Chapter 35 - Julian
I couldn’t sleep.
I lay on my back staring at the ceiling while my wife slept beside me.
My wife.
The words still felt unreal in my head, like something I hadn’t earned the right to think yet. Like if I said them too often, the reality might splinter under the weight of acknowledgment.
But I could not deny the sense of pride that overwhelmed me when I did say it out loud. Something I wasn't allowing myself to dwell on.
Lucy was turned slightly onto her side, one knee bent, hair fanned across the pillow in loose waves she hadn’t bothered to tame after the gala. The faint scent of her had already begun to replace the sterile neutrality my bedroom had always held.
Our bedroom.
That thought sent a slow ripple of awareness through me.
The last two days crashed into me in fragments. The office. The signing. The way her hand had trembled just slightly before she steadied herself. The way she didn’t look at me when she said she’d do it, like she couldn’t afford to see my reaction.
The penthouse. The way she’d stood so still in the dressing room, surrounded by more wealth than most people see in a lifetime, and somehow made it look like it weighed on her instead of elevating her.
Dinner. Laughter. Takeout containers spread across marble like rebellion to the order my life usually held. Her barefoot, curled into the couch, explaining why she ordered too much food because you learn a lot about people through what they crave.
Then the gala...
I closed my eyes.
I saw her again under the lights, lace catching the glow, the way she fit against me when we danced like it was what we were meant to be doing for a lifetime instead of something learned in a moment.
The way her breath had hitched when I pulled her closer, the way she had trusted me not to let go.
The way I’d wanted to, but not because I didn't want her in my arms. Because I wanted to pull her somewhere private.
Wanted to undo that black lace dress slowly, deliberately, to watch it slide down her body and pool at her feet while I memorized every inch of her.
I wanted to kiss her.
That was the problem.
Not sex. Not desire. Those were familiar enough beasts, controllable, compartmentalized, useful when necessary.
This was different. I wanted to kiss her because it would mean something.
I opened my eyes again.
Lucy shifted beside me, murmuring something under her breath, her hand curling lightly into the sheets between us. She didn’t touch me, not quite, but the proximity was enough to make my body very aware of hers.
We were married, and we hadn’t even kissed.
I didn’t know how to take that next step without risking something I wasn’t prepared to lose.
I slipped out of bed quietly instead.
The penthouse was silent as I crossed it, the city outside still humming with late-night life. I poured myself a glass of Scotch in my office, expensive, aged, smooth, and stood by the windows instead of sitting.
Chicago stretched beneath me, alive and indifferent to my predicament. I tried to focus, think of anything other than her... I tried to think about work, about the projects I was focused on. But something else slipped in...
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow was the formal photo shoot to accompany the public announcement. As if most of the city wasn’t already talking. As if cameras hadn’t caught her hand in mine, my arm around her waist, the way I’d said my wife without hesitation.
That part hadn’t been planned. I’d felt her anxiety the moment we stepped out of the car. The way she’d gone rigid, bracing for a repeat of the first gala. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t let that happen again. And I hadn’t.
But the truth unsettled me.
I hadn’t done it because of optics. I’d done it because the idea of her feeling small beside me made something ugly coil in my gut.
I replayed the night in flashes.
The way she watched the room, not for power, not for advantage, but for people. The way she noticed servers, donors’ wives, the quiet exhaustion beneath polished smiles. The way she acknowledged and thanked everyone, regardless of their status.
The way she listened.
God, she listened.
I’d caught myself tracking her movements instead of conversations. Adjusting my stance to give her space. Redirecting questions before they reached her without consciously deciding to. I adjusted for her. That had never happened before.
When Whitaker appeared, the surge of possessiveness that followed shocked me. I didn’t need to mark territory. She wore my ring. Legally, publicly, irrevocably.
And still.
The urge to pull her closer, to remind him, remind everyone, that she was mine had been visceral.
Terrifying.
I had danced with other women before. Dozens. Hundreds, probably, across years of events and negotiations and polite obligations. I couldn’t tell you the name of a single one.
But I could tell you the exact shade of Lucy’s lipstick under the ballroom lights. The faint scar under her jaw I’d noticed when she tilted her head. The way her fingers curled slightly when she was nervous.
That wasn’t desire.
That was attention.
I took another sip of Scotch and let it burn.
Control had always been my advantage. Distance. Strategy. The ability to want without needing. Lucy was undoing that in quiet, insidious ways.
When she’d stepped away at the gala, just briefly, to speak with someone, I’d noticed immediately. The absence felt like a pulled thread, subtle but destabilizing. I’d found her across the room without thinking, relief settling only when she was back within reach.
That had never happened.
I wasn’t supposed to notice the absence.
I finished my drink and stood there longer than necessary, until the tension in my shoulders finally eased and exhaustion crept in.
When I returned to the bedroom, Lucy hadn’t moved.
I slid back into bed carefully, lying on my back again, hands folded loosely over my stomach like I was afraid to touch anything.
She turned toward me in her sleep, and her knee brushed my thigh, her hair shifted, and a soft whisper against my arm.
I didn’t move.
I stared at the ceiling and let the weight of the day settle.
This wasn’t part of the contract.
This wasn’t leverage, optics, or a mutually beneficial arrangement behaving as expected.
This was something else.
Something I didn’t know how to do.
But as sleep finally dragged me under, one thought stayed with me, quiet, insistent, impossible to ignore.
I liked who I was with her.