Chapter 14
The spreadsheet on my tablet was a masterpiece of fiscal projection. It predicted a 14% increase in quarterly revenue for the logistics division. It was clean. It was logical. It was profitable.
And I had been staring at the same cell for twenty minutes without processing a single integer.
My mind, usually a fortress of impenetrable focus, had been breached by a recurring audio loop.
"You are sexy."
The variable played again.
"You are sexy."
It was illogical. It was unprompted. I was merely frying bacon. I was engaging in a menial domestic task to ensure she received adequate nutrition. There was nothing "sexy" about thermal dynamics applied to cured pork.
And yet, the statement had lodged itself in my neocortex.
Why did she say it? Was it a manipulation tactic? Was she trying to disarm me?
I scoffed, taking a sip of my whiskey.
She is terrible at manipulation. She told me she watched Fifty Shades of Grey as "educational research."
Hah.
I nearly choked on the liquid. The idea of Aleizha Garcia—the girl who stiffens when I kiss her neck, the girl who wears pajamas buttoned to her chin—watching erotic cinema is statistically impossible.
I would bet my entire portfolio that she covered her eyes.
She likely skipped the "spicy" scenes entirely and just watched the parts where they signed contracts.
She is a fraud.
"I love you."
My grip on the whiskey glass tightened until my knuckles turned white.
Three words. Subject. Verb. Object.
She dropped them onto the breakfast table like she was passing the salt.
I love you.
I felt a phantom constriction in my throat, the same sensation I felt when she said it. I had ignored her. I had continued eating. It was the only tactical response available to neutralize the threat.
But now, in the silence of the penthouse, the words echoed.
Why?
We have known each other for ten days. We have had zero intimate contact. I have rejected her advances. I have been cold. I have been distant.
Therefore, the statement cannot be true.
It is a verbal tic.
She is a creature of excess emotion. She probably says "I love you" to everyone. She likely says it to the doorman who opens the lobby door. She says it to the barista who misspells her name. She undoubtedly says it to that useless dog every hour.
The words have no value to her. They are not a currency of rarity; they are confetti she throws at anyone who exists in her orbit.
It meant nothing. She does not love me. She loves the idea of playing house. She loves the concept of a husband.
If she truly loved me, she wouldn't smell like fear when I touch her.
I swallowed the rest of the whiskey in one burn, trying to wash away the irritation.
It doesn't matter. I do not need her love. I need her genetics. I need her compliance. I need the heir.
"Focus," I commanded myself.
But the spreadsheet was a blur.
I stood up, abandoning the work. I walked to the window, needing to see something vast and cold to reset my temperature.
It has been exactly two hundred and forty hours since the acquisition—since the girl, Aleizha Garcia, infiltrated my penthouse and, subsequently, my carefully curated existence.
I stood before the floor-to-ceiling glass of the living room, looking down at the sprawling, glittering nervous system of the city below.
From this height, the people were nothing more than data points, the cars mere corpuscles flowing through concrete arteries.
I controlled much of what I saw. I understood the rhythm of the market, the ebb and flow of capital, the brutal logic of supply and demand.
And yet, I could not calculate the logic of the creature currently residing in my guest room.
I took a slow sip of the whiskey in my right hand—a twenty-five-year-old single malt, peat and smoke—and allowed the burn to settle in my chest. In my left hand, a cigarette burned, the ash growing precariously long.
I closed my eyes for a fraction of a second, and unbidden, her schedule manifested in my mind. I had memorized it not out of affection, but out of necessity. One must know the movements of one's assets to ensure efficiency.
She wakes. She does not rise immediately.
Instead, she lies there, staring at the ceiling, engaging in some silent, superstitious communion—prayer, I assume.
I find the practice archaic. To speak to a void and expect an answer is the height of inefficiency.
Yet, she does it with a serenity that is almost irritating.
She invades my personal space. If I am still in bed—which I often am, feigning sleep to observe her—she will lean over.
She will extend one small, manicured finger and poke my cheek.
Poke. Poke. I despise being touched.
Physical contact is a transaction, reserved for violence or sexual release.
It is not for poking. And yet, for the past ten days, I have not broken her finger.
I have not reprimanded her. I simply lay there, allowing the invasion, analyzing why her skin feels unnaturally soft.
She greets the animal. "Good morning, Primrose." She speaks to the dog as if it were a sentient heir to a throne. I despise the beast. It sheds. It pants. It occupies space. Yet, Aleizha kisses its fur with a reverence she denies me.
Hygiene protocols. She locks the bathroom door with a fervor that suggests she is guarding nuclear launch codes.
She showers. She brushes her teeth. She engages in a ritual of chemical application that baffles me—toner, serum, moisturizer, sunscreen.
She applies them with the precision of a chemist, humming discordant tunes that vibrate through the walls.
Why is she so guarded? I have seen the female form in all its variations.
I have had models and actresses in my bed who paraded their nudity like a currency.
Yet this girl hides as if her body were a sacred temple, unseen by mortal eyes.
What is she protecting? It is merely flesh and bone.
She enters the kitchen. I am usually there, consuming caffeine. She greets me for the second time. "Good morning, Husband." The title sounds ridiculous coming from her mouth, laced with a bubbly enthusiasm that grates against my nerves.
Breakfast. I cook. I do not trust her near the stove after the Incident of the Carbonized Curry.
I prepare protein and carbohydrates—eggs, bacon, toast. Simple fuel.
And she eats it. If I were to sauté a human lung and serve it to her on a porcelain plate, I am convinced she would smile, clasp her hands, say grace, and consume it with that infuriating gratitude.
"Thank you for the food, Gabriel!" Why is she grateful?
It is a basic biological requirement. I provide it because I need her healthy for breeding, not because I desire her praise.
She departs for the university.
She returns. And the chaos begins. She does not sit quietly and study Business Administration as a sophisticated woman of her intellect should.
She babbles. She narrates her life. She puts her feet—clad in ridiculous socks—on my imported coffee table.
I hate it. It is informal. It is disrespectful to the craftsmanship of the furniture.
I selected Aleizha Garcia because the dossier promised elegance.
It promised a 168 IQ. It promised a Dean's Lister who understood decorum.
Instead, I have a wife who paints her nails neon pink with strawberry designs.
I have a wife who crochets yarn monstrosities.
I have a wife who opens a laptop and... codes?
That is another discrepancy. Why is a Business student writing Python scripts?
I have watched her screen from a distance.
It is not spreadsheets. It is syntax. It is loops and variables.
And the noise. She sings. She dances without music.
She vibrates with an energy that disrupts the sterile peace of my penthouse.
I exhaled a plume of smoke against the glass, watching it curl and fade.
Aleizha Garcia.
She is a paradox. She is a variable I cannot solve.
I brought the cigarette to my lips again, inhaling deeply. The nicotine was a necessary vice, a way to sharpen the edges of my mind when the dull roar of her existence became too loud.
Cough.
The memory of her reaction to the smoke surfaced. Every time she is near me when I smoke, she coughs. A dry, wheezing sound. She crinkles her nose. She waves her hand subtly.
I narrowed my eyes at the reflection in the window.
She has a respiratory condition. Asthma? But the medical dossier I received from my private investigators was comprehensive. It stated explicitly: Health Status: Optimal. No chronic conditions. Respiratory function: 100%.
If she has asthma, the dossier is flawed. If the dossier is flawed, my acquisition team is incompetent. And if my team is incompetent, there will be consequences.
Or perhaps she is feigning it? A manipulation tactic to control my behavior? To make me extinguish the cigarette?
I scoffed internally. Who is she to dictate my vices? She is my wife by contract, nothing more. I do not stop for anyone. I certainly do not stop for a girl who cries because she is afraid of intimacy.
And yet...
I heard the distinct, mechanical click of the front door lock engaging.
Click.
She is here.
My body reacted before my brain authorized the command.
I turned away from the window. I walked to the fireplace. I tossed the half-finished cigarette into the flames.
Hiss.
I stared at the dying ember.
I did not do that for her. I did it because I was finished.
I turned toward the entryway.
Aleizha walked in.
She was wearing her university uniform. Her hair was held back by a pink hair clip. And she was smiling.
It was the brightest, most unadulterated smile I had ever seen. It was a weapon. It disarmed the room. It made the gray walls look warmer.
I hate that smile.
I hate it because it is illogical. What does she have to be happy about? She is married to a stranger. She lives in a gilded cage. She is a tool for reproduction. And yet, she beams as if she has just conquered the world.
"Honey, I'm hooooome!" she sang out, her voice echoing off the high ceilings.
She walked—no, she hopped—toward the living room. She swung her heavy bag off her shoulder and threw it onto the couch.
Thump.
It landed crookedly.
I clenched my jaw. Informal. Messy. Not elegant. A sophisticated woman places her bag. She does not launch it like a projectile.
She didn't stop. She came straight for me.
She reached out and grabbed my hand.
I stiffened. As previously noted, I do not like being touched.
But her hand was small. Warm. Her fingers wrapped around my palm, squeezing it. She began to sway our joined hands left and right, like a pendulum.
"Hello, Husband!" she chirped. "Did you miss me?"
I looked down at her. I looked at her wide, brown doe eyes. I looked at the flush on her cheeks.
And then... I smelled it.
My nostrils flared.
It was faint, buried under the synthetic scent of her strawberry body wash.
It was a cologne.
It was a male cologne.
It was not mine. My scent is sandalwood, whiskey, and tobacco. This scent was light. Airy. Angelic.
And it was on her.
A cold, dark rage uncoiled in the pit of my stomach. It was immediate and violent. It slithered up my spine, freezing the blood in my veins.
Another man.
She had been close to another man. Close enough for his scent to transfer to her uniform. Close enough for the particles of his existence to cling to my property.
Who?
A student? A professor? That boy she mentioned... Ian?
The grip I had on her hand tightened involuntarily.
My mind began to race, calculating scenarios.
Was she meeting someone? Was she being touched?
Was that why she rejected me in the bedroom?
Was that why she cried? Because she was comparing me to some citrus-scented boy who smiled at her?
I felt the urge to pull her closer, to bury my face in her neck and inhale until I identified the source, to scrub the scent off her skin with my own.
She belongs to me. The contract is signed. The ring is on her finger. No other male is permitted within her radius.
I was about to speak. I was about to demand a name. I was about to interrogate her with the full force of my fury.
But she spoke first.
"Wanna go somewhere private?" she asked.
Her voice was breathless. Her eyes were sparkling with something that looked like excitement.
My thoughts screeched to a halt.
Private.
The rage paused, suspended in the air.
My mind, fueled by the whiskey, interpreted the data instantly.
Private. Bedroom. Intimacy.
She wants to go somewhere private.
She came home, smelling of another man... perhaps to make me jealous? Perhaps to incite a reaction? And now, she was offering herself?
I gulped. My Adam's apple bobbed.
The tension that had been building in my body for ten days—the frustration of the rejection, the proximity of her sleeping body, the confusion of her existence—suddenly focused into a singular point.
"Gabby..." she whispered, stepping closer. "I mean... Gabriel..."
Gabby.
The nickname scraped against my eardrums. It was infantile. It was disrespectful. It reduced my authority to a two-syllable sound that a toddler might make.
I should hate it.
I told myself I hated it.
But hearing it fall from her lips, soft and pleading, ignited a different kind of heat in my chest.
I looked at her. I raised a single eyebrow, challenging her. Challenging the audacity of the request. Challenging the scent of the other man that still lingered on her shoulder.
You want private? I will give you private.
"Where?" I asked, my voice dropping to a low rumble.
I expected her to lead me to the bedroom. I expected her to pull me toward the master suite.
But she didn't.
She tugged on my hand. Hard.
"Come on!" she giggled. "It's a surprise!"
She turned and began to drag me toward the front door.
I stumbled slightly, caught off guard by the physics of the situation. She is small. I am large. And yet, she was moving me.
She dragged me out of the penthouse.
I did not stop her. I did not ask further questions. I did not demand an explanation for the citrus scent. I simply followed.
Why?
Because despite the logic, despite the inefficiency, despite the rage... I was curious.
And perhaps, in the darkest, most honest corner of my mind, I realized that wherever this chaotic, pink-loving, unauthorized variable was taking me... I wanted to go.