The house towered like an animal as the car hurtled past iron gates, the shape a black thing against moonlight. Towers reached up like claws to the sky, windows glinting dimly like alert eyes.

I pushed against the pane, my heart pounding. This was not a home. This was a fortress. An ice palace.

Nathaniel didn't utter one word the whole ride. His face was shadowed, rigid, and expressionless. Even without words, his presence lingered over me in embarrassment.

As the car reached its halt, there was the line of attendants, their bows smooth, their smiles exaggerated. My butler opened my door, and the wind of the evening caressed me, with the smell of the garden roses.

My heels tapped on the stone when I came out. The dress flowed behind me like a funeral shroud, heavy with jewels and with silk.

The staff said respectfully, " Congratulations, sir. Madam."

Nathaniel nodded once. His hand never came to mine.

We stepped through double doors into a marble- and chandeliered corridor. My breath hitched on its own—raw excess spun my head. Ceilings swooped upward, frescoed with angels and deities. Wood polish and money lingered in the air.

It should have been beautiful. It should have been the beginning of something. It was like entering a gilded cage.

A maid advanced. "Shall Madam have me escort her to her rooms?"

Her words caught. Rooms. More than one.

I looked at Nathaniel, my voice thin. "Rooms?"

For the very first time that night, he gazed at me straight. His gaze was storm-grey, colder still than the marble on which we stood.

"You'll be down the east wing," he said flatly. "I'll remain in mine."

My jaw dropped. "But… we're married." The word felt bitter on my tongue. "Wouldn't we....."

"No."

A single word. Ouch. Irrevocable.

My throat closed. "Nathaniel

"You're misunderstanding something, Serena." His voice was harsh, deep, each worddrawn out. "It's business. This marriage. You're not my wife. You are nothing but a name."

The words hurt more than the slap.

Nor my wife.

Just a name.

Flame heat burned my face, shame hotter even than the glare of the chandeliers. My hands fisted on the smoothness of my dress.

He continued, his voice iron. "Do not seek affection. Do not seek connection. You will fulfill your duty by name alone. Nothing additional."

I gulped, the ball in my throat acidic and poisonous. "Duty," I whispered, hardly saying the word. "That's all I am to you?"

His chin firmed, but his face revealed nothing. "Yes."

Tears stung my lids, but I suppressed them with fierce determination. I would not let him see me snap. Not now. This evening.

He moved away from me, already facing away from me. "Goodnight, Serena."

And he was gone. His feet ringing down the marble corridor vanished in the distance with nothing remaining but silence.

I froze in the high hall, servants looking away as though my guilt was contagious. My bouquet of roses had withered long ago, petals broken, disintegrating.

The maid was soft-spoken. "This way, Madam."

She took me through uncounted passages, chandeliers gleaming above, the faces of fierce ancestors frowning. My face shone in highly-polished mirrors: pale, black-eyed, an already forsaken bride.

The room they assigned me was sumptuous—too sumptuous. White silk-canopied bed, moonlit gardens that led directly onto windows, gilded mirrors, crystal lamps.

I saw only emptiness.

I fell onto the bed, silk enveloping me. My chest was rising and falling. That initial tear had burned its path down my face. Then one again. And again.

I pressed my hands in my face, but the tears ripped out anyway. I had kept them inside all day, through the whispering, the cursing, the non-kiss. But by myself here, I fell apart.

I sobbed until my throat burned, until the mascara stained the sheets, until the quiet was weighed down by my guilt.

As I was not a bride.

I was a captive.

And worse, my night jailer had glared at me as if I was nothing.

With the crying finally dying down, I sat up. My face in the mirror took my breath away—bloodshot eyes, swollen cheekbones, tremoring lips. I hardly knew the girl standing before me.

I wiped my face, set my shoulders. If Nathaniel believed he could reduce me to nothingness with coldness, he was mistaken.

But in the darkest recesses of my heart, there was fear gnawing. What if he was honest? What if I was nothing but a name to him?

I set out the candles, one after the other, and the room slid slowly into shadow. Only moonlight remained, weak but unforgiving across the floor.

I fell onto my back, arms locked over me, the sheets cold on my flesh. Shivers came over me, not for the cold, but for the loneliness across the bed. From the promise I swore in church, only for me to be dismissed that it was for nothing.

Sleep was torn apart, tormented by the voice: You are not my wife. You are nothing but a name.

But there was light in the mansion, in the other wing.

Nathaniel sat back in front of the window in his private study, phone to his ear. His tie was gone, his shirt unfbuttoned at the collar, the facade of the ideal groom shed.

Low and steady, his voice gentled in a manner it never had when speaking with me.

"Elara," he whispered.

A pause. There was a smile on his face.

"All right. That's over. She's here."

He sat back on the desk, closing his eyes for a moment, as if nothing but her voice could soothe the burden he bore. "You're my real wife," he whispered. "The only one who really counts."