Chapter 37

Isabella's POV

I was standing in my bedroom, looking down through the window and watching Aaron make sharp paces back and forth on his phone in the courtyard. I could see even from this distance the tension in his shoulders, the staccato movements of his arms as he haggled whatever deals he had to make to keep Victor alive.

My husband was pounding the pavement doing his best to save the man I loved, and that burden felt awfully heavy.

"Yeah, I know they're taking a risk," Aaron was saying as I listened through my cracked window. “But it has to be today. It's too late to do it tomorrow... I don't care how much it cost! Just make it happen."

He hung up and quickly punched in another number, his actions brisk. This was Aaron at his happiest — solving problems, fixing crises with his power and resources. It really should have been scary, but I was strangely comforted by how good he was at his job.

How had my life come to this? Only weeks earlier, I’d been conspiring with Victor to ruin Aaron; certain that the match made for me was prison and my husband an enemy. And I'd just bargained away a loveless union with him to secure the life of my would-be lover.

It would have been funny, if it wasn’t so heartbreaking.

I turned and sat on the bed, trying to tease out the knot of emotion stuck inside my chest. Guilt that Aaron was putting so much on the line for me. Gratitude that he’d accepted my terms without attempting to negotiate for more. Grief that Victor was leaving for good. And beneath it all, an increasing feeling that perhaps I had made the right choice after all.

Victor was the embodiment of freedom, adventure, passion — everything I once had fantasized about when I was younger. But Aaron represented something different. Stability, partnership, respect. Perhaps those things were not as thrilling as romance, but they were tangible and sturdy and determined to last.

A polite tapping on my door brought me out of my musing.

"Isabella? May I come in?"

Aaron's voice, gentle and careful.

"Yes, come in."

He looked exhausted as he came in, but I knew he had probably been working on Victor's arrangements for hours without a break.

"It's done," he said simply. "Victor has been deadheading into Switzerland for the past half hour. There, he plans to board a flight to Argentina — with fresh documents and sufficient funds to go off the grid forever.”

"He's safe?"

"He's safe. The northern syndicates will never be able ta harm him where he’s headed.”

Relief rushed over me so hard my eyes teared. "Thank you. Aaron, thank you so much."

"You don't need to thank me. We had an agreement."

"Still. I know this was not easy for you.“They studied me.” Saving the man who sought to crush you.”

Aaron sat down in the chair by my window and observed my face with those perceptive eyes I didn't know how to hide from, because they never missed seeing too much.

"It wasn't about Victor. It was about you. On giving you peace of mind so we can move forward.”

"And can we? Move forward, I mean?"

"I hope so. Isabella, I know this is not what we had in mind when married. “But I believe we can create something that has substance if we are both willing to do so.”

I nodded, trusting him but still hurting from the pain of saying goodbye to the life I’d thought we’d have with Victor.

“I’ll let you to get your rest,” Aaron said, rising. “I understand that this has been an emotional day.”

Once he was gone, I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling in an attempt to accept my new circumstances. Victor was gone, probably forever. My romantic dreams were over. All that was left was the practical partnership I’d contracted with a man who deserved better than a wife who didn’t love him back.

I must have fallen asleep, because I awoke to my phone vibrating from an alert. Text from an unknown number, but I knew right away who it was.

"I'm across the border. Safe, thanks to Aaron's arrangements. But Isabella, there is something left I want you to know before I am forever gone.”

I sat waiting for the next message, my heart racing.

“You picked the wrong brother, Bella. Aaron has and never will make you happy. He's too much like your father controlling, conniving and cold. You’re going to regret this for the rest of your life.”

I just stared at the words, and I felt like I had been slapped. Was Victor right? Did I only trade one controlling man for another?

A second message followed: "He's playing you just the way he played those phony documents. “Everything is a strategy with Aaron, everything is manipulation. You will forever be just a pawn on his board of chess. I loved you for yourself, not for what I could get out of you. It may not be what history writes, but remember that when you're stuck in a gilded cage.”

As I read Victor’s accusations, my hands trembled. Part of me wanted to write them off as the embittered words of a man who had lost everything. But another part of me wondered if he was telling the truth.

The fake documents were all Aaron’s doing, twisted up excitement and clever planning. He’d seen me betray him for months and hadn’t said a word. He'd turned Victor's ambition around on him, played a trap so beautifully laid it ensured my ex couldn't even take a step in his. What if Aaron was pulling the same thing on me, right now? What if this entire set-up was simply yet another means of manipulation?

I erased the messages, and then threw my phone across the room, refusing to try to consider Victor’s warning even if I couldn’t stop it from reverberating in my mind.

That night Aaron asked me to eat with him in his study. Husband stood at his desk amid a sea of papers, looking less like a husband and more like the corporate executive in this marriage.

"Isabella, thank you for coming. I wanted to talk about the arrangement we have.”

"What kind of details?"

"Practical ones. I just want to clarify what we expect and set the boundaries so everyone’s on the same page moving forward.”

He drew forth a paper, and pushed it across the desk toward me. I moved over to it and started reading, my heart sinking with each paragraph.

It was a contract. An honest to goodness contract defining the parameters of our marriage.

“Section One: Public Responsibilities,” I read out loud. "Mrs. Romano will attend Mr. Romano at all family-social gatherings, business functions and other social events unless instructed otherwise by Mr. Romano." She will be all one way with her become one in solidarity husband, even to the flattery of him among kin and acquaintance."

I glanced up at Aaron, who was studying me with an expression I couldn't read.

"This is very thorough."

“I didn’t want to be misunderstood.”

I continued reading. "Section Two: Household Management. “Mrs. Romano will supervise all domestic help and have the Romano home running smoothly. She is to consult with Mr. Romano on all significant decisions regarding the estate.”

“Aaron, this is like a job description.”

"In a way, it is. We’re about to enter into a partnership here, and partnerships have terms.”

I flipped to the next page. "Section Three: Personal Boundaries. Mrs. Romano has her own private quarters and will be required to dine with Mr. Romano no fewer than five times a week. She also must be present in every family function and carry the name of Romano with dignity"

I could feel my chest growing tighter by the section as I read over duties, responsibilities, and expectations. All was laid out in clinical detail — how I should behave, where I should be, what I should do. But never in this document was the word love, or caring for one another, or affection — emotional connection.

I came to the end of my contract and looked up at Aaron, a shadow of despondency falling on me.

“Please tell me this isn’t the life you want for our marriage? A series of contractual obligations?"

“I don't want our marriage to be built on misconceptions.”

“But Aaron — there’s nothing in here about… about us. “You’re not talking about building a relationship or becoming closer or even just trying to be happy with each other.”

"Theres no contractual obligation to things like that, Isabella. Those things just happen, or they don’t.”

“So you’re throwing in the towel on them?”

“I’m only being reasonable about what you can really provide and what I should expect.”

I rose, the contract crushed into my hand. "This feels wrong. This sounds like you see me as an employee not a wife.”

“I’m treating you as an associate in a deal that we both have entered into. You said yourself you couldn’t guarantee love or passion.” This document just admits to that reality.”

“By turning our marriage into a business contract?”

“By having that safety net which protects both of us from unmet expectations.”

I looked at Aaron, puzzled by what had turned him. This was the morning where he’d sounded so hopeful about our prospects for creating something meaningful together. Now he was offering me a piece of paper that seemed more like a cage than a partnership.

I shuddered as Victor's warning sounded in my head: "He's too much like your father - controlling, ruthless and cold.”

“Aaron, when we spoke this morning, you said that we could make something beautiful. This..." I held up the contract. "This doesn't feel meaningful. This sounds like making a rule about how to handle me.”

“I’m making this clear to protect us both.”

"From what?"

"From disappointment. From resentment. Out of the pain of waiting for things that never come.”

I glanced at the contract again and read through the carefully worded legalese that distilled our marriage into a series of transactional duties. And then I noticed that there was no mention of affection or intimacy or friendship in this document.

"What about love, Aaron? But what if our feelings develop over time?”

“You can’t force love by contract.”

“I’m not saying that you should be obligated to it. I'm asking if you have abandoned it altogether.”

Aaron was silent for a little while, expression carefully neutral.

“I’m just trying to be realistic about this marriage, what it is and what it isn’t.”

"And what is it?"

"A partnership. An alliance. "This is a covenant of collective support and respect."

"But not love."

“Not unless it happens spontaneously, which doesn’t exactly look promising from the fact that you’re crazy about Victor.”

Tears prick at my eyes as I place the contract on his desk. Is this what you want our marriage to be?

Aaron glanced at me with an expression of something that could have been sadness, or resignation.

“I want to make our marriage last, Isabella. And I don’t believe that it’s going to be if we’re always holding it up against some romantic ideal that neither one of us can possibly meet.”

It was with the chill of his offer that I went so far as to leave his study unsigned. This was supposed to be a new beginning for us, an opportunity to make something real. Instead, Aaron was building walls and making rules to treat our marriage like a business deal.

Could it be that Victor was the one who had been right all along? Perhaps I had just exchanged one sort of captivity for another.