Ninety-day fake marriage. Day eighty-eight, he asked what it cost to break the contract — then corrected himself.

Clause 4: no feelings. I'd written that one laughing in a coffee shop.

Clause 9: separate bedrooms. That lasted eleven days.

Day eighty-eight, Julian Reyes asked his lawyer what clause twelve cost to break — three million and a public statement.

"That's not what I asked." Julian's voice was flat. "What does it cost to keep her?"

The lawyer put down his pen. In eleven years he had never seen his client look afraid.

Upstairs, I was folding a shirt into a suitcase when my phone buzzed. Julian. Not the lawyer. Not the assistant.

The message was three words long. None of them were in the contract.