Chapter 2
I met Luca Castellano when I was twenty-one — broke, desperate, and standing on the rooftop of a twelve-story building.
My mother's medical bills had bankrupted us. Debt collectors came daily. I'd been fired from my third job that week because my employer "didn't want the drama."
I wasn't going to jump. I was just standing there, letting the wind tear at me, trying to remember what it felt like to breathe without suffocating.
"Terrible night for that," a voice said behind me.
I turned. A man in a black coat stood by the rooftop door, a cigarette between his fingers. He was younger then — twenty-six — but his eyes already held a darkness that went deeper than age.
"I'm not jumping," I said.
"I know." He exhaled smoke. "Jumpers don't cry."
I hadn't realized I was crying.
He didn't ask my name. Didn't offer empty comfort. He just stood there in the freezing wind, smoking, until I finally stepped back from the edge.
Two weeks later, a lawyer showed up at my apartment with a contract.
*Marriage of Convenience. Term: Five Years. Compensation: Full coverage of outstanding medical debts and ongoing treatment for Mrs. Helen Ward.*
The terms were clear. I would be his wife in name. I would appear at events, manage his household, and maintain his public image. In exchange, my mother would live.
I signed without hesitation.
What I didn't expect was the night he first pulled me into his bed. His hands shook — actually shook — as he touched me.
"I have episodes," he said against my throat, his voice raw. "Rage. Blackouts. The doctors call it inherited blood fury — my family's curse. When it comes..." His grip tightened. "You're the only thing that makes it stop."
And it was true. When the fury took him — when his eyes went black and his body trembled with a violence that terrified his own security team — I was the only one who could bring him back.
I'd wrap my arms around him, press my body to his, whisper his name until the tension drained from his muscles and he collapsed against me, gasping.
"How?" he asked once, genuinely baffled. "How do you do that?"
I didn't know. I just knew that when I touched him, something in him settled.
Over three years, I built my life around him. I learned to manage his household of fifty-two staff members. I memorized every business partner's name, their wives' birthdays, their children's allergies. I became the perfect hostess, the invisible engine behind his public image.
I gave up my own dreams of medical school. Gave up my friends, my hobbies, my identity. Became "Mrs. Castellano" — a title, not a person.
And I thought he saw me. Really saw me.
Until six months ago, when Bianca Laurent returned from Paris.
"She's an old friend," Luca told me. "Her family's company is key to our European expansion."
Old friend. That's what he called the woman whose photo he'd kept in his desk drawer for years — the one I pretended I'd never seen.
First, she needed an office in his building. Then, she needed a seat at company dinners. Then, she needed him to fly to Geneva with her for a "critical meeting" — on our anniversary.
"It's just business, Evelyn."
But it was never just business. I saw the way his eyes tracked her across rooms. The way his voice softened when she called. The way he slowly, methodically, erased me from every space we shared.
And I let him. Because my mother was still sick, still dependent on the medical care his money provided. I endured every humiliation, every whispered rumor, every pitying look from his staff.
Until he took the one thing I couldn't survive losing.
Now my mother was dead. And the contract that had bound me to him had burned up with her last breath.
I sat in the cold hospital hallway, still in my blood-stained clothes from where I'd held her, and I pulled out my phone.
I texted his lawyer: [I want the divorce papers by morning.]
My mother's medical bills had bankrupted us. Debt collectors came daily. I'd been fired from my third job that week because my employer "didn't want the drama."
I wasn't going to jump. I was just standing there, letting the wind tear at me, trying to remember what it felt like to breathe without suffocating.
"Terrible night for that," a voice said behind me.
I turned. A man in a black coat stood by the rooftop door, a cigarette between his fingers. He was younger then — twenty-six — but his eyes already held a darkness that went deeper than age.
"I'm not jumping," I said.
"I know." He exhaled smoke. "Jumpers don't cry."
I hadn't realized I was crying.
He didn't ask my name. Didn't offer empty comfort. He just stood there in the freezing wind, smoking, until I finally stepped back from the edge.
Two weeks later, a lawyer showed up at my apartment with a contract.
*Marriage of Convenience. Term: Five Years. Compensation: Full coverage of outstanding medical debts and ongoing treatment for Mrs. Helen Ward.*
The terms were clear. I would be his wife in name. I would appear at events, manage his household, and maintain his public image. In exchange, my mother would live.
I signed without hesitation.
What I didn't expect was the night he first pulled me into his bed. His hands shook — actually shook — as he touched me.
"I have episodes," he said against my throat, his voice raw. "Rage. Blackouts. The doctors call it inherited blood fury — my family's curse. When it comes..." His grip tightened. "You're the only thing that makes it stop."
And it was true. When the fury took him — when his eyes went black and his body trembled with a violence that terrified his own security team — I was the only one who could bring him back.
I'd wrap my arms around him, press my body to his, whisper his name until the tension drained from his muscles and he collapsed against me, gasping.
"How?" he asked once, genuinely baffled. "How do you do that?"
I didn't know. I just knew that when I touched him, something in him settled.
Over three years, I built my life around him. I learned to manage his household of fifty-two staff members. I memorized every business partner's name, their wives' birthdays, their children's allergies. I became the perfect hostess, the invisible engine behind his public image.
I gave up my own dreams of medical school. Gave up my friends, my hobbies, my identity. Became "Mrs. Castellano" — a title, not a person.
And I thought he saw me. Really saw me.
Until six months ago, when Bianca Laurent returned from Paris.
"She's an old friend," Luca told me. "Her family's company is key to our European expansion."
Old friend. That's what he called the woman whose photo he'd kept in his desk drawer for years — the one I pretended I'd never seen.
First, she needed an office in his building. Then, she needed a seat at company dinners. Then, she needed him to fly to Geneva with her for a "critical meeting" — on our anniversary.
"It's just business, Evelyn."
But it was never just business. I saw the way his eyes tracked her across rooms. The way his voice softened when she called. The way he slowly, methodically, erased me from every space we shared.
And I let him. Because my mother was still sick, still dependent on the medical care his money provided. I endured every humiliation, every whispered rumor, every pitying look from his staff.
Until he took the one thing I couldn't survive losing.
Now my mother was dead. And the contract that had bound me to him had burned up with her last breath.
I sat in the cold hospital hallway, still in my blood-stained clothes from where I'd held her, and I pulled out my phone.
I texted his lawyer: [I want the divorce papers by morning.]