“Cohabitation,” Adriano had drawled, sliding a document across the conference table. “Minimum two weeks. No household staff. No assistants. No drivers. The goal is to strip away external support systems and force genuine interaction.”
Leonidas had stared at him. “You cannot be serious. I have a company to run—”
“Which you can do from your laptop, like every other executive in the twenty-first century.”
And so here they were.
The Manhattan penthouse had been secured within hours—a sprawling space with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Central Park, all clean lines and neutral tones and a kitchen that probably cost more than most people’s houses.
A kitchen that his wife was currently destroying.
Leonidas stood in the doorway, arms crossed, watching Lexy wage war against a stovetop. She wore one of his old Oxford shirts over leggings—when had she taken that?—and her dark hair was escaping its braid in wispy tendrils around her face.
The smoke alarm had already gone off twice, and when he saw her grab the handle of a pan without a mitt—
Unbelievable.
Leonidas was already across the kitchen as his wife cried out in pain, the pan clattering against the burner and sending something blackened and unidentifiable skittering across the surface.
Lexy felt like the biggest idiot in the world as her husband—no, wait, stop thinking about him as your husband, Lex!—took her wrist and turned her palm upward to examine the damage.
“It’s fine,” she said quickly. “I’m fine, it’s just—”
“You burned yourself,” Leonidas said grimly. “There’s a blister forming.”
“It’s fine, rea—”
“Lexina.”
That softly warning tone of his had always been effective in making her realize when she was acting like a child...and it was still as effective now, and so she stopped trying to tug her hand out of his hold.
As Leonidas inspected his wife’s hand, a part of him was also noticing things that he never used to notice before. Like how small and delicate her hand was in his...and how his chest tightened at seeing her hand marred by a painful burn.
He reluctantly let her hand go, saying, “There’s aloe in the bathroom—”
“I know. I...I can do it myself, thank you.”
Leonidas watched his wife run away as if trying to escape a madman. How was it that they had been married for eight years, and only now did he realize how good she was at being...evasive?
****
The first three dayswere an exercise in controlled agony.
For both of them—though neither would admit it.
Leonidas watched his wife attempt to hail a cab on Fifth Avenue, standing politely on the sidewalk with her hand raised like she was asking a question in class. Three cabs sailed past without slowing.
He said nothing, even though every instinct screamed at him to step in.
She tried stepping closer to the curb. A fourth cab ignored her.
His jaw ached from clenching.
On her fifth attempt, she accidentally flagged down an unmarked black car, and Leonidas finally broke, striding forward to pull her back just as the window rolled down to reveal a confused hedge fund manager who was very much not a taxi driver.
“Perhaps,” Leonidas managed to say without gritting his teeth too noticeably, “you might consider the apps that exist for this purpose.”
Lexy’s cheeks flushed, and she couldn’t quite meet his eyes. “I wanted to do it properly.”
