All Chapters of Vows of vengeance: His contract wife : Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

( Rhoswen’s pov)The chandelier above the ballroom throws light across three hundred faces I've known my entire life, and not one of them looks at me like they actually know me. They look at me like I'm something to admire. Or measure. Or in the case of the wives gathered around the champagne fountain, quietly resent."Rhoswen." My father's oldest business partner kisses both my cheeks, his cologne thick enough to taste. "Four days. Four days and you'll be a married woman. Your father would be so proud."I give him the smile I've been practicing since I was seven, the one that never reaches anywhere near my chest, where something has been sitting cold and tight since I put on this dress three hours ago."He would," I say, because it's easier than admitting I have no idea what my father would think anymore. He's been gone for six years. People stop being predictable once they're gone. You spend enough time imagining what they'd say, and eventually you realize you're only talking to you

( Rhoswen's pov)Callum finds me on the terrace an hour before midnight, when the gala has thinned to the people who aren't quite ready to go home and the band inside has slowed to something low and unhurried."You disappeared," he says, easing the terrace door shut behind him until the noise from inside fades to a distant hum. "I had half the room asking if you'd fainted."I needed air."I don't tell him the rest. I didn't tell him that somewhere in the last hour, a stranger's eyes found mine across a crowded ballroom and left something unsettled inside my chest that I still haven't figured out how to put back in place.It feels ridiculous, even in my own head. A man I've never spoken to. A look that lasted less than a second. And yet somehow, I can't stop thinking about it.I have a wedding in four days. I don't have room in my life for a feeling I can't even name.Callum crosses the terrace and settles beside me on the stone railing, close enough that his shoulder brushes mine, warm

( Delphine's pov)I've counted the exits in this ballroom four times since we arrived, and I hate myself a little more every time I do it.It's a habit I picked up somewhere in the last eighteen months, this quiet cataloguing of doors, hallways, and the fastest route to fresh air. I couldn't tell you exactly when it started. I only know I do it now in every room I enter weddings, board meetings, even my own father's dinner table. Some animal part of me has decided the world is a house that might catch fire at any moment, and I'd better know where the windows are."Delphine." My father's voice, low and clipped, appears on my shoulder before I see him. "You're hovering by the wall like a ghost. Go talk to someone.""I was talking to someone.""You were talking to a waiter." He straightens his cufflink, the same nervous gesture Callum makes, though on my father it looks less like nerves and more like a man rehearsing a calm he doesn't feel. "This is your brother's engagement party. Smile

( Rhoswen's pov)I've sat through a hundred of these meetings and never once needed to check my own pulse before walking into the room.Today I checked it twice.The joint council meets quarterly a parade of shipping consortiums and insurance men who've known my father's name longer than they've known mine. I could usually walk this hallway half-asleep. Today my hands are cold inside my gloves, and I keep telling myself it's the wedding. Three days now, if you count from midnight. Not the fact that Torin Blackwood's name sits two lines below mine on the attendee list.Callum squeezes my hand outside the door. "You'll be brilliant. You always are.""I know," I say, because it's easier than admitting I don't understand why my stomach's in knots over a meeting I've sat through a dozen times without a second thought.Same room as always. Long table, water glasses nobody touches, the particular hush of men pretending not to check their phones under the table. I take my usual seat between m

( Rhoswen's pov)Graham's office still smells the way it always has old paper, cedar, the dust of a room rearranged a hundred times but never really changed. I used to do homework at that side table as a girl, legs swinging because they didn't reach the floor, while he took calls in a language of numbers I didn't understand then and don't fully understand now, if I'm being honest with myself."Sweetheart." He rises when I come in, kisses both my cheeks. Nothing in his face but the same warmth I've leaned on my whole life. "You look tired.""Long day." I don't mention the boardroom. I don't mention the name that's been sitting behind my ribs like a splinter for three days now. "You said something came up with the paperwork.""Nothing alarming. Just details that need your signature before Friday." He gestures me into the chair across from his desk, the same chair I've sat in since I understood what a signature meant. "I know contracts aren't your favorite way to spend an evening.""I'd