Grace spent day five researching Sebastian Sterling.
She sat in her suite with her laptop, scrolling through articles and interviews, looking for clues about the man she'd married. There was a profile in Forbes from three years ago. A video interview from a business conference. A charitable donation announcement mentioning that Sebastian Sterling had funded an entire wing of a children's hospital.
In one article, buried in the third paragraph, someone mentioned that he loved Italian food.
That was all she needed.
By 2 PM, Grace was at a specialty grocery store in Manhattan, buying fresh basil and San Marzano tomatoes and pasta she'd never heard of before. She found a recipe online for osso buco, something complicated and impressive, and decided that if she was going to try, she would try properly.
The penthouse kitchen was designed for a chef, not for someone learning as she went. Grace consulted her phone constantly, measuring ingredients with the precision of someone taking an exam. She'd never cooked for someone who mattered before. She'd made meals for her father that he'd barely noticed. She'd prepared dinners for Marcus that he'd eaten while texting other people.
But this felt different. This felt like it meant something.
She browned the meat in wine. She let the sauce simmer for hours. The apartment began to smell like something warm and alive. Like a home instead of a hotel.
By 7 PM, Grace was in a panic.
She didn't know what time Sebastian would come home. The note from day two had said early meeting, but that was the only communication she'd had from him in four days. She'd seen him twice in the penthouse, both times briefly, both times when he was heading somewhere else.
She set the table carefully. Real plates. The good silverware. She lit candles down the center of the table, trying to transform the cold dining room into something intimate. Something that said, "I'm trying. Won't you try back?"
At 8:47 PM, she heard the elevator.
Grace's heart lifted. She checked her reflection in the mirror by the door. She'd changed clothes three times. She'd applied and reapplied her makeup. She looked like a woman who wanted to be noticed.
Sebastian appeared in the doorway, still in his business suit, and stopped.
For a moment, he just looked at her. At the table. At the candles. At the evidence of effort she'd arranged around them like a prayer.
"You cooked?" he said.
"Yes." Grace's voice was smaller than she'd intended. "I found an article that said you love Italian food. I thought we could eat together. Get to know each other."
Sebastian hesitated. She watched him make a calculation. Work or dinner. Obligation or possibility. She watched him choose, and for a moment, it seemed like he might say yes.
He sat down.
Grace felt hope bloom in her chest. She served the osso buco carefully, watching his face to see if he liked it. She'd tasted it herself. It was good. It was really good.
"This looks impressive," he said, cutting into the meat.
He took a bite. Chewed. Swallowed.
He didn't say anything else.
"How was your day?" Grace asked, trying to fill the silence.
"Busy," Sebastian said. He took another bite of the osso buco. He was eating it the way someone ate a meal that was required, not savored.
"What kind of work do you do exactly?" Grace pressed. "I know you run Sterling Enterprises, but what does that mean day to day?"
"Various things," he said. His phone buzzed. He glanced at it.
"Acquisitions?" Grace tried. "Real estate? Tech?"
"All of it." He picked up his phone and checked the message.
"That must be stressful," Grace said. "Managing so many different investments."
"It is what it is." His phone buzzed again. And again.
Sebastian set his fork down and picked up his phone. He read the messages while the osso buco cooled on his plate. Grace watched him decide that whatever was on his screen mattered more than the meal she'd spent hours preparing.
"I need to take this," he said.
"Of course," Grace said immediately. Because that's what she did. She accommodated.
Sebastian stood, still reading, and picked up his plate. "I appreciate this, but I have work. Don't wait up for me again."
He walked to his office and closed the door.
Grace sat alone at the table with two place settings and seven lit candles and the sound of Sebastian on a phone call in the next room.
She stared at the food cooling on his plate. She stared at the candles melting, dripping wax onto the tablecloth she'd found in a linen closet. She stared at the empty chair across from her and understood something that broke her in a way five days of silence hadn't managed.
He didn't care that she'd tried.
He didn't care that she'd researched his preferences and spent hours cooking and set a table like she was proposing something important. He didn't care because she simply didn't matter enough to care about. She was a wife he'd bought, and buying something didn't require you to appreciate it.
Grace sat there for another hour, waiting for the candles to burn out.
She imagined walking into his office and asking him to come back. She imagined telling him that she'd tried, and wasn't that supposed to mean something? Wasn't trying supposed to be the minimum threshold for being human?
But she'd spent her whole life learning not to ask for things. Not to expect things. Not to let people see how much their indifference hurt.
So she sat alone and watched the candles melt.
At midnight, she cleaned everything up. She threw away the leftover osso buco. She blew out the candles. She washed the dishes carefully, putting everything back exactly where it had been before she'd tried to make the penthouse feel like a home.
Through the office wall, she could still hear Sebastian on calls. Multiple calls. He was probably making millions while she scrubbed plates.
Grace went to her suite and lay down fully clothed on top of the bed.
She made a decision that night. Not a conscious one, but a decision nonetheless. She would stop trying. She would stop cooking. She would stop waiting for him to come home. She would accept the terms of the contract as literally written: public appearances and polite distance and absolutely nothing beyond that.
If Sebastian Sterling didn't want to know her, she wouldn't force herself on him.
If he wanted a wife who was invisible, she could be invisible.
She'd had practice, after all.
The next morning, Lauren sent the details for the Hamptons gala.
Saturday evening. Black tie. A car would pick up Grace on Friday afternoon. Sebastian would meet her there. The event was for Manhattan's elite. Charity. Mingling. The usual performance.
Grace confirmed receipt.
She'd made it five days. Tomorrow she would pretend to be Sebastian's wife in front of strangers. She would wear a dress someone else selected. She would smile at the right moments and know how to disappear when she wasn't needed.
She would be exactly what her husband thought she was.
A wife who understood her place.
Her phone buzzed with a text from Lily: "How's the penthouse treating you? Miss you."
Grace stared at the message. She could still leave. She could still call Lily and say yes to California and disappear from this life that was slowly erasing her.
But she was already three hundred fifty-eight days into a year-long contract.
Three hundred fifty-eight days left to survive a man who'd decided she was invisible.
Three hundred fifty-eight days until she could finally have her own life back.
She could do this.
She had to.
That afternoon, the car arrived to take her to the Hamptons.
As Grace packed her overnight bag, she kept thinking about the osso buco cooling on Sebastian's plate. She kept thinking about the candles melting. She kept thinking about the moment when she'd realized that trying would never be enough because he simply didn't want to be tried for.
The Hamptons house appeared through the car windows like something from a magazine. Massive. Beautiful. Filled with people who looked like they'd never questioned their own worth.
A valet took her bag.
A staff member showed her to a guest suite.
And downstairs, somewhere in that enormous house, Sebastian Sterling was probably working. Probably not thinking about his wife. Probably not wondering what she was wearing or if she was nervous or if she'd learned to disappear yet.
Grace changed into the dress Lauren had sent. It was stunning. Emerald green. Cut in a way that suggested she had a body worth looking at.
She looked in the mirror and barely recognized herself.
She looked like someone who belonged at a gala with Manhattan's elite.
She looked like someone her husband might actually see.