The Stand-In Marriage
1.2k Views · Ongoing · Ryu
On our fifth wedding anniversary, I walked into the penthouse suite at the Plaza with twelve bodyguards at my back.
The room was thick with smoke, and the music was loud enough to make the floor shake. Seven or eight of New York's most well-connected heirs were sprawled across the sofas. When I came in, their champagne glasses stopped halfway to their mouths.
Dante Moretti sat right in the middle.
His shirt was open three buttons down, and he had his arm around a blonde. When he saw me, he didn't even change position. He just lit a cigarette, taking his time about it.
"Vivian." He blew out a stream of smoke and smiled lazily. "You're five years older than me. You should have figured out by now that you can't keep me on a leash. You've been managing me all these years. Aren't you tired?"
The girl in his arms giggled and traced little circles on his chest with one finger.
"Honey, once a woman's past thirty, she should just accept it." She batted her lashes at me. "Men like things fresh."
The whole room laughed.
I laughed with them.
Five years. I had wrestled the family back from his uncles and put him in the seat as head of the Moretti family. And he had dumped the entire weight of it on me and gone off to enjoy himself all over the world with one new face after another.
Every time I came to drag him home, his excuse was always the same: "I'm still young. I'm not done having fun."
In those five years, I had cleaned up more of his messes and buried more of his tabloid stories than I could count.
All of New York said Vivian Moretti must be desperately in love with her young husband to put up with this much.
No one knew the real reason.
I indulged him only because of his face.
That face of his — a striking mirror of his own elder brother, my white moonlight who had left this world too soon.
For five long years, I had spun for myself an elaborate dream.
And now, it was time to wake.
The room was thick with smoke, and the music was loud enough to make the floor shake. Seven or eight of New York's most well-connected heirs were sprawled across the sofas. When I came in, their champagne glasses stopped halfway to their mouths.
Dante Moretti sat right in the middle.
His shirt was open three buttons down, and he had his arm around a blonde. When he saw me, he didn't even change position. He just lit a cigarette, taking his time about it.
"Vivian." He blew out a stream of smoke and smiled lazily. "You're five years older than me. You should have figured out by now that you can't keep me on a leash. You've been managing me all these years. Aren't you tired?"
The girl in his arms giggled and traced little circles on his chest with one finger.
"Honey, once a woman's past thirty, she should just accept it." She batted her lashes at me. "Men like things fresh."
The whole room laughed.
I laughed with them.
Five years. I had wrestled the family back from his uncles and put him in the seat as head of the Moretti family. And he had dumped the entire weight of it on me and gone off to enjoy himself all over the world with one new face after another.
Every time I came to drag him home, his excuse was always the same: "I'm still young. I'm not done having fun."
In those five years, I had cleaned up more of his messes and buried more of his tabloid stories than I could count.
All of New York said Vivian Moretti must be desperately in love with her young husband to put up with this much.
No one knew the real reason.
I indulged him only because of his face.
That face of his — a striking mirror of his own elder brother, my white moonlight who had left this world too soon.
For five long years, I had spun for myself an elaborate dream.
And now, it was time to wake.


















































