The dinner at Le Bernardin was a masterclass in psychological warfare.
Madam Matthew sat at the head of the private table, dissecting her squab with surgical precision. She hadn't congratulated them. She hadn't offered a toast. She had simply stared at the massive diamond on Eunice's finger for a full minute before speaking.
"It is a bit... flashy, isn't it?" Madam Matthew sniffed, wiping her mouth with a linen napkin. "But I suppose it distracts from the bride's background."
Eunice gripped her fork, her knuckles turning white. She looked at Hart.
Hart was swirling a glass of Pinot Noir he hadn't drunk. His jaw was set in granite.
"It fits her perfectly," Hart said, his voice flat. "Unlike your approval, Grandmother, which we neither need nor want."
Madam Matthew's eyes narrowed. She leaned forward. "Be careful, Hart. You may have forced this marriage to protect your... assets... but remember, accidents happen. Pregnancies are fragile things."
The air left the room. It was a veiled threat. A vile, terrifying threat against the twins.
Hart slammed his wine glass down. The stem snapped, red wine bleeding onto the white tablecloth like a gunshot wound.
"We are leaving," Hart announced, standing up abruptly. He grabbed Eunice's hand, pulling her up. "If you ever threaten my wife or my children again, I will liquidate your personal trust fund before you can blink."
He dragged Eunice out of the restaurant, leaving his grandmother sitting in the silence of the spilled wine.
Back at the penthouse, the silence was deafening.
It was 11:00 PM. Technically, it was their wedding night.
Hart paced the living room, shedding his suit jacket and tearing off his tie. He poured himself a whiskey, drank it in one swallow, and poured another. The veins in his temples were throbbing. The confrontation with his grandmother had triggered the darkness in his mind. The noise. The paranoia. The insomnia.
Eunice stood by the bedroom door, watching him. She was exhausted, but she was also afraid. He looked like a caged animal.
"Go to bed, Eunice," Hart growled without looking at her. "Lock the door if it makes you feel safer."
Eunice hesitated. She walked into the master bedroom. She changed into her pajamas—cotton, unsexy, comfortable—and climbed into the massive king-sized bed.
But she didn't lock the door.
She grabbed three extra pillows and arranged them in a straight line down the center of the mattress. A wall. A barrier. My side. His side.
She lay down, staring at the ceiling, listening to his footsteps pacing in the living room. Back and forth. Back and forth.
Twenty minutes passed. Then thirty.
The door creaked open.
Hart stood there in the shadows. He had abandoned his shirt. His chest heaved with shallow breaths. He looked wrecked. His eyes were red-rimmed, wild with exhaustion.
"I can't," he rasped, his voice broken.
He walked toward the bed. He didn't look like the billionaire who had threatened to liquidate a trust fund. He looked like a man drowning.
"Hart?" Eunice sat up, clutching the duvet.
"The noise," Hart whispered, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. "It won't stop. The calculations. The threats. It's too loud."
He looked at the bed. He looked at the pillow wall she had built.
"Please," he said. It was a single, desperate plea.
Eunice looked at the wall she had built. She looked at the man who had trapped her in a contract, but who had also defended her honor against the world.
She slowly reached out and pulled the middle pillow away.
Hart didn't wait. He collapsed onto the mattress. He didn't try to cross the line to touch her inappropriately. He just needed to be near her.
He curled onto his side, facing her. He reached out a trembling hand and gripped a fold of her pajama top, just like he had done that first night in Dubai. An anchor.
"Talk," he mumbled, his eyes already fluttering shut. "Just... talk."
Eunice sighed. She lay back down, facing him.
"You are impossible," she whispered softly. "You are arrogant, controlling, and you have terrible taste in grandmothers."
Hart's lips twitched slightly. "Keep going."
"You eat burnt toast to be polite," Eunice continued, her voice gaining a rhythmic, lullaby quality. "You think money solves everything, but you can't even buy sleep. You are a terrible husband so far, Hart Matthew."
"I know," he breathed.
"But..." Eunice hesitated. She looked at his hand gripping her shirt. She moved her own hand, covering his. "But you kept us safe today."
Hart didn't answer. His breathing deepened. His grip on her shirt relaxed, though he didn't let go. The tension melted from his shoulders.
For the second time in years, Hart Matthew was asleep.
Eunice watched him. In the moonlight, the harsh lines of his face smoothed out. He looked peaceful.
She moved her hand from his grip to his hair, gently brushing a stray lock off his forehead.
"Goodnight, husband," she whispered.
She closed her eyes, and there, in the middle of their contract marriage, on a bed divided by pillows, they slept together.