The first time another woman told me my husband still belonged to her, she was wearing a necklace worth more than my flower shop.

The copper pans hanging above the kitchen island gleamed like newly minted pennies beneath the warm halogen fixtures. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Tribeca loft, the October sky had turned the bruised purple of an overripe plum, pierced by the amber grid of lower Manhattan.

"Mushroom risotto," I managed, my hand freezing around the curved olive-wood spoon. The broth in the smaller saucepan was simmering, sending up plumes of steam that smelled of thyme, shallots, and reduced white wine.

Ethan had already unbuttoned his cuffs, rolling the stiff white cotton back over his forearms with two practiced, mechanical turns. He wore charcoal trousers that fell with architectural precision over leather oxfords so polished they caught the ambient glow of the city lights. He tossed his keys onto the quartz counter with a brief, sharp clatter that seemed far too loud for the four-thousand-square-foot silence of the apartment.

"Does it need more broth?" he asked, walking directly toward the stove.

"No," I lied quickly, feeling my pulse perform an undignified stammer against my collarbone. "It needs twenty minutes of constant stirring, which requires complete concentration, so you can go back to your office or your reading room or wherever you usually hide from humanity until midnight."

Ethan didn’t move back. Instead, he closed the distance between us until the scent of him—cedarwood, rain-damp wool, and that peculiar, clean scent of ironed linen—displaced the savory aroma of the shallots. He leaned over my shoulder, close enough that the warmth radiating from his chest ghosted against my spine.

"The arborio rice is absorbing the liquid too quickly," he observed quietly. His voice had a low, gravelly timbre that vibrated right through the ceramic tiles beneath my bare feet. "My mother used to say if you let the bottom scorch, the entire pot tastes like regret."

"Your mother didn't cook, Ethan. She had a French chef named Jean-Pierre who charged three hundred dollars an hour to yell at scullery maids."

That surprised a faint breath of laughter out of him. It was a rare, startling sound, catching in his throat before smoothing into a quiet murmur. "Fair point. But the rice is still sticking."

He reached out. His fingers, long and cool from the street, brushed against the knuckles of my right hand as he took hold of the wooden spoon. He didn't pull it from my grip; he simply closed his hand over mine, his palm broad and calloused at the base of his fingers—a relic of his solitary hours at the rowing machine in the private gym down the hall. Together, we traced slow, clockwise circles through the creamy, bubbling starch.

"You smell like eucalyptus," he said, staring down into the pot.

"I spent six hours prepping floral arrangements for an opening at the Whitney," I muttered, trying desperately not to lean my head back against his shoulder. My heart was thumping a frantic, erratic rhythm against my ribs. "Eucalyptus gets under your fingernails. You can wash your hands with pumice soap and still wake up smelling like an Australian forest."

"It's better than boardroom coffee and toner ink." He paused the movement of the spoon, his thumb shifting slightly, pressing with unconscious deliberation into the soft hollow between my thumb and forefinger. "Why didn't you hire an assistant for the Whitney delivery? The contract stipulated three grand for transport alone."

"Because I own Wild June, Ethan. I don't supervise it from an ivory tower. If an arrangement shifts during transit, I want my hands on the stems, not some kid who thinks a ranunculus is an exotic reptile."

"A control freak," he murmured, his breath brushing the curve of my ear.

"Look who’s talking. You literally bought voting shares in a multibillion-dollar financial institution just so your father couldn't sign a merger agreement you found aesthetically offensive."

"It wasn't aesthetically offensive," he corrected, his voice dropping into that cool, analytical cadence he used whenever money was mentioned. "It was mathematically illiterate. The debt-to-equity ratio of the holding firm was an insult to basic arithmetic. My father thinks with his ego. I prefer spreadsheets."

"And a fake wife."

His hand went still over mine.

The silence that fell between us was heavy, thick with the unsaid things that had accumulated over our twenty-one days of legal cohabitation. Through the glass, a helicopter drifted down toward the Hudson, its red navigation lights blinking rhythmically against the dark water.

"It isn't fake," he said softly.

I pulled my hand back from his. The sudden absence of his skin felt like a cold breeze across an open burn. I picked up the pepper grinder, twisting it with unnecessary violence over the risotto. "It's a contract, Ethan. We signed it with lawyers present. There's a termination clause on page fourteen. Don't start romanticizing a strategic asset allocation."

Ethan didn't retreat. He simply stepped sideways, leaning one hip against the counter, his arms crossed over his chest. His sleeves were still pushed up, revealing the lean cords of muscle in his arms. His gaze was steady, grey-blue, and uncomfortably sharp—the kind of look that had made hedge fund managers resign before the opening bell.

"You're very defensive when you cook," he observed.

"I'm defensive when people stand in my kitchen looking like a magazine spread while I have arborio starch on my cheek."

Without a word, Ethan reached out. He raised his left hand, his thumb brushing against my cheekbone, just below the outer corner of my eye. His touch was feather-light, deliberate, and entirely devoid of the cold calculation he applied to the rest of his life. His thumb lingered there for two seconds, perhaps three, pressing gently against my skin until I could feel the ridge of his fingerprint.

"You don't have starch on your cheek," he murmured.

"Then what are you doing?"

"I don't know," he admitted. The honesty of it was like a slap. His eyes darkened, searching my face with an intensity that made the air feel thin. "I really don't know, Claire."

He let his hand fall away, turned on his heel, and walked out toward the terrace. Through the glass, I watched him stand against the black iron railing, his silhouette stark against the glittering sprawl of Manhattan, his white shirt fluttering in the autumn wind.