Chapter 67

Chapter 67
Chapter 67
SOPHIA

"Sophia, I can't give you details right now. But I need you to trust me. What I was handling today—it was important. Life or death important."

Life or death. For Sofia. While Adam—our actual son, the child Lucas had claimed as his own—had been upstairs wondering why Papa had abandoned him.

"I trust you," I said, and it wasn't entirely a lie. I did trust Lucas. Trusted that he'd keep us financially secure. Trusted that he'd fulfill the terms of our contract. Trusted that he'd be kind and respectful and everything a husband should be on paper.

I just didn't trust that I'd ever be his first choice. His priority. The person he'd choose if he had to choose.

"Are you angry?" His hand splayed across my stomach, and I had to suppress the urge to pull away.

"No. I'm tired."

"Sophia—"

"Lucas, it's fine. Really. You had an emergency, you dealt with it. That's what you do. I get it." I did get it. Got it so clearly it hurt. "Can we just sleep? It's been a long day."

He was quiet for a long moment, his breath warm against my neck. I could feel the tension in his body, could sense him wrestling with whether to push the conversation or let it go.

"Okay," he said finally. "But Sophia? I meant what I said this morning. About us being a family. About this being real. That hasn't changed."

Hadn't it? It felt like it had changed. Felt like the morning's intimacy and promises had been swept away the moment Sofia's crisis took precedence.

But I didn't say that. Just made a noncommittal sound and closed my eyes, willing myself to actually fall asleep this time.

Lucas held me tighter, his face buried in my hair, and I wondered if he could feel the distance I was putting between us. The walls I was rebuilding after foolishly letting them down.

"I love you," he whispered, so quietly I almost didn't hear it.

And there it was again. Those three words he kept saying so casually, like they were true, like they meant something beyond the performance we were both committed to.

"Love you too," I whispered back automatically, the lie so practiced now it came without thought.

Except it wasn't a lie. That was the problem. I did love him. Desperately. Completely. In ways that were going to destroy me when this arrangement inevitably ended.

But loving him and being loved back were two very different things.

Lucas fell asleep eventually, his breathing evening out, his grip on me loosening slightly. I lay there in the darkness, staring at nothing, and tried to figure out how I was going to survive this.

The pills were still in my nightstand drawer. Still untaken. And now, after this morning's bathroom sex and Lucas's continued lack of protection use, I was even more at risk of getting pregnant.

I should take one now. Should slip out of bed, take the pill in the bathroom, start protecting myself from the consequences of my own recklessness.

But I couldn't make myself move. Couldn't make myself care enough about the potential consequences to do the responsible thing.

Maybe a part of me wanted to get pregnant. Wanted the choice taken out of my hands. Wanted the excuse to stay that a child would provide.

How pathetic was that? Being so desperate to keep a man who didn't really want me that I'd consider baby-trapping him?

Jose's voice echoed in my head from a conversation I'd accidentally overheard weeks ago: "You can't trap someone into loving you."

He was right. Even if I got pregnant, even if Lucas stayed out of obligation, it wouldn't make him love me. Wouldn't make me his first choice. Wouldn't change the fundamental truth that I was convenient while Sofia was important.

I must have finally fallen asleep because I woke to sunlight streaming through the windows and Lucas already gone. There was a note on his pillow.

Had to go to the office early. Security team will be with you and Adam today. Don't leave the building without them. I'll explain tonight. I love you. -L

Security team. Because of whatever threat had been made against Sofia. Because Lucas's world was expanding to include dangers I couldn't see and couldn't protect against.

I crumpled the note and threw it in the trash, then immediately felt guilty and retrieved it, smoothing it out and tucking it in my nightstand drawer next to the pills I still hadn't taken.

Evidence of all my failures. The pills I was too scared to take. The note from a husband who was too preoccupied with another woman to be present. The growing certainty that I was losing something I'd never really had.

Adam's voice calling for me pulled me from my spiral. I shoved everything—the pills, the note, my feelings—back in the drawer and went to start the day.

To be the mother Adam needed. The wife Lucas expected. The woman who had it all together even when she was falling apart.

It's what I did. What I'd always done.

Survive. Adapt. Pretend.

Even when pretending felt like slowly dying.

Especially then.

Because the alternative—admitting how broken I was, how desperate, how completely in love with a man who would never love me back—was too terrifying to face.

So I'd keep pretending. Keep playing the role. Keep being the perfect contract wife who never complained, never demanded more, never admitted that she was drowning.

Until eventually, maybe, I'd forget I was pretending at all.

Or until the pretending killed me.

Whichever came first.