THE SUBSTITUTE BRIDE

I walked into the Cross family’s Upper Manhattan estate bracing for the worst months of my life.

What I got instead was the exact opposite.

Eleanor Cross, Julian’s mother, treated me like something precious.

She personally showed me around the entire estate, pointing out every corner, asking what colors I liked so the room could be redecorated for me, remembering my walnut allergy and reminding the kitchen staff to keep every dish free of them.

“Don’t be afraid,” she told me at our first dinner together, her voice so gentle I nearly cried.

“I know none of this has been easy for you.

But no one here wants to hurt you.”

Julian, so unlike the cold public figure everyone described, turned out to be startlingly thoughtful in private.

He never pushed for intimacy before I was ready, always knocked before entering my room, even though it was technically our shared bedroom.

He remembered I preferred mint tea to coffee in the mornings, and quietly had a new bookshelf installed in my study after hearing me mention missing the old books I’d left behind at home.

One night I ran a high fever from a cold.

Julian brought soup up to my room himself and sat by the bed until nearly dawn, despite having an important meeting at seven.

When I woke, I found him asleep in the chair, head slumped forward, still holding my hand.

I found myself wondering: was this really the same man as the one in all those rumors out there?