Page 9 of The Temporary Wife

Colby

T he coffee shop downtown buzzed with the usual morning crowd, but the corner table where I sat felt isolated from the cheerful chatter around me. I’d arrived fifteen minutes early, needing time to prepare for a conversation I’d been dreading since Lyla’s text yesterday:

I checked my phone for the third time in five minutes.

No messages from Gianna, who was at the flower shop preparing for a wedding delivery.

We’d barely spoken since the kiss three nights ago, both of us dancing around what had happened with careful politeness that felt worse than outright conflict.

The bell above the café door chimed, and Lyla walked in wearing a charcoal business suit and the kind of smile that had once made me think she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Now it just made me wary.

She spotted me immediately and approached with the confident stride of someone who owned every room she entered. “Colby. Thank you for meeting me.”

“Lyla.” I stood to pull out her chair, old habits dying hard. “Coffee?”

“Please. Black.”

I signaled the waitress while Lyla settled herself across from me, placing her designer purse on the table like a statement piece. She looked polished as always, every hair in place despite the October wind outside.

“You look tired,” she said, studying my face with the calculating gaze I remembered from our worst fights.

“Long week. What did you want to talk about?”

She accepted her coffee from the waitress with a gracious smile, then turned those blue eyes on me. “Your marriage.”

My jaw tightened. “What about it?”

“Come on, Colby. We were married for four years. I know you better than anyone.” She leaned forward slightly, her voice dropping to the tone she’d always used when she thought she had the upper hand.

“This whole thing is a setup. A desperate attempt to look stable for any future custody discussions.”

“That’s not?—”

“I’ve done my research. Gianna Stapleton, florist, single with no serious relationships on record, conveniently available right when you might need to prove you can provide Luca with a stable home.” Lyla’s smile sharpened. “The timing is remarkable.”

Heat rose in my chest, but I kept my voice level. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I? She’s been your friend for years, always available to babysit, always ready to step in when you needed help.

And suddenly, right when things might get complicated, she becomes the love of your life?

” Lyla laughed, the sound cutting through the café’s ambient noise.

“Even for you, that’s quite a coincidence. ”

“My relationship with Gianna isn’t up for discussion.”

“Your fake relationship with Gianna is absolutely up for discussion. It’s fraud, Colby. Designed specifically to make you look like the perfect family man.”

The accusation struck me like a physical blow, partly because it was technically true and partly because it felt completely wrong.

What Gianna and I had might have started as an arrangement, but it had become something else entirely.

Something real enough that I’d spent the last three nights lying awake thinking about the taste of her lips and the way she’d looked at me afterward.

“You’re fishing,” I said finally.

“Am I? Then you won’t mind if I have my lawyer look into the timeline. When you applied for the marriage license, how long you’d been ‘dating,’ whether anyone can verify this grand romance actually existed before you started worrying about custody.”

My hands clenched around my coffee cup. “Leave Gianna out of this.”

“I can’t do that. She’s inserted herself into my son’s life, playing house with a man she barely knows, and you expect me to just accept it?”

“We’re not playing, Lyla. She was my friend before you walked out of our lives. You know this. You know her. She loves Luca.”

“I’m sure she does. He’s a lovable kid. But loving someone else’s child doesn’t make you a mother, and it certainly doesn’t make you qualified to influence decisions about his future.”

The contempt in her voice made my temper spike. “You mean the way you’ve been influencing his future? Missing his games, canceling visits, using him as a weapon in whatever game you’re playing?”

Lyla’s composed mask slipped for just a moment, revealing something raw underneath. “I’m trying to protect him.”

“From what? From having a stable home with two parents who actually show up?”

“From watching you use another woman as a placeholder until someone better comes along.” Her voice rose slightly, drawing glances from nearby tables. “That’s what you do, Colby. You find women who’ll take care of you and Luca until you get bored or find an excuse to leave.”

“That’s not?—”

“Isn’t it? How long did Sarah last? Six months? And what about that teacher, Rebecca? She was good with Luca too, until you decided she was getting too attached.”

The names struck me like slaps. Sarah and Rebecca, two women I’d dated briefly over the past few years, both of whom had tried to build something lasting with me and Luca. Both of whom I’d eventually pushed away when things got too serious, too real.

“This is different,” I said, but the words sounded hollow even to my own ears.

“How? Because you married this one? Because you’re willing to commit fraud to maintain custody?” Lyla leaned back in her chair, looking satisfied. “Face it, Colby. You’re so desperate to keep Luca that you’ll drag an innocent woman into your mess and pretend it’s love.”

“Don’t tell me what I feel.”

“Then tell me yourself. Look me in the eye and tell me you’re madly in love with Gianna Stapleton. Tell me this isn’t about proving you can provide stability.”

I stared at her across the small table, my heart hammering against my ribs.

The truth was complicated, messy, impossible to explain in simple terms. Had I married Gianna to help with custody?

Yes. Was I in love with her? The kiss three nights ago suggested I was, but the foundation of our relationship made everything uncertain.

“I thought so,” Lyla said when I didn’t answer immediately. “You can’t even convince yourself, let alone a judge.”

“What do you want, Lyla?”

“I want what’s best for Luca. And what’s best for him isn’t watching his father manipulate women and call it love.”

“So you’re going to take him away from his home, his friends, his school? You’re going to uproot his entire life to prove a point?”

“I’m going to give him stability. Real stability, not this house of cards you’ve built with your convenient wife.”

I stood up abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor. “We’re done here.”

“Sit down, Colby. I’m not finished.”

“Yes, you are.” I threw a ten on the table to cover our coffee. “If you want to keep playing games, do it through the lawyers. Leave Gianna alone.”

“I can’t promise that. If she’s going to be part of this situation, she’s fair game.”

The threat in her voice made my blood run cold. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’ll do whatever I have to do to protect my son. Even if it means exposing the truth about your marriage.”

I walked out of the café before I could say something I’d regret, but Lyla’s words followed me onto the sidewalk.

The truth about your marriage. She was right that the foundation was built on legal necessity, but she was wrong about everything else.

What I felt for Gianna, what she felt for Luca, the life we’d built together that was real.

Wasn’t it?

By the time I got home, my mood had darkened to match the gray October sky. The house felt different somehow. Not obviously wrong, but the subtle displacement of someone who’d been there while I was gone. A pillow displaced on the couch. The slight chemical smell of cleaning products in the air.

Lyla must have stopped by while I was at the Henderson job site. She still had a key for her visits with Luca, but she’d never cleaned before. My skin crawled as I walked through the rooms, wondering what she’d been looking for or what she’d left behind.

I found Gianna in the kitchen making lunch, her dark hair pulled back in a messy bun and paint smudged on her cheek from whatever project she’d been working on at the shop.

“How did it go?” she asked without turning around.

“About as well as expected.”

She glanced over her shoulder, taking in my expression. “That bad?”

“She knows. Or thinks she knows. About the arrangement, the timing, all of it.”

Gianna’s hands stilled on the sandwich she was making. “What did you tell her?”

“Nothing. But she made it clear she’s not going to let this go.”

“What does that mean for us?”

The question hung in the air between us, loaded with implications neither of us wanted to face. What did it mean for us? Were we still just following the script of our arrangement, or had we crossed into something else entirely?

“I don’t know,” I said honestly.

She turned to face me fully, and I could see the worry in her hazel eyes. “Colby, maybe we should talk about what happened the other night.”

“The kiss?”

“The kiss,” she agreed. “And what you said afterward. About not wanting this to be over.”

I moved closer, drawn to her despite the chaos in my head. “Did you mean what you said? About needing time to think?”

“I meant it. But I’ve been thinking, and I keep coming back to the same questions.

” She wrapped her arms around herself, a gesture I’d learned meant she was feeling vulnerable.

“What’s real here? What we feel for each other, or what we’ve convinced ourselves we feel because we’re living like a married couple? ”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters. If we’re just caught up in playing house, if these feelings are just a product of proximity and convenience, then what happens when the pressure is off? When you don’t need a wife anymore?”

Lyla’s words echoed in my head: You find women who’ll take care of you and Luca until you get bored or find an excuse to leave. Was that what I was doing? Using Gianna’s feelings for Luca and her growing attachment to me as a way to get what I needed?

“I don’t know,” I said again, and hated how helpless it sounded.

“That’s what scares me.” Gianna’s voice was quiet, but there was steel underneath. “I can’t be another Sarah or Rebecca, Colby. I can’t let myself fall completely in love with you and Luca only to have you decide I’m getting too attached.”

“That’s not what this is.”

“Isn’t it? Be honest with me, Colby. If there was no custody case, if Lyla had never filed her motion, would you have married me?”

The question pierced me like a punch to the gut because I couldn’t answer it. Without the custody case, would I have been brave enough to admit my feelings? Would I have risked our friendship for the possibility of something more?

“I don’t know,” I said for the third time, and saw her face crumble slightly.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Gianna, wait?—”

“No, it’s okay. I understand.” She turned back to the counter, but I could see the tension in her shoulders. “We got caught up in the moment. It happens when people live in close quarters and share responsibilities. But we can’t lose sight of why we’re doing this.”

“And why are we doing this?”

“For Luca. To keep him safe and stable and with the parent who actually shows up for him.” Her voice was steadier now, but I caught the slight tremor underneath. “That’s what matters. Not whatever we think we feel for each other.”

I wanted to argue with her, to tell her that what I felt was real regardless of how it started. But Lyla’s accusations were still fresh in my mind, along with the uncomfortable truth that I couldn’t definitively separate my feelings from my needs.

“So we go back to the arrangement,” I said.

“We stick to the arrangement. We maintain the facade for any legal issues, and when it’s over, we figure out how to untangle ourselves without hurting Luca.”

The practicality of it should have been reassuring. Instead, it felt like giving up something precious before I’d even fully understood what it was.

“What about the other night? The kiss?”

She was quiet for a long moment, not looking at me. “A mistake. We let our guard down and forgot what this was supposed to be.”

“It didn’t feel like a mistake.”

“That’s what makes it dangerous.” She finally turned around, and I could see the pain in her eyes despite her controlled voice. “We can’t afford to make that kind of mistake again. Too much is at stake.”

Before I could respond, the sound of Luca’s school bus rumbling down our street cut through the tension. In five minutes, he’d come bouncing through the front door full of stories about his day, expecting the stable family life we’d promised to provide.

“He can’t know about this,” Gianna said quietly. “Whatever confusion there is between us, we can’t let it affect him.”

“Agreed.”

She nodded and went back to making lunch, but the easy domesticity from earlier was gone. Now we moved around each other like strangers, careful not to touch, careful not to meet each other’s eyes for too long.

The front door burst open right on schedule. “Mom! Dad! Guess what happened at school today!”

Luca’s voice carried the uncomplicated joy of a child whose world still made sense. He ran into the kitchen and threw his arms around Gianna’s waist, chattering about a science experiment and a playground argument that had been resolved before recess ended.

She smiled, listened, and asked all the right questions, but I could see the effort it cost her. The careful mask she wore to hide her pain from the child who loved her without reservation.

But watching her pretend everything was fine while my own chest felt like it was caving in, I realized Lyla might be right about one thing: I was using Gianna.

Not intentionally, not maliciously, but using her nonetheless.

Her love for Luca, her willingness to sacrifice her own emotional safety for his stability, her ability to make our house feel like a home.

The question was whether I was brave enough to figure out what I actually felt for her, or if I’d keep hiding behind the excuse of necessity until it was too late to choose love over convenience.

As I watched her help Luca with his backpack and listened to her genuine laughter at his silly jokes, I knew one thing for certain: losing her was going to hurt far more than losing a convenient arrangement.

It was going to feel like losing everything.