that had a story attached to it. It's just space. It was beautiful in the specific way that made me feel like I was trespassing every time I looked or sat down on anything. Luz's room, at least, had warmth to it. It had high ceilings and a window seat filled with books and this adorable little

Rowan I didn't sleep well. That wasn't unusual on its own. I've run this company on five hours a night for most of the last decade, but the reason behind it was replaying a conversation I'd already had once in my head. Standing in that kitchen the night before, watching Camila's face go from anger to something colder and more controlled once I'd handed her a justification instead of an apology.Low-income family. Demonstrated pattern. I'd heard the words leave my mouth in real time and understood, even as I said them, that I was reaching for the nearest available weapon rather than saying anything close to what I actually meant. I don't know what I actually meant because I have thought exactly the same thing about her family for a decade. Then why did it bother me when I said the same to her? That's the part I hadn't managed to work out by the time I gave up trying to sleep around four.I hadn't gotten as far as fixing it before morning arrived instead.The dining room was already s