All Chapters of THE STAND-IN WIFE: Three weeks,One lie,No way out: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

ZARAMonday, 8:31 amShe almost didn't come.She'd been standing outside the building for four minutes coffee going cold in her hand, the Monday morning crowd splitting around her like she was something fixed talking herself into walking through the door.It's probably nothing, she'd told herself. Background work. Two hours and a cheque. Except Bri had called Sunday night and said the number out loud and Zara had sat very still on her kitchen floor for a long time afterward thinking about the Mount Sinai envelope on her nightstand with Mae's name on it. So she'd come. The lobby was marble and silent and a security desk that made her sneakers sound like an announcement. She gave her name. A man in a grey suit appeared from the elevator before she'd finished mid-thirties, tablet in hand, already talking. "Ms. Mitchell. Daniel, Mr. Arch's chief of staff. Walk with me." She walked. "Private family matters," he said. "Temporary arrangement. The role requires you to perform a specific

ZARATuesday, 1:14pmThe restaurant was quiet and expensive and two blocks from Marguerite's building.Zara had walked past it on the way to the subway Monday night without knowing what it was. Now, standing outside in her lunch break clothes dark jeans, good jacket, the boots she'd resoled twice she understood the choice. Isla hadn't picked somewhere neutral.She went in anyway.Isla was already seated. White silk blouse, hair pulled back, a glass of sparkling water she hadn't touched. She looked up when Zara approached and smiled the way she had in Marguerite's dining room practised, pleasant, landing nowhere near her eyes."You came," Isla said."You asked." Zara sat. Didn't take her coat off.A waiter appeared. Zara ordered water. Isla waited until he left."You think I'm here to interfere," Isla said.She didn't clarify. Didn't soften it. Just let it sit between them like something that could go either way.Zara looked at her. "Aren't you?""I'm here because you seem like someon

ZARAThursday, 5:21pmHe said very little for the rest of the visit.Not obviously he was too controlled for obvious. He answered Marguerite's questions, refilled her cup without being asked, laughed once at something the old woman said with enough warmth that anyone watching casually would have seen nothing wrong.Zara wasn't watching casually.She was watching the hand.It had gone back to normal within thirty seconds relaxed on the table, easy. But she'd seen it. Three buzzes in a pattern. The way his face hadn't changed but had gone very carefully still underneath.At five-fifteen Marguerite walked them both to the door. She held Zara's hands both of them, the same deliberate grip as Monday and looked at her the way she had across the kitchen table."Come back," she said. Simply. Like it wasn't a question."I will," Zara said.And meant it. Which was the part she didn't examine too closely.The elevator was small and the silence between them had too much in it.The lobby doors ope

ZARA Thursday, 7:52pm Richard Arch's call lasted eleven minutes. She watched the timer on Callum's phone screen from across the table. Not intentionally. Just the way eyes find something to rest on when everything else in the room is too much. He'd taken it off speaker after the first exchange. She heard the shape of his father's voice through the phone measured, unhurried but not the words. Just Callum across from her, very still, saying very little, his hand flat on the table for thirty seconds before he noticed and moved it to his lap. Eleven minutes. Then silence. He set the phone down. Looked at the table. Then at her. "Saturday dinner," he said. "Both of us." She nodded. Picked up her tea. Cold. She drank it anyway. "Alright," she said. "You don't..." "Callum." He stopped. She set the cup down. Stood up. Went to the fridge. Not much inside eggs, half a block of cheese, leftover rice, a bunch of spinach that had been optimistic when she bought it and was less so n

ZARASunday, 8:06amThree weeks.She'd counted them that morning without meaning to. Standing in the bathroom brushing her teeth with a toothbrush she'd bought at the pharmacy on the corner because she hadn't planned to stay this long. She looked at herself in the mirror and thought: three weeks.The contract said three weeks minimum.Nobody had said anything about minimum in a while.She rinsed. Put the toothbrush back in the glass beside the sink. Her glass. She had a glass now. A drawer in the bathroom. A hook on the back of the bedroom door. A spot on the kitchen counter where she kept her sketchbooks because the light there in the morning was good.She hadn't planned any of that either.She came out to find the kitchen already smelling like coffee. Callum was at the island, back to her, doing something with his phone. Dark shirt, no jacket. The version of him that existed before the day required anything.She sat at the island. He turned and put a cup in front of her without bein