Chapter Five The Last Wife Lands
Chapter Five
The Last Wife Lands
SADIE
Mars was beautiful enough to make me suspicious.
It filled the shuttle window in shades of red, copper, and soft pink, the horizon curved beneath a sunrise that looked hand-painted for a perfume advertisement.
Across the cabin, Beckett watched my face instead of the view.
“Do not look pleased,” I told him.
“I am not.”
“Your left eyebrow is celebrating.”
“My eyebrows are neutral.”
“That one has a history.”
He turned toward the window.
I had spent most of the flight working, sleeping badly, and avoiding the photograph of my hand wrapped around his. The image had become the network’s most shared launch post.
The comments had assigned us a wedding hashtag, three possible future children, and a seventy-two percent chance of kissing before day ten.
I knew this because Lila had sent me screenshots. I did not read comments. I had people for that.
The shuttle settled into the resort terminal with a gentleness that felt expensive. A moment later, the cabin lights warmed and the arrival music began.
It was an instrumental love song.
“No,” I said.
Beckett touched the control beside his seat.
The music stopped.
“Thank you.”
“I disliked it first.”
“Your sacrifice remains moving.”
Marisol appeared at the cabin door. “Welcome to Mars.”
She said it like a person announcing breakfast rather than another planet.
I liked her immediately.
Beyond her, the crew had lined the arrival corridor in crisp uniforms. No one held flowers. No one applauded. No one had been ordered to pretend a fake marriage was personally meaningful.
My contract had survived its first test.
I looked at Beckett.
“You told them.”
“Priya did.”
“Of course she did.”
His mouth shifted.
There it was again. That almost-smile he treated like proprietary information.
We left the shuttle beneath a curved glass roof. The corridor opened toward the red canyon, with nothing between us and the view except clear panels and a row of white planters filled with trailing green vines.
I stopped. The landscape was enormous. Not empty. Enormous.
Ridges folded into the distance beneath a pale rose sky. The resort sat against all that red like a secret someone had spent too much money keeping.
“Beautiful,” Beckett said.
I looked at him.
“The view,” he clarified.
“You should clarify faster.”
“You should make fewer dangerous assumptions.”
“I assumed the billionaire beside me was fishing for praise. I stand by the risk assessment.”
Nico waited at the end of the corridor in a rose-colored suit and a pair of gleaming silver shoes.
He had reached Mars before us and changed clothes.
That was either impressive service or a warning.
“Sadie,” he said, spreading his arms. “Beckett. Welcome to the beginning of the most unexpected love story in two worlds.”
“Temporary promotional arrangement,” I said.
“Welcome to the beginning of the most unexpected temporary promotional arrangement in two worlds.”
“Better.”
He pressed a hand to his heart. “It was not.”
Behind him stood Priya Nair.
She wore black trousers, a cream shirt, and the calm expression of a woman who had spent the morning removing heart-shaped objects from emergency exits.
“Ms. Bell,” she said. “I’m Priya.”
“The woman who actually runs the resort.”
“Only when Mr. Vale is awake.”
Beckett looked at her. “I am awake.”
“Then I have no explanation for the arrival banner.”
My attention moved past her.
The corridor ended at a pair of tall doors. Through the glass, I could see palms, flowers, dining terraces, and a pink glow suspended beneath a vast dome.
Across the doors, in letters taller than Nico, a banner read: THE LAST WIFE ON MARS HAS ARRIVED. My name appeared underneath in smaller type. Sadie Bell.
At least they had not changed it.
“Who approved that?” Beckett asked.
Nico glanced toward Priya.
Priya glanced toward the ceiling.
“The network installed it before we received the revised campaign agreement,” she said.
“Take it down,” Beckett said.
The doors opened. Applause rushed through them. The Rose Dome was filled with cameras. Of course it was.
The network host stood beneath the banner with a microphone and the eagerness of a man who had discovered a live controversy moments before his segment.
Behind him, the resort spread beneath the glass in impossible green. Palms rose beside white stone paths. Roses spilled from terraces. A shallow stream crossed beneath a curved bridge, reflecting the pink neon MARS HONEYMOON RESORT sign on the far wall.
Above it all, the Martian sky glowed through the dome. The place smelled like citrus leaves, warm stone, and roses. Luxury usually tried to overwhelm people. This made me want to stand still.
I refused on principle.
“Sadie Bell,” the host called. “How does it feel to officially become the last wife on Mars?”
A producer gestured us toward two marks on the floor.
The light on the nearest camera turned green.
Beckett looked at me. “You do not have to answer.”
The microphone waited.
So did the banner.
Twelve hours ago, I had been expected to arrive beneath it with Trent. I would have smiled, lifted my pink ring, and delivered the line the network had sent me.
I had practiced it in a mirror.
I could not remember it now.
“Honestly?” I said.
The host’s smile brightened. “Always.”
“I hate the phrase.”
Somewhere behind the camera, a person stopped breathing.
The host blinked. “The Last Wife on Mars?”
“Yes.”
The live comment panel beside him began moving too quickly to read.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I am not a prize at the end of a guest list, women are not an endangered travel category, and no one should build a romantic brand around the hope that no other wife ever arrives.”
Nico made a quiet sound that might have been grief.
I continued.
“Also, Beckett and I are not presenting ourselves as a love story. We met today. We signed a transparent promotional agreement because our businesses and a great many jobs depend on completing this residency.”
The host looked toward Beckett, clearly hoping for a rescue. Beckett stayed beside me.
He did not interrupt. He did not soften my answer. He did not turn it into his.
The host tried again. “Then what are you hoping viewers will see over the next thirty days?”
I looked around the dome.
A camera operator stood in front of a marble planter while a gardener waited politely behind her with a watering wand. Two servers held welcome trays no one had touched. Priya watched the whole production with the stillness of someone counting labor hours.
“A resort,” I said. “The people who make it work. What it costs, what it gets right, and what it needs to fix.”
“And your relationship with Mr. Vale?”
“That depends on whether he survives the review.”
Laughter moved through the dome. Beckett’s eyebrow lifted. The celebratory one.
The host turned to him. “Mr. Vale, are you comfortable with Ms. Bell rejecting the name of your own campaign on arrival?”
“The contract gives her editorial independence.”
“That was not my question.”
“Then ask her. Ms. Bell speaks for herself.”
The dome went quiet for one sharp second. Then the comment panel filled with pink hearts so quickly it looked broken.
Priya’s tablet chimed. She looked down. Then again. And again.
“Reservations?” Beckett asked.
“Waitlist sign-ups,” she said. “They doubled.”
The network producer lifted both hands and mouthed keep going.
“Please don’t,” I told him.
The feed cut to a wide shot of the dome. The camera light went dark. People around us began moving again.
Beckett turned to Priya. “Remove the banner.”
“The audience appears to like that she hates it,” the host said.
“She still hates it,” Beckett replied.
He said it without looking at me. That made it worse. Or better. I was too tired to identify which.
Nico led us through the Rose Dome while Priya organized the banner’s removal. The resort was offensively lovely.
Tables curved around palms beneath small amber lights. White flowers climbed the supports of the dome. On the far terrace, a piano waited beside the dance floor under a ceiling filled with red sky.
“No synthetic floral scent,” I said.
“Real flowers,” Beckett replied.
“No speakers playing birds that do not live here.”
“There are no birds.”
“Good. Imaginary birds lower a property’s dignity.”
“I will add that to the operating standards.”
“You mock me now. You will thank me when no guest spends breakfast searching for a bird trapped in the ceiling.”
Nico walked backward in front of us. “Your villa has been prepared to the highest romantic standard.”
“That sentence contains a threat,” I said.
“Only to loneliness.”
The Solstice Villa stood at the dome’s edge behind a private garden wall. When the doors opened, the red canyon appeared through an entire wall of glass.
For a second time that day, I forgot to criticize something.
The living room held low cream sofas, a small dining table, and a sunken bath beside the terrace. Above the bedroom, the glass ceiling framed the pale sky.
The bed beneath it was enormous. It had one mattress. One set of sheets.
One pink silk throw laid diagonally across the foot with the confidence of fabric that had never been responsible for anything.
“The sitting room sofa is not suitable for sleeping,” Beckett said.
“I had not asked.”
“You were looking at it.”
“I was assessing every exit.”
“The terrace door locks from inside.”
“Not the kind of exit I meant.”
His expression changed. Barely. He understood anyway.
“The agreement remains voidable for every breach we listed,” he said.
“I know.”
Nico opened the wardrobe. Two white robes hung inside. Mine was embroidered THE LAST WIFE. Beckett’s read THE HUSBAND.
“No,” we said together.
Nico closed the wardrobe.
“We will revisit the robes after rest.”
“We will burn them after rest,” I said.
“Open flame is restricted inside the villa.”
“You truly think of everything.”
The bathroom contained two pink toothbrushes, two pairs of slippers, two champagne glasses, and one bowl of rose-shaped soap.
“How will we distinguish the toothbrushes?” I asked.
Nico examined them.
“By emotional intuition.”
“Bring me a black one,” Beckett said.
“I want black.”
He looked at me. “Gray.”
“Acceptable.”
Nico brightened, as if we had successfully navigated our first marital compromise. On the bedside table, a card waited beside a bottle of champagne. CONGRATULATIONS, SADIE AND BECKETT. WELCOME TO YOUR HONEYMOON ON MARS.
No Mrs. Vale. No last wife. No other woman’s name. I glanced at Beckett.
He was looking at the card too.
“You changed it.”
“Priya changed it.”
“You told Priya.”
“Yes.”
The answer was simple.
So was the care inside it.
I did not trust simple things. They were often complicated plans wearing clean shirts.
Still, I left the card where it was.
Nico placed two tablets on the dining table. “Your residency schedule begins tomorrow at eight. Tonight is reserved for acclimation, a private dinner, and the newlywed starlight bath.”
“Remove the bath,” Beckett said.
“Veto the bath,” I corrected.
Nico looked wounded. “The salts were selected to evoke the first rose garden at sunset.”
“The garden will recover,” I said.
He gathered the tablets and retreated toward the door.
“If you need anything, press the heart beside your bed.”
“There is a heart beside the bed?” I asked.
The door closed behind him. I found it on the wall. Pink. Illuminated. Pulsing softly. I pressed it once.
Nico’s voice filled the room. “Romance concierge.”
“Please make the heart stop pulsing.”
There was a pause.
“Immediately.”
The light became still.
“Better,” I said.
Beckett removed his jacket and laid it over a chair. He looked less formal without it. That was not useful. He loosened his cuffs.
Also not useful.
The single bed waited behind him, large enough to accommodate a diplomatic summit and intimate enough to cause an international incident.
“We need rules,” he said.
I looked at the paired pillows, the corrected card, and the man who had let me reject his campaign on live television without taking the microphone from my hand.
“Many,” I agreed.