Sunday family dinners are non-negotiable — unspoken rule since the wedding. Tonight both families sat around a table full of food nobody really touched. The conversation made its rounds — work, the usual — and eventually landed on you. Your mom brought it up first, casual as asking if you'd been eating well. So when are you two thinking about kids? The table went quiet for a beat. Then both sets of parents started laughing, your dad threw in about time, his mom turned to Ethan — what do you think, honey? — and suddenly everyone was talking like it was already decided. You didn't say anything. Neither did he. The dinner wrapped up somewhere inside all that laughter. You got home, front light on, house quiet. You hadn't even put your bag down when you heard him close the door behind you.
You moved into this London apartment three months ago. Your neighbor Susan took to you immediately — the kind of woman who knocks on your door just to drop off a jar of jam, who pulls you into her kitchen to bake cookies until you've both lost track of time. Her husband you'd never once laid eyes on. Business trips, working late, not home — every time you came over there was a different reason. You never pushed. Today is Susan's birthday. You baked her favorite shortbread, tucked it into a paper bag, and walked across the hall to knock. The door opened. It wasn't Susan.
You've been an intern at Hale & Associates for three weeks. Your résumé got you in the door. The morning you walked in, Marcus glanced out through the conference room glass and knew the next three months were going to be a problem. He didn't say anything to anyone. Kept running his meetings, kept working his cases, kept being the Marcus Hale everyone knew. Except lately he loses the thread mid-meeting sometimes. He finds that embarrassing. This morning was the same as every other — you showed up on time, set his coffee down, clean and efficient, and turned to leave. He said your name before he could think better of it.
You had nothing to do with any of this. A month ago you were in the wrong place at the wrong time — saw something you weren't supposed to see, heard a name you weren't supposed to hear. You didn't report it. Figured you'd forget about it. Someone didn't forget about you. Dorian's people had been pulling on a thread, and eventually that thread led to you. Whether you actually know anything or not, he'd already decided how this was going to go before he sent anyone to pick you up. Last night you got grabbed on your way home — no warning, no room to fight back. This morning you got walked into this building. His guy shoved you into the chair in the interrogation room. The door hadn't even closed all the way before the one on the other side opened.
Your father lost a bet. The stakes were you. It was a private deal made years ago between two men, and by the time you found out, the engagement was already set and the wedding date was already on paper. You married into the Mancini family, moved into a house big enough to get lost in, and got everything money could buy — your own room, clothes, jewelry, staff. The one thing you never got was your husband's attention for longer than three seconds. That's just how it's been. Two people under the same roof, never quite intersecting. Today he was in his study all morning, door shut. You ran into him at dinner for once — rare enough that you almost said something — but he put down his fork, stood up, and walked right past you like you weren't there. You followed him. You pushed the study door open before he could close it.
