Page 9 of Mr. and Mrs. Novak

God, I never should have dragged her into this.

She leaves the bedroom to join Laurent and Asli. Their cheerful voices drift from the kitchen. Those two, a Turkish housekeeper in her fifties and a chef trained in the best kitchens, were taken with my wife the moment they met her. They’ve not only adopted her, but they also treat her like their own, while with me, they maintain a polite yet distant respect.

I give them fifteen minutes before getting up myself. When I enter the kitchen, the small group scatters as if caught in the act. I greet my staff and step toward Sophia, wrapping my arms around her and pressing a kiss to her temple. She lets me, offering a hesitant "good morning." Despite everything between us, she’s keeping her promise, maintaining appearances. Asli and Laurent are loyal to me, but rumors spread quickly, and I need our marriage to look real.

Asli ushers us into the dining room, where she has set the table for two. We sit side by side to enjoy the extravagant breakfast Laurent has prepared.

The silence is heavy. Sophia keeps her eyes fixed on her plate, barely eating. Eventually, I break the tension.

"Does it still work for you if we fly to the Bahamas this afternoon?"

"I have an urgent matter at work," she replies without looking at me. "If it’s okay with you, I’d rather postpone our honeymoon."

I mask my disappointment, but I can’t blame her. What woman would go on a honeymoon after discovering her husband has a mistress? Even though I haven’t touched Natasha in weeks, I’m still keeping up the act.

"That works out," I say. "I have urgent business to handle too."

After breakfast, we each retreat to our offices. Sophia is a freelance cybersecurity consultant. I had an office set up for her before the wedding, for the days she works remotely. It’s probably the only real consideration I’ve ever had for her. Whatever my reasons for marrying her, I wanted her to have her own space. I sit at my desk, resigned to working since the honeymoon is clearly canceled. I stay home to avoid gossip; after all, a newlywed returning to the office the day after his wedding would raise too many questions, and I don’t want any unnecessary attention on me.

"Fuck, what’s with this shitty connection?!"

I glare at my screen, frustration mounting. The client file upload bar crawls at a snail’s pace, if it moves at all. It feels like we’ve gone back fifteen years to the ADSL days. This is the fifth time today the connection has acted up. The Wi-Fi indicator in the corner of my screen fluctuates wildly, bouncing from four bars to zero in seconds.

I run yet another connection test when there’s a knock at the door. My response is sharp:

"Come in!"

I immediately regret my harsh tone when I see Sophia push the door open slightly. Her delicate face, framed by dark brown hair, holds a cautious expression that only makes me feel guiltier.

"There’s an issue with the internet connection," she says in a measured tone. "I’ll take care of it, I’ll call tech support right away."

"Thanks, Sophia," I reply, making an effort to soften my voice. "Keep me posted, I have an important video call this afternoon."

She nods silently and steps out.

An hour later, two technicians arrive, their bulky toolkits and high-end tablets clashing with the minimalist decor of our penthouse.

"The line tests are fine up to the entry point," the more experienced one explains, scanning the connection logs. "The optical signal is stable. The issue seems to be with your local network. We’ll need to check your internal setup and possibly reconfigure your equipment."

I shut myself in my office as they discuss latency tests and packet loss while Sophia methodically guides them through the installation.

Two hours later, she knocks again to let me know everything’s back to normal. The connection is now perfectly stable.

I immediately call Akim on a video conference.

"I thought you were on your honeymoon," he teases. "What the hell are you doing working? Shouldn’t you be busy showing your wife the pleasures of marriage?"

"Don’t talk about Sophia like that! And what happens between us is none of your damn business."

"Oh, touchy, aren’t we? Trouble in paradise already?" he smirks.

A slow-burning rage builds inside me. Things between Sophia and me are already tense enough without him piling on. If he weren’t one of my oldest friends, I would’ve told him to go to hell for his shitty insinuations.

Akim Belkacem, a brilliant corporate lawyer and top of his class, is the one who structured our company from the ground up. Beneath his impeccable suits and infuriating smile lies a mind as sharp as a scalpel.

With Nicolas, he’s one of my only real friends. The only ones I have left since Raphael and I cut all ties. Together, we built this import-export business into one of the industry leaders in just a few years—an entire fleet of cargo ships, warehouses in major European ports, offices in twenty countries. But success had its price, and Akim understood that before anyone else.

"Nicolas finished analyzing the last quarter’s data," Akim continues. "The weight discrepancies are systematic but inconsistent."