His Fake Silence

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My husband faked being deaf for five years.

Which meant he heard every filthy thing I ever said in bed.

I found out with my own ears. I was standing on the wrong side of a wall when Roman leaned back against it, turning his hearing aid over in his fingers, a smile riding under his voice.

She's only ever herself when she thinks I can't hear.

I stood there, frozen.

Let me back up.

I married the boy I grew up hating. A merger our families arranged. Five years, signed and notarized. No love in it. We fought it out in bed instead. Every single night.

The day that contract ran out, I was going to walk.

Then I pictured him stepping into traffic to buy me a caramel apple, grinning at me, too deaf to hear the car that almost took him out.

Something in my chest caved.

So I went to find him. To ask if maybe we could just keep this. Stay married.

That's when I heard his best friend, laughing around the corner.

"Bro. You addicted to playing deaf yet?"

Chapter 1

Everyone's supposed to have a crush on the boy next door.

Not me.

I hated mine.

Hated him for the firecracker he lobbed into a porta-potty when we were kids, blowing crap all over both of us.

Hated him for the gum he mashed into my hair in middle school. I had to cut it out.

Hated him for skipping study hall in high school and pinning the blame on me.

Everyone else got the sweet, loyal childhood sweetheart. I got the busted freebie they toss in when the real thing's sold out. The sticky kind.

All those years stuck with him, the good times wouldn't fill a shot glass. The bad ones needed a garbage bag.

At least he left the country the second we graduated. Four clean years of college. Peace.

Then I graduated too, and there he was again. The one face from my whole youth I never wanted to see.

And the worse news underneath it: my family was bankrupt, and my deadbeat father was marrying me off to fix it.

Roman sat across the table, head down.

"My hearing might not come back. Guess that makes me half a man now. If you don't want to go through with this"

Even a suit that sharp couldn't hide how small he'd folded himself. Nothing left of the cocky boy I grew up with.

I didn't say a word.

His knuckles went white on the edge of the table. Something splintered behind his eyes.

"It's fine. I'll tell your father to call it off"

Wait.

My brain caught up a beat too late.

His hearing. He'd just said his hearing was gone.

I shot out of my chair, crossed to him, and pushed his hair back. There it was, tucked behind his ear.

A hearing aid.

"Marlowe. You think humiliating me is funny?"

His eyes went dark. That old edge crept back into his voice, teeth and all.

"How'd it happen?"

He blinked, thrown. "Studying abroad. Couldn't work the stove. Blew it up in my face."

I just stared at him.

He was actually deaf.

"You"

"I'll marry you," I blurted. "I'll marry you."

I clamped a hand over his mouth before he could open it again and looked into those blank, dopey puppy eyes, biting down hard on the grin trying to split my face.

Because here's the thing.

My whole life, I never once out-argued Roman Pei. I'd throw one insult and his motormouth would fire back ten.

But now?

Pop that hearing aid out, and hell, I could finally curse him into the ground.

We shook on it right there, then drove straight to city hall for the license.

I kept one card up my sleeve, though. This was a merger, not a marriage. A deal. Two families using each other.

Get mine through the crisis. That was the whole point. I wasn't about to sink my entire life into this man.

I didn't even like him.

Five years. That was the term.

His parents were breathing down his neck to settle down, and he needed a presentable wife for show. Out of every match my father lined up, Roman was the least terrible.

Each of us taking what we needed.

Walk away clean when the well ran dry.

Roman signed without blinking.

"Pei, what are you, part dog?"

I pressed a hand to my throbbing lip and shoved his solid chest. Hard.

He didn't budge.

He leaned in closer instead.

It pulled a sound out of me I hadn't meant to make.

"Roman! Quit moving! Get off"

He paused. Narrowed his eyes at my mouth like he was reading it off my lips.

"Babe, no clue what you're babbling about."

Then he kept right on going.

Fine. I give up. Would you please put your hearing aid back in.

I stretched for the nightstand.

A hot, heavy hand caught mine first, forced my fingers apart, and pinned them over my head.

His breath dragged across my throat.

He lifted those hooded eyes. Voice low and rough and in no hurry at all.

"You don't need to hear for this, wife."

Chapter 2

Our wedding night.

I lay stretched out on the big wedding bed, and that was when the dread caught up with me.

Maybe I hadn't thought this all the way through.

He wanted a wife. I wanted the merger. But this was a marriage. Not two kids playing house.

Were we supposed to... do that?

The shower cut off mid-thought. Roman stepped out in nothing but a towel.

Steam rolled off him. His hair hung wet against his forehead, dripping down his chest, into the cut of his abs.

I squinted. Textbook inverted triangle. Shoulders like a double-door fridge, waist tapering into that lean V.

I didn't get to finish looking. He was already crossing to me.

My throat went tight.

He wasn't about to

I swallowed.

This fast?

"Roman, I don't think I'm ready"

He stepped right past me.

I snapped my eyes shut and clutched the corner of the blanket.

A breath of air moved by.

Nothing landed on me.

The closet swung open beside the bed. Roman pulled out a spare comforter and gave me a small smile.

"I'll take the room next door."

He was passing on me?

I glanced down at myself. Not huge, fine. But this was insulting.

"Roman. You think I'm too small?"

Something hot and self-righteous surged up my throat.

He didn't turn around.

"What is that even supposed to mean? I wasn't the only one who signed up for this! You looking down on me? Newsflash, I've got a C, and that is not small! And what, like you're so damn impressive?"

Full meltdown.

Roman didn't so much as glance back.

One more step and he'd be through the door to the next room.

My vision went red. I launched off the bed and threw myself onto his back.

"Consummate this marriage with me!"

He froze, baffled. My foot hooked his towel and sent it flying.

I hit the mattress, brain still scrambling to catch up.

And that was when it landed.

He hadn't been baiting me.

The idiot just wasn't wearing his hearing aid.

Being married to Roman turned out happier than I'd braced for.

We already knew each other inside out. And by the time we tied the knot, he'd taken over the company. Gone before sunup, home after dark.

What he left me was quiet. That, and a black card.

Roman drained the last of his oatmeal, stood, and straightened a cufflink. He scooped up a stack of files, already halfway to the door.

I looked up from my bowl. "You've been so busy lately."

The clock read eight. Barely.

There was a time he'd linger after breakfast. Skim the paper, trade a few words with me before he left.

He loosened his tie a notch and changed his shoes at the door.

"Dad's got a project running behind. Going to go crack the whip on it."

Dad.

When he said it like that, he always meant mine.

I did the math. Fourth year now, the two of us.

And he was still out there breaking his back for my father.

The contract floated up in my head, and my mouth ran before my brain could catch it.

"This whole merger's almost up anyway. You don't have to knock yourself out for him."

Roman's hand went still on the door.

The room went quiet.

Chapter 3

Sure, our marriage started as a contract. But five years is five years. I'd lived every one of them.

What I'd just said made it sound like I'd wrung him dry and was ready to kick him to the curb.

I opened my mouth to explain I hadn't meant it like that, but Roman got there first, fast and clipped.

"I've been slammed lately. Let's get into it another time.

"Right, I've got a work trip tonight. Text me if anything comes up."

On his way out, I caught him fidgeting with his hearing aid. Stiff. Self-conscious.

Something drove into my chest like a thin needle.

He was doing it again. Shrinking over his ears.

He didn't think I'd just called him broken, did he? Some disabled man he'd stuck me with?

At the start, I'd meant to end it the day year five hit.

But these four years, we'd fit. Every part of it.

Whenever Roman wasn't traveling, the two of us basically went at each other like enemies. Every single night.

On the quiet days, he took me everywhere. Shopping, the amusement park, trips.

At first I never filed him under husband. Just my childhood friend of a hundred years, easy to be around, no itch under my skin.

Then somewhere along the way, some nights, I couldn't fall asleep without his arm around me.

Like now.

Alone in a too-big bed.

Staring at a too-empty message thread.

Something under my ribs wouldn't sit still.

He'd said to text him. Three hours since I sent mine. Nothing back.

Damn it.

He didn't go and get hit by a car, did he?

The thought snapped me bolt upright in bed.

Last Christmas, Roman and I didn't go home to either set of parents.

We stayed in and threw together a small hotpot, just us. After, we bundled into one long scarf and went out to wander the block.

I spotted a cart of caramel apples and whined that I wanted one.

Roman ducked out of the scarf, wrapped me back up tight, and told me to wait right there. He'd go get them.

It was one street. That was all.

But that night a car's brakes gave out. Roman, no hearing aid in, was walking back toward me, grinning, waving the caramel apples in the air.

If he hadn't jogged those last two steps.

I don't let myself finish the thought.

He had no idea death had come that close. Still smiling like a fool.

He pushed the caramel apples into my hands and told me he'd grabbed one of every kind. Eat till you're sick of them.

My own father couldn't be bothered to buy me a single caramel apple.

Roman just wished he could reach up and pull the stars down for me too.

Maybe it was the scare that night. Maybe it was the way he looked under the streetlight.

My pulse tripped over its own feet.

Roman now was a good man.

Even if he'd been a little bastard back then.

The phone buzzed and yanked me back.

Roman: [Just got out of a meeting. What's up?]

The heart lodged in my throat dropped back into my chest.

Some things I needed to say to his face.

No red-eye out that night, so I caught the first flight at dawn and landed in Chicago the next morning.

Off the plane, I got the address from his assistant and went straight there. No stopping.

I went there to tell him how I felt.

I never got the chance.

Chapter 4

What was I even going to say when I saw him?

Living like this wasn't bad, honestly. Roman was a solid pick to build a life with. We knew each other down to the bone. So his ears didn't work. For families like ours, love was never really the point anyway.

I think I actually... wouldn't mind spending my life with him.

His abs were nice to touch. His face was nice to squish. His mouth was nice to kiss.

And with his hearing aid out, I could cuss him out with zero fear of consequences.

What other man would sit there like a mute and take it?

Only someone like Roman checked every box.

I was starting to regret that one card I'd kept up my sleeve. That contract.

No idea if he'd even want to tear it up and actually stay.

I finally worked up the nerve and headed up.

I was digging my phone out of my coat to call him when a familiar voice drifted around the far end of the hall.

"Bro. You addicted to playing deaf or what?"

Playing deaf?

My feet stopped. I turned my head an inch. A face I knew swam into view. Roman's best friend. I'd met him once, at a party Roman took me to.

Roman stood with his back to me, the hearing aid he'd pulled off turning over in his fingers, half his face lost to shadow. But there was a smile riding under his voice.

"Only when I play deaf does she get to be completely herself."

"Your hearing came back months ago, man. You can't keep this up on her forever."

"We'll see."

"Your funeral. But tell her soon. You two are married, and hiding things never ends well."

My skull filled with white noise.

I didn't catch the rest. Something about a meeting. The two of them walked off shoulder to shoulder.

I ducked into the fire stairwell and tried to swallow what I'd just heard.

Roman's hearing was fine.

He'd hidden it so I could go on being exactly as I pleased.

He hated wearing the hearing aid at home. I'd always chalked it up to the noise. Figured he pulled it out to bury himself in work.

How was I supposed to know his ears were healing?

This whole time, I'd been sure he couldn't catch a word. So I'd let myself run feral around that house.

Which meant... when I ripped one at full volume in the living room, he heard that too?

Every filthy thing I'd ever moaned in bed. He heard all of it?

Chapter 5