4. The Contract Wife #3
Sofia is standing at the counter in a borrowed T-shirt and sweatpants, drinking water from a glass she's holding with both hands.
Her hair is loose and messy, pillow-creased on one side.
Without the navy dress, without the makeup, without the performance, she looks younger—more genuine than the woman in the photograph.
She sees me in the doorway. Neither of us is surprised. Two insomniacs in a house full of empty rooms — it was only a matter of time.
"I won't do it again," she says.
I pour myself a glass of water. "Do what?"
"The photos. The arm around my waist. The whispering in my ear like we're something we're not." She turns to face me, leaning against the counter with her arms crossed. "I agreed to play your wife in public. I didn't agree to be paraded around like a trophy for your camera crew."
"The performance is the price, Sofia. You knew that when you signed."
"The performance, yes. Being treated like a prop, no. There's a difference."
"The difference is semantics. The family needs to believe this marriage is real. The associates need to believe it. Sebastian needs to believe it. And none of them will believe it if my wife flinches every time I touch her."
"Then maybe you should ask before you touch."
The words land like a slap. Not because she's wrong — because she's right, and I know it, and that knowledge sits alongside the memory of her pulse beneath my fingers in a way that makes my chest feel too small.
"You're right," I say.
She blinks. She wasn't expecting that. She was expecting a fight — I can see it in her posture, the way her weight shifts forward onto her toes, her jaw clenched for battle. She came down here armed for war, and I simply placed my weapon on the counter.
But I don't stop there. I can't — because agreeing isn't enough, and she needs to understand the full scope of what she signed.
"But understand something," I say. "In public, we are married.
That means proximity. That means contact.
That means looking at each other the way people look at each other when they've chosen to share a life.
If you flinch, if you freeze, if you pull away when someone's watching — they'll see it.
And the people watching us aren't kind, Sofia.
They're looking for weakness. They're looking for cracks.
And every crack they find, Sebastian will use. "
She stares at me. I observe the calculation behind her eyes — not anger, not defiance, but something more complex. She's weighing what I said against what she feels, measuring the cost of the performance against the risk of being caught.
"Then we practice," she says.
"Practice?"
"If I need to avoid flinching when you touch me, then we should practice in private so it looks natural in public—on my terms, with warning, not ambushed in front of a camera."
I almost smile. She's negotiating. Even at 2 a.m., in a borrowed T-shirt, barefoot on my kitchen floor — she's negotiating.
She will always be negotiating. I respect her for it.
I resent her for it in equal measure. Because every time she pushes back, every time she refuses to fold, every time she stands in my kitchen and matches me word for word — she becomes less of a strategic asset and more of something I don't have a category for.
"Agreed," I say. "On your terms."
"Good."
"Good."
The kitchen is quiet. The refrigerator hums. We stand on opposite sides of the counter, drinking water from identical glasses, not speaking.
Six feet of marble separate us and something else — something that has nothing to do with countertops and everything to do with the fact that she's standing in my kitchen in a T-shirt that's slipping off her shoulder, while I deliberately choose to keep my eyes fixed on the glass in my hand.
She sets down her water. "Goodnight, Matteo."
"Goodnight, Sofia."
She leaves. Her bare feet are silent on the marble — quieter than Gianna's heels, quieter than my shoes. Like a ghost who's decided to haunt me gently.
I stand in the kitchen for a long time after she leaves. I don't think about the contract, the succession, or Sebastian's next move.
I think about her pulse beneath my fingers. And the fact that she told me to ask before I touched her, and I agreed, and that agreeing feels like the most dangerous concession I've made since this whole thing began.
My phone buzzes on the counter. Enzo. A text—two lines, no punctuation—the way he writes when he's reporting something he wants me to see before morning.
Sebastian's people are asking about the girl. Dante put feelers out tonight. Her mother. Her debts. Everything.
I read it twice. Then I set the phone down and stare at the dark window where my reflection stares back.
She's been in my world for three days. She hasn't even unpacked. And my brother is already circling her like something he intends to take apart.
I close my hand around the phone until the case creaks. Whatever this arrangement is — contract, performance, strategy — Sofia Marino has just become something else entirely.
A target.
And I am the reason she's wearing one.