Catherine’s POV
“Are you serious?
God, you are so sheltered it physically hurts me.” She jabbed a finger at my chest.
“Think about it.
Guys like that?
Family breathing down their neck, everybody demanding grandkids, needing a wife on paper to keep the parents off their back.
It happens all the time.”
“A face like you just described.
Steady job.
Money.
If that man were actually into ‘women’, do you honestly think he’d end up with you?
No offense.” She spread her hands.
“He’d have his pick.
He’d have women lined up around the block.
He would not need to scrape one off the sidewalk and drag her to a courthouse.”
I nodded slowly, chewing my lip.
“Okay.
That’s…
actually the exact thing I couldn’t figure out these past two days.”
Because it “didn’t” make sense.
None of it did.
But if Lorenzo were gay, suddenly every weird piece clicked into place.
“And another thing,” Julia pressed, on a roll now.
“You said there’s ‘something’ about him, right?
That vibe you can’t name?” She snapped her fingers.
“Tha’s it.
That’s the tell.
Cold as ice, keeps his distance, radiates this whole ‘do not touch me’ energy toward women.
Am I wrong?”
I froze.
Because—God.
She wasn’t wrong.
That first day.
Standing beside him at the registry office.
The air around him had been so cold I’d half expected to see my breath.
When the clerk had waved us closer together for the record, I’d felt him go rigid, every muscle locked, practically screaming “keep your distance” without saying a word.
I’d chalked it up to us being strangers.
Awkwardness.
Two people forced too close.
Yeah.
The odds Lorenzo Marino played for the other team were looking real strong.
“Listen to me.” Julia squeezed my hand.
“Get out now.
Being a beard is a miserable, lonely life, and you don’t deserve that.”
“He struts around looking like a magazine cover while treating some poor woman like furniture.
You’re gorgeous, Cat.
You are not spending the rest of your life propping up a lie.”
Divorce.
I tilted my head, actually turning it over.
And honestly?
I couldn’t work up much horror at the idea of being someone’s cover story.
It wasn’t like we’d fallen in love.
It wasn’t like there’d been promises, dates, a proposal under some string lights.
“That” would’ve gutted me.
That would’ve been betrayal.
But this?
This was two strangers thrown together for convenience.
A marriage of scheduling.
Both of us cornered by our families, both of us needing a ring fast, no questions asked.
“Let’s just give it a while,” I said.
“See how we mesh.
If it’s genuinely unlivable, then I’ll file.
No harm in waiting.”
Because if Lorenzo really was gay, then he wasn’t going to lay a finger on me.
Which meant I was safe.
Which meant I finally had a way out of that suffocating house and the family that only ever wanted me for what I could give up.
Julia’s eyes went round as dinner plates.
“I’m sorry—you want to spend time meshing with a gay man?
What’s the endgame here?
You planning to turn him straight?”
“I don’t need to turn him anything,” I said.
“I respect his orientation.
We’re just two people sharing a roof to get our families off our backs.
That’s it.”
Julia looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
“Cat.
It means a lifetime of nothing.
No touch, no romance, nada.
No woman on earth can hack that!”
“And he almost definitely married you to squeeze out a kid or two.
Carry on the family name.
You’d be having babies for a man who will never, ever love you—”
“Whoa, whoa.
‘Having babies for him’?” I frowned, cutting her off.
“I want a kid too, you know.”
Since when did a child belong only to the husband?
I liked kids.
I’d always wanted one.
And with Lorenzo’s genes?
That baby would come out looking like it belonged on a billboard.
Honestly, I’d be robbing the man blind.
You couldn’t find a sperm bank on the planet stocking a profile that good.
…Not that I was getting ahead of myself.
Lorenzo didn’t strike me as the easy-to-live-with type.
This whole marriage had a shelf life, probably a short one.
Whatever happened, happened.
I’d let it ride.
Julia looked ready to combust.
“How is anybody this ‘chill’ about being a beard?
This is not normal, Cat!”
“Fine.
Fine.” She threw her hands up in surrender.
“Some lessons you’ve gotta learn by faceplanting into the wall yourself.
Don’t come crying when it hurts.”
She gave up on the intervention.
We finished shopping for Rosa’s gift, and I headed back to the office.
The rest of the afternoon blurred by, spreadsheets and emails, same as always, until my phone buzzed at six on the dot.
Marco.
Right.
Dinner at the Conti house.
He was coming to pick me up.
I grabbed my bag and went down.
Ten minutes later that familiar Maserati rolled up to the curb.
The passenger window slid down—and Isabella’s face appeared behind a full mask of makeup, lashes coated thick enough to cast shadows.
“Hurry up and get in, ‘sis’.”
I stopped dead on the sidewalk.
Why the hell was Isabella here too?