# MY PERFECT WIFE
### A Novel by Huddon S Lajah
---
# CHAPTER TWO
## The Heir's Burden
---
Mario Castellan was seven years old when he learned that love was a transaction.
He didn't understand this at the time, of course. At seven, his primary concerns were dinosaurs, the injustice of bedtime, and whether the kitchen staff would let him sneak an extra cookie after dinner. But the lesson arrived anyway, delivered with the precision of a legal contract, on the morning of his seventh birthday.
He'd woken early that day—5:47 AM, according to the astronaut clock on his wall—buzzing with the particular excitement that only birthdays could generate. Seven felt significant. Seven was practically grown-up. Seven was the age when, surely, his father would finally notice that Mario existed.
Don Castellan was a busy man. Mario understood this in the abstract way that children understand adult things: Daddy worked. Daddy had important meetings. Daddy couldn't come to the school play because he was "closing a deal," which Mario imagined involved actual closing—perhaps shutting a very large door on something.
But birthdays were different. Birthdays were special. On birthdays, even busy daddies came home early.
Mario crept downstairs at 6:00 AM, still in his rocket ship pajamas, expecting... something. A balloon, maybe. His father at the breakfast table, smiling. His mother not looking tired.
Instead, he found the house silent. The breakfast table empty. And on the counter, a note in his mother's elegant handwriting:
*Happy birthday, darling. Father had an early flight—emergency meeting in Singapore. Will be back Thursday. Cook has instructions for your cake. All my love, Mother.*
Thursday was four days away.
Mario stood in the kitchen, seven years old, holding the note, and felt something shift inside him. Something small and tender, bruising in a way that wouldn't fully heal for decades.
His father had forgotten his birthday.
No—that wasn't quite right. His father had *remembered* his birthday and decided that a meeting in Singapore was more important. That was worse, somehow. Forgetting was accident. Choosing was... choosing.
Mario ate his breakfast alone. Went to school. Smiled when his classmates sang to him. Blew out candles on a cake he didn't want. Opened presents from people who didn't know him.
When his father returned on Thursday, he brought a toy—an expensive one, probably purchased by an assistant at an airport gift shop—and a handshake.
"Seven years old," Don Castellan said, his grip firm and businesslike. "You're becoming a man. Good."
That was it.
That was the whole conversation.
Mario kept the toy for exactly three days before giving it to a confused classmate whose family couldn't afford expensive things. He never told anyone why.
But he learned.
He learned that affection in the Castellan household came with conditions. That attention was earned through achievement. That love—if it existed at all—was something you traded for, like stocks or property or power.
It was a terrible lesson for a seven-year-old.
It would take him twenty-one more years to unlearn it.
---
**Present Day**
Mario woke at 6:00 AM, exactly as he did every morning.
His penthouse was silent. His bedroom was immaculate. His life was a precisely calibrated machine, every variable controlled, every outcome predictable.
He hated it.
He also couldn't imagine living any other way.
The manila folder sat on his nightstand where he'd left it, **PERFECT WIFE** embossed in gold, twenty-four faces waiting to audition for a role none of them understood. Mario stared at it for a long moment, then deliberately turned away.
Coffee first. Existential crisis later.
His kitchen was a masterpiece of modern design—Italian marble countertops, German appliances, Japanese minimalist aesthetic. It had cost more than most apartments and was used primarily to operate a single-serve espresso machine.
Mario made his coffee. Black. No sugar. Efficient.
His phone buzzed. A text from his assistant, Beatrice:
*Your calendar for today: 8:00 AM quarterly review. 10:00 AM investor call. 12:00 PM lunch with mother (she insisted). 2:00 PM site inspection. 4:00 PM your father wants 30 minutes. 6:00 PM nothing, but I'm sure someone will fill it.*
Mario sighed. Replied:
*Cancel the 4:00.*
Beatrice's response was immediate:
*No.*
Then:
*He's your father.*
Then:
*Also he signs my checks.*
Then:
*Also also, you can't avoid him forever.*
Mario considered arguing. Decided it wasn't worth the energy. Beatrice had worked for him for six years and had developed an immunity to his avoidance tactics that bordered on supernatural.
He typed:
*Fine. But I'm not happy about it.*
Her reply:
*You're never happy. That's kind of your thing.*
*Also, good morning. The coffee in the executive kitchen is Colombian today. I know you won't drink it because you're a snob, but I wanted you to know what you're missing.*
Despite everything, Mario smiled.
Beatrice was probably the closest thing he had to a friend. They never socialized outside of work. They didn't share personal details. Their entire relationship existed within the carefully defined boundaries of professional interaction.
It was, Mario realized, the healthiest relationship he had.
That was deeply sad.
He finished his coffee, showered, dressed in one of his seventeen identical suits (charcoal grey, Italian cut, $4,000 each—efficiency required minimizing decision fatigue), and headed to the office.
The day awaited.
It would be, like all his days, perfectly productive and completely empty.
---
**Twenty Years Earlier**
Mario was eight when he discovered that his parents' marriage was a business arrangement.
This discovery came during a dinner party—one of the many dinner parties the Castellan household hosted for Important People—when Mario, supposed to be in bed, crept to the top of the stairs to watch the adults be adults.
He found a good hiding spot behind a large potted plant and settled in for observation.
The guests were boring, as adults usually were. They talked about stocks and markets and someone named "The Fed" who apparently ruined everything. Mario was about to give up and return to his room when his father's voice carried up the staircase, clear and sharp:
"—marriage was the smartest investment I ever made."
Mario went still.
"The Villanueva family had connections we needed," Don Castellan continued. He was speaking to another man, both of them holding cigars, standing apart from the other guests. "Old money. Old blood. Lucia came with a network that would have taken me twenty years to build on my own."
"And she agreed?" the other man asked. "Just like that?"
"Her family needed liquidity. We needed legitimacy. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement." Don Castellan puffed his cigar. "Love is a fairy tale, Edmund. Marriage is a merger. The sooner you understand that, the more successful you'll be."
"And your son? The boy?"
"Mario?" A pause. "Mario is the product of the merger. The consolidation of assets. He'll understand when he's older."
The conversation moved on to other topics—golf, real estate, the incompetence of politicians—but Mario had stopped listening.
*The product of the merger.*
*The consolidation of assets.*
He wasn't a son. He was a *result*. An output. A line item on a balance sheet.
Mario crept back to his room, climbed into bed, and stared at the ceiling until morning.
He never told anyone what he'd heard. Not his mother. Not his therapist (he would have many therapists). Not the parade of nannies and tutors and carefully vetted "friends" that populated his childhood.
But he remembered.
He always remembered.
---
**Present Day**
The quarterly review was tedious.
Mario sat at the head of a conference table, surrounded by executives who deferred to him because of his name and distrusted him because of his age. Charts were presented. Numbers were analyzed. Growth projections were debated with the intensity of generals planning a military campaign.
Mario paid attention. Asked pertinent questions. Made decisions that affected thousands of employees and billions of dollars.
He felt nothing.
This was his skill—his curse—the thing that made him excellent at business and terrible at everything else. He could detach. Observe. Analyze. He could sit in a room full of people and feel absolutely alone, like a scientist studying specimens through glass.
It was efficient.
It was also, he suspected, profoundly broken.
At 10:00 AM, he took the investor call. At 11:30 AM, he reviewed contracts. At 11:55 AM, Beatrice appeared in his doorway.
"Your mother is downstairs. She says, and I quote, 'Tell my son that if he tries to cancel, I will come up there and embarrass him in front of his entire staff.'"
Mario looked up from his laptop. "She didn't say that."
"She absolutely did. She also said 'I brought photos from his childhood.' I assume that's meant to be a threat."
It was. Donna Lucia had weaponized embarrassment with military precision over the years.
"Tell her I'll be down in five minutes."
"I'll tell her you'll be down now." Beatrice stepped aside. "Move, boss. She's getting that look."
Mario moved.
---
The restaurant was three blocks from the office—a quiet Italian place that his mother favored because it was "charmingly unpretentious," which meant it only had two Michelin stars instead of three.
Lucia was already seated when he arrived, a glass of white wine in hand, the photo album conspicuously absent.
"You actually came," she said as he sat. "I'm shocked."
"You threatened me."
"I *motivated* you. There's a difference."
A waiter appeared, took Mario's order (sparkling water, caesar salad, efficiency), and disappeared.
"So," Lucia said. "You've had twenty-four hours to process your father's proposal. How are we feeling?"
"We are feeling that 'proposal' is a generous word for 'ultimatum.'"
"Semantics."
"Important semantics."
Lucia sipped her wine. "Have you looked at the folder?"
Mario had, in fact, looked at the folder. He had spent an embarrassing amount of time looking at the folder. Specifically, at one photograph of one woman whose laugh seemed to exist in defiance of everything the competition represented.
He was not going to tell his mother this.
"Briefly," he said.
"And?"
"And they all seem... suitable."
"That's a terrible word."
"It's an accurate word."
"It's a word that means you haven't actually thought about any of them as people." Lucia set down her wine. "Mario. I need you to hear something, and I need you to actually listen, not just wait for me to finish speaking so you can return to your protective shell of sarcasm."
Mario said nothing. Which was, he supposed, a form of listening.
"These women are not products," Lucia continued. "They're not assets to be evaluated. They're human beings who have agreed—for various reasons, some more mercenary than others—to participate in an admittedly absurd process. You will meet them. You will spend time with them. And you will treat them with respect, even if you resent the circumstances."
"I don't—"
"You do. You resent your father for forcing this. You resent the women for participating. You resent yourself for being unable to simply... connect." Lucia's eyes were gentle but unflinching. "I know you, Mario. I've watched you build walls since you were seven years old. And while I understand why—I *do*—I also know that those walls will not protect you forever."
The waiter returned with Mario's salad. He stared at it without appetite.
"I don't know how to do this," he admitted quietly. "The dating. The talking. The... performing."
"No one's asking you to perform."
"Everyone's asking me to perform. That's literally what this competition is."
"Then don't compete." Lucia leaned forward. "Be yourself. Your real self—the one you hide behind efficiency and sarcasm and that ridiculous collection of identical suits."
"They're not identical. One has pinstripes."
"The point stands." Lucia reached across the table, touching his hand. "You are more than your father's son. More than an heir. More than a 'consolidation of assets.'"
Mario flinched. "How do you—"
"You think I didn't know you were listening that night? You were eight years old and about as subtle as a freight train." Lucia smiled sadly. "I saw you at the top of the stairs. Saw you run to your room. I wanted to follow—to explain—but I didn't know what to say."
"There wasn't anything to say. He meant it. Every word."
"He meant what he believed at the time." Lucia pulled her hand back, suddenly looking older than her years. "Your father is a complicated man, Mario. He loves you in his own stunted, inadequate way. He simply has no idea how to show it."
"So he designs a competition to find me a wife."
"So he does the only thing he knows how to do: treats a problem like a business challenge." Lucia laughed softly. "It's absurd, I know. But somewhere in that absurdity is a father who is terrified—*terrified*—that his only son will end up alone. Unhappy. Unreachable."
Mario looked at his mother. Really looked, perhaps for the first time in years.
She had worry lines he'd never noticed. Grey at her temples. A tiredness behind her eyes that no amount of elegant dresses could disguise.
"Are you happy?" he asked suddenly. "With him. With your life."
Lucia was quiet for a long moment.
"I have learned to be content," she finally said. "Your father is not the partner I dreamed of as a girl. Our marriage was arranged, as you know—a merger, as he calls it. But within that arrangement, I found... something. A life. A purpose. You."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer I have." Lucia picked up her wine. "But I want more for you, Mario. I want you to find someone who makes you happy—not content, not satisfied, but *happy*. Someone who sees past the armor."
"And you think I'll find that in a competition designed by my father?"
"I think life surprises us. I think people surprise us. And I think..." She smiled mysteriously. "I think you should pay particular attention to entry number twenty-four."
Mario's heart stuttered. "What?"
"Nothing. Eat your salad." Lucia glanced at her phone. "Oh, look at the time. I have a charity board meeting. We'll talk more later."
She stood, kissed his cheek, and swept out of the restaurant before he could ask what she meant.
Entry number twenty-four.
Jawin Mendez. The laughing woman with no fortune and no strategic value.
What did his mother know that he didn't?
---
**Fifteen Years Earlier**
Mario was thirteen when he realized he was different.
Not in a dramatic way. Not in a "chosen one" way. Just... different. Slightly off-center from everyone around him.
His classmates at St. Augustine's Preparatory Academy—an absurdly expensive institution that Mario's father had chosen specifically because it produced "leaders, not followers"—seemed to navigate social situations with an ease that Mario couldn't comprehend.
They made friends. They told jokes. They understood unwritten rules about who to sit with at lunch and what to say to girls and when to laugh at things that weren't funny.
Mario understood none of this.
He understood books. He understood numbers. He understood the satisfying logic of chess and the elegant predictability of classical music. But people—with their irrational emotions and their hidden agendas and their expectations that he couldn't read—people were a language he had never learned.
"You're weird," a classmate named Dustin informed him one day. This was in eighth grade, during lunch, while Mario sat alone reading a book about economics that he'd borrowed from his father's study.
"I'm aware," Mario replied without looking up.
"Like, *really* weird."
"Is there something you wanted?"
Dustin seemed thrown by this. Most victims of his bullying reacted with fear or anger. Mario's bored indifference didn't fit the script.
"What are you reading?"
"'Principles of Corporate Valuation.'"
"That sounds boring."
"It is. But it's less boring than this conversation."
Dustin stared at him. Then, unexpectedly, laughed. "You know what? You're alright, Castellan. Weird, but alright."
He walked away.
Mario never saw him again—Dustin transferred schools a month later—but the exchange stayed with him. It was the closest thing to a social success he'd experienced.
*Be weird. Be honest. Lower their expectations so significantly that basic competence seems impressive.*
It wasn't a healthy social strategy.
But it was *a* strategy.
---
**Present Day — 4:00 PM**
His father's office looked exactly as it had the night of the birthday party: intimidating by design.
Mario stood in the doorway, not quite entering, like a vampire waiting for an invitation he hoped wouldn't come.
"Sit," Don Castellan said without looking up from his documents.
Mario sat.
For a full three minutes, his father continued reading and signing papers. This was a power move—Mario recognized it from countless business negotiations. Make them wait. Establish dominance. Remind them who controls the room.
It was, frankly, exhausting.
"I've selected the venue for the introductory gala," Don Castellan finally said. "The Grand Pavilion. Saturday evening."
"Fine."
"You'll wear the Brioni, not the Armani."
"They look identical."
"They do not." Don Castellan set down his pen. "The Brioni has structure. Presence. The Armani makes you look like a waiter."
Mario considered arguing that insulting waiters was classist and unnecessary. Decided it wasn't worth the energy.
"Fine."
"You'll arrive at seven. Earlier than the candidates. Establish yourself before they enter."
"Fine."
"And you will *try*." Don Castellan's voice sharpened. "This is not a burden to be endured. This is not a task to complete with minimal effort. This is your *future*, Mario. Our family's future. You will engage. You will participate. You will treat this with the seriousness it deserves."
*The seriousness*, Mario thought, *of a dating competition with categories including "side chicks."*
He did not say this aloud.
"I understand," he said instead.
"Do you?" Don Castellan leaned back. "Because I've watched you for twenty-eight years, and understanding has never been your strength. You observe. You analyze. You maintain distance. But understanding requires empathy, and empathy requires—"
"Connection. I know." Mario's voice came out sharper than intended. "You've given this speech before."
"Then perhaps you should start listening."
They stared at each other across the desk. Two Castellans, identical in stubbornness, opposite in everything else.
"I've added a condition to the competition," Don Castellan said.
Mario's stomach dropped. "What kind of condition?"
"A deadline. You have three months to make your selection. If you fail to choose a wife in that time—or if the woman you choose rejects your proposal—you forfeit."
"That wasn't in the original—"
"The original terms were a starting point. I've refined them." Don Castellan smiled thinly. "Consider it motivation."
"Consider it *manipulation*."
"Same thing."
Mario gripped the arms of his chair, knuckles white. Every instinct screamed at him to argue, to fight, to storm out dramatically and prove that he couldn't be controlled.
But that's what a child would do.
And despite everything, Mario was not a child.
"Three months," he said quietly. "Twenty-four women. One wife."
"One *perfect* wife."
"There's no such thing as perfect."
"Then find the closest approximation." Don Castellan picked up his pen, returning to his documents. "Saturday. Seven PM. The Brioni. Don't be late."
Mario stood.
He made it to the door before his father spoke again.
"Mario."
He stopped. Didn't turn.
"I know you think I'm the villain in this story. The cold father forcing his son into marriage for strategic purposes." A pause. "Perhaps you're right. Perhaps I am the villain. But villains can still want good things for the people they love."
Mario's hand tightened on the doorframe.
"Do you?" he asked. "Love me?"
Silence.
"I want what's best for you," Don Castellan finally said. "In my experience, that's the same thing."
It wasn't.
It wasn't even close.
But Mario didn't have the energy to explain why.
He left.
---
**Ten Years Earlier**
Mario was eighteen when he kissed someone for the first time.
Her name was Catalina. She was a year older, the daughter of one of his father's business partners, and she had been flirting with him at a charity gala for approximately two hours before Mario realized that's what was happening.
"You're incredibly dense," she informed him, which was true.
"I've been told."
"Do you even like girls?"
"I... don't know how to answer that."
Catalina laughed. She had a nice laugh—bright and genuine, nothing like the practiced titters of most socialite daughters. "Let's find out."
She kissed him.
It was... fine. Pleasant. Technically proficient on her end, awkward on his. There were lips and hands and at one point Mario's elbow knocked over a champagne flute, which shattered in a way that drew attention from several elderly donors.
"That was adorable," Catalina said afterward, while staff cleaned up the broken glass. "You have no idea what you're doing."
"No," Mario admitted.
"Do you want to learn?"
He thought about it. Really thought. Did he want to kiss Catalina again? Did he want to date her? Did he feel the spark that romance novels described—the electricity, the longing, the overwhelming need to be close to another person?
He felt... nothing.
Mild interest, perhaps. Curiosity about the mechanics. But no spark. No electricity. No longing.
"I don't think so," he said honestly. "I'm sorry."
Catalina shrugged. "Your loss. But if you change your mind, I'll be around."
She wasn't, actually. Her father's business partnership with Don Castellan fell through three months later, and Mario never saw her again.
But he remembered the moment—the kiss that should have meant something and didn't—for years afterward.
Was he broken?
Was there something fundamentally wrong with him that prevented him from feeling what everyone else felt?
Or was he simply... different?
He never figured out the answer.
---
**Present Day — Evening**
Mario's penthouse had a library.
It was excessive—a full room dedicated to books, floor-to-ceiling shelves, leather armchairs, the works—but it was also his sanctuary. The one space in his life that felt genuinely *his*.
He sat in his favorite chair, the manila folder open on his lap, studying the twenty-four faces that would soon invade his carefully curated isolation.
*Victoria Sterling. Age 26. Heir to Sterling Pharmaceuticals. Harvard Business School. Interests: Opera, classical music, yacht racing.*
She looked like a shark in a designer dress. Beautiful, certainly. Intelligent, probably. Ruthless, definitely.
*Penelope Huang. Age 24. Concert pianist. Juilliard graduate. Interests: Music, literature, cooking.*
Shy. The photograph showed her almost hiding behind a piano, a small smile on her face. She looked kind.
*Roxanne Del Monte. Age 27. Actress. Credits include various telenovelas. Interests: Drama, fashion, being the center of attention.*
That last one wasn't in the file. Mario had added it mentally.
*Camille Fontaine. Age 28. PhD in Economics. Published author. Interests: Debate, policy, intellectual discourse.*
She looked like she would argue with him about everything. Mario wasn't sure if that was attractive or terrifying.
He continued flipping. Twenty candidates. Each one polished, accomplished, strategically appropriate.
Then he reached entry number twenty-four.
*Jawin Mendez. Age 26. Occupation: Service industry. Family background: Middle class. Special notes: Entry sponsored by Salma Al-Rashid.*
No pedigree. No accomplishments. No strategic value whatsoever.
And that *laugh*.
The photograph captured a moment of pure joy—head thrown back, eyes crinkled, mouth open in genuine delight. Whatever had caused that laugh, Jawin Mendez had experienced something wonderful.
Mario had never laughed like that.
He wasn't sure he'd ever experienced something wonderful.
*Pay particular attention to entry number twenty-four*, his mother had said.
Why?
What did Lucia see in this woman that the rest of the file didn't reveal?
Mario stared at the photograph for a long time. Then, deliberately, he closed the folder.
Saturday. The gala. Twenty-four women competing to become his wife.
He had never felt less ready for anything in his life.
---
**Five Years Earlier**
Mario was twenty-three when his grandfather died.
He hadn't known the man well—Alessandro Castellan had retreated from public life before Mario was born, becoming a ghost in a family that preferred not to speak of ghosts—but the funeral was mandatory.
The service was massive. Hundreds of attendees, most of whom had never met Alessandro personally but wanted to be seen paying respects to the Castellan legacy. Politicians. Celebrities. Business titans. Everyone performing grief for an audience.
Mario sat in the front row, between his parents, wearing a black suit and an appropriately somber expression.
He felt nothing.
This should have been concerning—a grandfather had died, surely that warranted some emotional response—but Mario had learned long ago to accept his own numbness. It was easier than fighting it.
The eulogy was delivered by a professional speaker. Not a family member. Not a friend. A *professional*, hired to summarize a life in fifteen minutes of carefully crafted sentiment.
"Alessandro Castellan was a man of vision," the speaker intoned. "A man of purpose. A man who built an empire from nothing and left a legacy that will endure for generations."
Platitudes. Empty words. Nothing about who Alessandro actually *was*.
After the service, Mario found himself alone in the mausoleum while others gathered for the reception. His grandfather's casket sat on its platform, surrounded by flowers that smelled like a funeral home and probably cost thousands of dollars.
"Did you have friends?" Mario asked the casket. "Did anyone actually know you? Or were you just... this? A name. A legacy. A collection of accomplishments with no person underneath?"
The casket, predictably, did not respond.
"Father says you died alone. That you pushed everyone away." Mario's voice echoed in the marble chamber. "He says you had power and wealth and nothing that mattered. He's using you as a warning—a cautionary tale about what I'll become if I don't... *connect*."
He laughed. It sounded hollow.
"The irony is, he doesn't connect either. He gives speeches about relationships and mergers and legacies, but I've never once seen him *feel* anything. He's just like you. Just like me." Mario touched the cold surface of the casket. "We're all just like you."
For a long moment, he stood there. Grandson and grandfather, separated by death and united by dysfunction.
Then Mario straightened his tie, composed his expression, and returned to the reception.
He didn't think about that conversation again for years.
Until now.
---
**Present Day — Night**
The city glittered beneath Mario's penthouse windows, millions of lights representing millions of lives he would never touch.
He stood in the dark, glass of whiskey in hand, thinking about ghosts.
His grandfather, who died alone.
His father, who was terrified of repeating the pattern.
Himself, who had spent twenty-eight years building walls so high that no one could breach them.
*Three months. Twenty-four women. One wife.*
Could he actually do this? Could he open himself to strangers, let them see past his armor, allow the possibility of connection?
The thought was terrifying.
The alternative was worse.
Mario drained his whiskey, crossed to his phone, and pulled up his calendar.
*Saturday. 7:00 PM. Introductory Gala. The Grand Pavilion.*
*Wear the Brioni.*
He added his own note:
*Try not to ruin everything.*
It wasn't much of a goal.
But it was a start.
---
**The Next Morning**
Mario arrived at the office at 7:45 AM, exactly as he did every morning.
Beatrice was already at her desk, because Beatrice was always at her desk. She had, as far as Mario could tell, no personal life, no hobbies, and no interests outside of managing his calendar with the precision of a military operation.
"Good morning," she said without looking up. "You have fifteen minutes before the Henderson call. Your coffee is on your desk—black, no sugar, because you're a cliché—and your mother called three times already."
"Three times?"
"She wants to know if you've looked at the folder."
"I've looked at the folder."
"She wants to know if you've *really* looked at it."
"I don't know what that means."
"Neither do I, but she was very insistent." Beatrice finally looked up. "She also mentioned something about entry twenty-four? I assumed it was code for something."
Entry twenty-four. Jawin Mendez. The laughing woman.
"It's not code," Mario said. "It's... complicated."
"Everything about your family is complicated." Beatrice returned to her computer. "The Henderson call is in fourteen minutes. Try not to think about your impending arranged marriage until afterward."
"It's not arranged. It's... structured."
"Whatever helps you sleep at night."
Mario retreated to his office, closing the door on Beatrice's relentless efficiency and his mother's mysterious hints and the folder that sat on his desk like a bomb waiting to detonate.
Fourteen minutes.
Then Henderson.
Then the rest of his day.
Then, eventually, Saturday.
He sat in his chair, stared at the skyline, and tried very hard not to think about the fact that his entire life was about to change.
It didn't work.
---
**Thursday Night — Two Days Before the Gala**
Mario couldn't sleep.
This was not unusual—insomnia had been his companion since childhood—but tonight's sleeplessness had a specific flavor. Anxiety, perhaps. Anticipation. The particular dread of knowing something terrible was approaching and being unable to stop it.
He lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, running through scenarios.
*What if all twenty-four women are unbearable?*
Possible. Likely, even.
*What if one of them is perfect and I'm too broken to recognize it?*
More possible. More terrifying.
*What if this whole exercise proves that Father was right—that I'm incapable of connection, incapable of love, incapable of being anything other than alone?*
The most possible. The most terrifying.
Mario sat up, abandoning the pretense of sleep, and retrieved the folder from his nightstand.
Twenty-four faces stared up at him in the dim light.
He flipped to entry twenty-four.
Jawin Mendez looked back at him, frozen mid-laugh, radiating a joy that seemed almost alien to someone who had never experienced it.
"Who are you?" Mario murmured. "Why did my mother want me to notice you? What makes you different from the rest?"
The photograph offered no answers.
Mario closed the folder, turned on his lamp, and reached for a book. Economics. Numbers. Logic.
Things that made sense.
Unlike everything else in his life.
---
**Friday — One Day Before the Gala**
His father summoned him again.
"Last-minute details," Don Castellan said, which was code for "last-minute anxiety management."
They reviewed the schedule. The seating chart. The menu (Mario didn't care). The music (Mario cared even less). The photography arrangement (apparently there would be a documentary crew, because of course there would be).
"This is being documented?" Mario asked, his horror evident.
"The competition will generate significant media interest. We're controlling the narrative by producing our own content." Don Castellan said this as if it were obvious. "The documentary will be exclusive to our streaming partners, naturally."
"Naturally."
"Try to look less like you're attending your own execution."
"I'll work on it."
Don Castellan studied him for a long moment. Something flickered in his expression—concern? doubt?—before being replaced by his usual mask of authority.
"You can do this, Mario."
The words sounded almost paternal. Almost warm.
"Can I?" Mario asked. "Because I'm not sure I can. I'm not sure I know how to be what you want me to be."
"I don't want you to be anything other than yourself."
"Yourself has been inadequate for twenty-eight years."
"Yourself has been *hidden* for twenty-eight years. There's a difference." Don Castellan leaned forward. "I've watched you, Mario. I've seen you with the construction workers at job sites—you're kind to them. Interested. Almost *warm*. I've seen you with your mother—you relax around her. Smile. Make jokes that are actually funny."
"You've seen—you've been watching me?"
"I'm your father. Of course I've been watching." Don Castellan's voice softened almost imperceptibly. "You are capable of connection. You simply choose not to connect. Perhaps because it's safer. Perhaps because someone taught you that love was transactional and you believed them."
Mario went very still.
"That wasn't—I didn't mean—"
"I know what you heard that night. When you were eight." Don Castellan looked away. "I know what I said about your mother. About you. About... mergers."
"You meant it."
"I meant what I believed at the time." A long pause. "Beliefs can change, Mario. People can change. I'm not the same man I was twenty years ago. Neither will you be twenty years from now."
Mario didn't know what to say. In twenty-eight years, his father had never spoken to him like this—openly, vulnerably, almost humanly.
"The competition begins tomorrow," Don Castellan continued, his mask sliding back into place. "Twenty-four women. Three months. One wife. The terms haven't changed. But perhaps..." He hesitated. "Perhaps you'll surprise us both."
"Perhaps," Mario echoed.
He left the office feeling something he hadn't felt in years.
Hope.
Small, fragile, probably foolish hope.
But hope nonetheless.
---
**Saturday Morning — The Day of the Gala**
Mario woke at 6:00 AM.
For a long moment, he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, processing the reality of the day ahead.
Tonight, he would meet twenty-four women.
Tonight, the competition would begin.
Tonight, his life would change—for better or worse—and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
He got up. Made coffee. Reviewed the schedule. Tried on the Brioni (it fit perfectly, because everything his father chose fit perfectly). Practiced smiling in the mirror until he looked like a serial killer and gave up.
At noon, Beatrice texted:
*Your mother wants to know if you're ready.*
He replied:
*No.*
Her response:
*That's the spirit. See you tonight. Try not to catastrophize.*
*Also, I've seen the guest list. Entry #24 seems interesting. Just saying.*
Entry twenty-four again.
Everyone seemed obsessed with entry twenty-four.
Mario pulled out the folder one last time.
Jawin Mendez. Twenty-six years old. Service industry worker. Middle-class background. Sponsored by someone named Salma Al-Rashid for reasons the file didn't explain.
On paper, she was the least suitable candidate of the entire group.
In her photograph, she was the only one who looked *alive*.
Mario closed the folder.
Tonight.
He would meet her tonight.
And somehow, despite every instinct telling him this whole competition was absurd, despite twenty-eight years of learned isolation, despite every wall he had built and every defense he had cultivated...
He was looking forward to it.
Just a little.
Just enough.
---
👋END OF CHAPTER TWO👋