Julian West wasn't sleeping.
He hadn't in days.
Not since he saw him.
Silas Vale.
The name alone burned in his mouth like acid. The man who had swooped in with effortless charm, hijacked Grace's attention, and unraveled every inch of control Julian thought he had built over the past four months.
Grace had been his project—his carefully composed symphony of affection and proximity. He had taken his time, learned her rhythms, softened his rough edges to fit the image she might want. And now? All of it undone by the arrival of that actor with a crooked smile and a shadow that stretched far too long.
Julian sat alone in his dark apartment, laptop open, tabs lined up with every scrap of information he could find on Silas Vale.
Film articles. Magazine interviews. Paparazzi shots. Gossip threads.
A web of Silas's life sprawled across Julian's screen, but it wasn't enough.
He needed leverage.
Something dark.
Something that would make Grace look at Silas the way she now looked at him—with hesitation, with discomfort.
"You want war," Julian muttered to himself, "you'll get one."
But war needed planning.
So he reached out to someone from Silas's past. Someone Julian had met once at a film networking party in Westbridge. A woman who had only referred to Silas as "a beautiful tragedy." She answered his message with three words:
"What took you?"
Grace was unaware of Julian's descent.
To her, his silence was a strange relief.
Until that night, her phone buzzed with an unfamiliar number.
"Grace. It's Julian. Don't hang up."
Her fingers twitched, hovering above the red button. "What do you want?"
His voice cracked slightly, like a fault line forming mid-conversation. "I just want to understand what changed. We were good. Weren't we? Before he came."
She remained silent.
"Look, maybe I pushed too hard. Maybe I wanted something you weren't ready to give. But I never lied to you. I never pretended to be someone else."
Grace exhaled slowly. "You didn't lie, Julian. You just weren't listening."
A pause. Then, quiet desperation:
"Would you have chosen me if he hadn't shown up?"
And that question? It lingered.
Long after she ended the call.
Long after Julian smashed his phone against the wall.
He sat among shattered glass and static fury.
And in the middle of it, he smiled.
Because she hadn't said no.
And for Julian, that was enough to keep the obsession alive.