Updated Nov 1, 2025 • ~16 min read
Camille lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to footsteps in the hallway.
Eleanor’s footsteps. She’d recognize them anywhere now—that measured, deliberate pace, the soft click of expensive slippers on hardwood. Back and forth, past their suite, pausing just long enough at the door for Camille to hold her breath before continuing down the hall.
It was three thirty in the morning. This was the fourth time Eleanor had walked past in the last two hours.
The walls were thinner than Camille had realized. She could hear everything—the creak of floorboards, the whisper of fabric, even what might have been Eleanor’s breathing if she stood still long enough. The grand estate with its heavy doors and solid construction should have been soundproof. But somehow, Eleanor’s presence permeated everything.
Camille turned onto her side, pulling the duvet up to her chin. The folder about Juliette was hidden in her nightstand drawer, burning a hole in her consciousness. She hadn’t confronted Nicholas about it yet. Hadn’t found the right words, the right moment, the right anything.
The footsteps came again. Slower this time, pausing directly outside the suite door.
Camille’s heart hammered. Was Eleanor listening? Checking to make sure they were both in their separate rooms, maintaining the careful distance that proved this marriage was exactly what she suspected?
After a long moment, the footsteps continued.
Camille threw off the covers. She couldn’t do this—couldn’t lie here listening to Eleanor patrol the halls like a warden checking cells. She needed water, air, space to think.
She grabbed her robe and opened her bedroom door as quietly as possible. The sitting room was dark except for a sliver of light coming from under Nicholas’s door. He was awake too.
Camille moved to the shared bathroom—a ridiculous luxury of marble and gold fixtures that separated their bedrooms. She turned on the faucet, cupping cold water in her hands and splashing it on her face. In the mirror, she looked pale, exhausted, the sapphire ring on her finger catching the light like an accusation.
“Can’t sleep either?”
She jumped, spinning around. Nicholas stood in the opposite doorway—the one that led from his bedroom to the bathroom. He wore pajama pants and a t-shirt, his hair disheveled, dark circles under his eyes that matched her own.
“Your mother keeps walking past,” Camille whispered. “It’s like she’s checking on us.”
“She is.” Nicholas moved into the bathroom, closing his door behind him with a soft click. “She does this whenever someone new stays in the house. Checking patterns, listening for movement, making sure everyone stays in their assigned rooms.”
“That’s—” Camille struggled for the right word. “Intrusive.”
“That’s Eleanor.” Nicholas leaned against the marble counter, arms crossed. “When I was a teenager, I couldn’t sneak out. Couldn’t have friends stay over without her knowing exactly when they left, exactly what room they’d been in. She maps the whole house in her head every night.”
Camille shivered despite the bathroom’s warmth. “How long does it usually last?”
“Until she’s satisfied you’re behaving according to her expectations.” Nicholas’s smile was bitter. “Could be a week, could be a month. She once kept tabs on Reed’s wife Blair for three months straight before she decided Blair wasn’t sneaking around.”
“Jesus.” Camille sat on the edge of the enormous bathtub, suddenly exhausted. “This is insane. We can’t live like this for a year.”
“No,” Nicholas agreed. “We can’t.”
They sat in silence for a moment, the only sound the drip of the faucet Camille hadn’t completely shut off. In the harsh bathroom lighting, Nicholas looked older, more tired. Human, in a way he hadn’t seemed before.
“We need to coordinate better,” Nicholas said finally. “Our story. The details. After dinner last night—” He ran a hand through his hair. “There were gaps. Things we should have known about each other that we didn’t.”
“Like your dead fiancée?” The words came out sharper than Camille intended.
Nicholas went completely still. “Where did you hear about that?”
“Your mother’s files.” Camille met his eyes. “I found them tonight. In her study. She has folders on everyone—including a very detailed investigation of me. And a file on Juliette Montgomery.”
Nicholas’s jaw tightened. “You were snooping through my mother’s study.”
“Your mother left the drawer unlocked on purpose. She wanted me to find it.” Camille stood, anger replacing exhaustion. “You should have told me. About her. About the fact that you were engaged before, that she died, that you’re still—” She gestured helplessly. “Whatever you are.”
“Broken?” Nicholas’s laugh was hollow. “Is that what my mother’s file said? That I’m broken?”
“It said you haven’t been the same since she died. That you threw yourself into work to avoid feeling anything.” Camille took a step closer. “It said you married me on the anniversary of her death.”
Nicholas flinched like she’d slapped him. “It’s not—I didn’t mean—” He stopped, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. “It wasn’t supposed to be that day. The courthouse appointment was the only one available. I didn’t realize until we were signing the papers and I saw the date.”
“But you didn’t stop it. Didn’t postpone.”
“No.” He dropped his hands, and his eyes were raw. “Because maybe part of me thought it was fitting. Juliette was supposed to be my future, and she’s gone. So I’m replacing her with something that isn’t real, can’t hurt me, can’t die and leave me—” His voice cracked. “I’m replacing her with a business arrangement. How’s that for romance?”
The honesty of it punched the air from Camille’s lungs. She’d expected denial, deflection, the careful control Nicholas always maintained. Not this bleeding wound of truth.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “About Juliette. About what happened to her.”
“Everyone’s sorry.” Nicholas turned away, gripping the edge of the marble counter. “But sorry doesn’t bring her back. Sorry doesn’t make it hurt less. Sorry doesn’t—” He stopped, shoulders tight. “I didn’t tell you because it’s not relevant to our arrangement. You’re here for a year, I pay you, and then you leave. My past doesn’t matter.”
“It matters if your mother is going to use it against us.” Camille moved to stand beside him, both of them reflected in the large mirror above the sink. They looked like strangers pretending to be intimate. “If she brings up Juliette at another dinner, or asks why we got married on that specific date, I need to know how to respond.”
Nicholas studied their reflection. “Tell them we didn’t realize. That it was a coincidence. That I’m moving forward with my life, not dwelling on the past.”
“Are you? Moving forward?”
“I’m standing here in the middle of the night, coordinating lies with a woman I barely know while my mother patrols the hallway.” His smile was sharp, self-deprecating. “What do you think?”
Footsteps in the hallway again. They both froze, listening as Eleanor paused outside their suite door. The silence stretched impossibly long, and Camille found herself holding her breath.
Finally, the footsteps continued.
“We should establish a pattern,” Nicholas whispered. “She needs to believe we’re a real couple, which means eventually, we need to act like one.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we need to spend time together. In one bedroom or the other. Talking, at least, even if not—” He gestured vaguely. “She’ll notice if we maintain completely separate lives. It’ll confirm her suspicions.”
Camille’s stomach knotted. “You want me to sleep in your room?”
“Or I sleep in yours. Just a few nights a week. Nothing has to happen.” Nicholas turned to face her directly. “We can talk, go over our story, make sure we’re consistent. But the staff reports to my mother. If they never see evidence that we’re actually sharing a bed, she’ll know.”
“The staff is spying on us too?” Camille’s voice rose slightly, and Nicholas put a finger to his lips, glancing toward the doors.
“The staff has been with this family for decades. Their loyalty is to Eleanor, not to us.” He kept his voice low. “The housekeeper, Elena, probably reports on which rooms have been slept in. The laundry staff would notice if only one set of sheets is being used. My mother thinks of everything.”
“This is a nightmare.”
“This is survival.” Nicholas’s expression was tired but determined. “Look, I know this isn’t what you signed up for. But if we want to make it through the year, we need to be smarter. More careful. More convincing.”
Camille looked at him—really looked—and saw the desperation beneath his controlled facade. He needed this arrangement as much as she did, maybe more. Not for the money, but for whatever reason had made him so broken he’d rather buy a fake wife than risk loving someone real.
“Okay,” she said finally. “But we need ground rules. And we need to go over everything—every detail of our supposed relationship. When we met, where we went on dates, what we talked about. Everything.”
“Agreed.” Nicholas glanced at his watch. “It’s almost four. She’ll make one more pass around five, then she usually goes back to bed. We could start now, if you want.”
“Now?”
“Unless you’d rather try to sleep through another hour of her footsteps.”
Camille thought about going back to her room, lying in bed listening to Eleanor patrol the halls, feeling the walls close in. “Your room or mine?”
“Mine. She’d expect me to be territorial about my space. It’ll look better if you’re the one crossing boundaries.”
Everything was a calculation. Every decision made with Eleanor’s surveillance in mind. Camille wondered if this was what it felt like to slowly lose your mind—this constant awareness of being watched, being judged, being tested.
They gathered pillows and blankets, arranging them on Nicholas’s bed to look like two people had been sleeping there. Nicholas insisted on messing up both sides, creating impressions in both pillows.
“Attention to detail,” he explained, smoothing down the left side of the bed while leaving the right rumpled. “She’ll check.”
“She won’t actually come in here.”
“She has a key. And she will absolutely come in here if she thinks we’re not home.” Nicholas sat on the bed, leaning against the headboard. “I’ve lived with her surveillance my whole life. You learn to think three steps ahead.”
Camille settled on the other side of the bed, maintaining a careful distance between them. The intimacy of sitting on a bed with him, even fully clothed, even with a foot of space between them, felt wrong. Like she was betraying something, though she couldn’t say what.
“So,” Nicholas pulled out his phone, opening the notes app. “Let’s start with the basics. How did we meet?”
“Charity gala. September 15th. Whitfield Foundation benefit.”
“Right. I spilled champagne on your dress. What color was the dress?”
Camille hesitated. They’d never discussed this detail. “Navy blue.”
“Good. And you were there because…?”
“One of my nonprofit clients invited me. The Hartford Youth Literacy Project. They were receiving a grant that night.”
Nicholas typed rapidly. “What happened after I spilled the champagne?”
“You insisted on paying for dry cleaning. Asked for my number.” Camille tried to imagine the scene, to make it feel real in her mind. “I said no at first. You seemed too—” She stopped.
“Too what?”
“Too perfect. Too polished. Too far out of my league.” The honesty surprised her.
Nicholas looked up from his phone. “But you gave me your number anyway.”
“You were persistent. Charming.” She paused. “And you promised you weren’t trying to hit on me, you just felt bad about ruining my dress.”
“Was I lying about that?”
The question hung between them. They were supposed to be building a story, creating a believable fiction. But Nicholas was asking about something else—about what their relationship might have been if it had started honestly.
“No,” Camille said finally. “You genuinely felt bad. That’s what made me trust you.”
Nicholas nodded slowly, making a note. “And then?”
“We met for coffee the next week. Talked for three hours about—” She looked at him. “What did we talk about?”
“Work, probably. Your clients, my business. Maybe books? Do you read?”
“All the time. You?”
“Used to.” Something passed across his face. “Juliette loved to read. After she died, I couldn’t—” He stopped, clearing his throat. “We should say we bonded over books. It’s believable, innocuous.”
The mention of Juliette created a chasm between them. Camille wanted to ask more—what she’d been like, how they’d met, how Nicholas had survived losing her—but his expression had shuttered again.
“Books,” she agreed. “And then what? How many dates before you proposed?”
They worked through the timeline, building their fictional relationship piece by piece. Coffee dates that became dinners. Dinners that became weekends away. The moment Nicholas had allegedly told her he loved her (a Sunday morning in November, after they’d made breakfast together). The proposal itself (during a walk on the beach in the Hamptons, New Year’s Eve).
“Your mother will ask about the proposal,” Camille said. “Details. What you said, how I reacted, whether I cried.”
“Did you cry?”
“I’m supposed to have cried, aren’t I? When the man you love asks you to marry him?”
Nicholas set his phone down. “What would you have done? In real life, if someone proposed to you?”
The question felt dangerous, too personal. “I don’t know. It’s never happened.”
“But if it did.”
Camille thought about it. “I think I’d need to know them. Really know them. Not just the story we tell other people, but the truth. The broken parts, the scared parts, the parts they don’t show anyone.”
“That’s a lot to ask.”
“Isn’t that what marriage should be? Knowing someone completely and choosing them anyway?”
Nicholas looked at her for a long moment, and something shifted in his expression. “Juliette knew me. All of me. Every dark thought, every fear, every failure. And she loved me anyway.” His voice dropped. “When she died, it felt like the only person who really knew me was gone. Everyone else just sees the surface.”
“I’m sorry,” Camille said again, because what else could she say?
“Don’t be.” Nicholas picked up his phone, scrolling through their notes. “This is better. Easier. You don’t know me, I don’t know you. When the year is over, we walk away clean. No one gets hurt.”
But they both knew that was a lie. They were already hurt—Nicholas by loss, Camille by circumstance, both of them by the web Eleanor was weaving around them.
Footsteps in the hallway. Eleanor’s final patrol.
They both went silent, listening as she paused outside Nicholas’s door. The pause lasted longer this time—thirty seconds, maybe more. Camille wondered what Eleanor was listening for. Voices? Movement? Evidence of the intimacy she expected?
Finally, the footsteps retreated.
“She’ll sleep now,” Nicholas whispered. “We have until seven, when the staff starts arriving.”
“Should I go back to my room?”
“Stay.” The word came out more urgent than he probably intended. “Just—stay. Until morning. Let the staff see you leave from my room. It’ll look better.”
Camille knew he was right. But sitting on his bed, in the dark, with only two feet of space between them, felt more intimate than anything in their arrangement should allow.
“Tell me something true,” she said suddenly.
“What?”
“Something real. Not part of the story, not part of the performance. Just something true about you.”
Nicholas was quiet for so long she thought he wouldn’t answer. Then: “I’m scared of her.”
“Eleanor?”
“I’m thirty-two years old, I run a multi-million dollar business, I’ve negotiated deals with some of the most powerful people in the world.” His voice was barely audible. “And I’m terrified of my own mother. She’s never approved of anyone I’ve dated, any decision I’ve made, any version of myself I’ve tried to be. And even now, knowing the inheritance should make me free, I’m still trying to meet her expectations. Still trying to prove I’m good enough.” He paused. “You’re not special, Camille. She’s never approved of anyone. I don’t know if she’s capable of it.”
The admission hung in the darkness between them. Camille thought about her own mother—weak, addicted, drowning in her own poor choices but never cruel. Never calculating. Just broken in a different way.
“My mother doesn’t know this marriage is fake,” Camille said. “She thinks I found someone who loves me. Someone who’ll take care of me. And I’m letting her believe it because it makes her happy.” She swallowed hard. “I’m lying to the one person who’s never lied to me. And I hate myself for it.”
Nicholas reached across the space between them, finding her hand in the darkness. “We’re both terrible people.”
“Probably.”
“Or maybe we’re just desperate people doing desperate things.”
“Is there a difference?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
They sat like that as dawn crept closer—hands linked, exhausted, trapped in a performance that was slowly consuming them both. Outside the window, the sky began to lighten, turning from black to navy to the pale gray of early morning.
At six thirty, Nicholas’s alarm went off. Time to start another day of pretending. Another day of lies.
Camille stood, smoothing down her robe. “Same time tomorrow night?”
“To coordinate our story?”
“To survive Eleanor.”
Nicholas smiled, and for the first time, it reached his eyes. “Yeah. Same time tomorrow.”
Camille left through the sitting room, making sure to pause at her own bedroom door long enough for any passing staff member to see. The performance never ended. Even here, even now, even in the quiet moments before the house woke up.
She closed her door and leaned against it, feeling the weight of the sapphire ring on her finger, the weight of Nicholas’s secrets, the weight of knowing she was falling into something far more complicated than a business arrangement.
Eleanor had been right about one thing: at some point, the performance became reality.
Camille just hoped she’d recognize the difference before it was too late.
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