His fingers were still warm around mine.
"I have come to care for you. More than I should."
Something in the way he said it — quiet, steady, without demand — should have been reassuring. But instead, my chest tightened, my breath catching on a sob that never made it out.
My hand tore free before I even knew what I was doing. The mug slipped from my grasp, hitting the edge of the table with a dull crack. Hot cocoa splattered across the polished wood, a dark, spreading stain. I stumbled back, heart ricocheting against my ribs, the room spinning too fast for reason to keep up.
Because I'd heard those words before.
I care about you, Elara sweetheart.
A different voice. A different night. Liam's hand on my wrist, the same weight of sincerity in his eyes when he said he loved me.
The room blurred. The scent of sandalwood and smoke warped into the faint trace of whisky and Chloe's perfume.
For a heartbeat, I wasn't in Kaelen's penthouse anymore. I was back in that cold, quiet mansion, standing barefoot on the cold marble floor as I walk up the stairs with the white lilies.
My pulse spiked. The fire's glow twisted into something predatory. My mind screamed run.
Kaelen's voice came through the fog — low, careful. "Elara?"
He had stood up, his hand halfway between us, but the moment his eyes met mine, I saw it — the flicker of shock, the dawning awareness that whatever he'd just touched in me wasn't simple fear. It was damage.
"Don't," I whispered, backing away. My voice trembled. "Don't come closer."
"Elara," his voice now a gentle whisper, "Elara, what's wrong? Tell me-"
"No." The word rasped out of me, hoarse and strangled. "I can't—I can't do this."
He didn't move. The only sound was the rain against the glass, a faint, relentless whisper. I could feel his eyes on me, steady, unreadable. The firelight painted him in amber and shadow, too still, too calm.
I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly aware of the cashmere brushing my skin—his choice, his precision. My pulse spiked. The sweater felt wrong now. Like a costume. A uniform for a part I never auditioned for.
A wife.He said he needed a wife.
Liam needed a Sterling too. A perfect match on paper. Poised. Decorative. Useful.Different script, same story.Only this actor looked far more convincing.
My breath came unevenly. "Is that what this has all been about?" I forced out. "The help, the protection, the kiss?" My voice cracked on the last word. "Was it all just an investment—to secure your chosen candidate?"
He still didn't stand. Instead, he set his tumbler aside with deliberate care, as if sudden movement might spook me further.
"Elara," he said quietly. "Look at me."
I didn't want to. But I did.
His gaze held none of Liam's silken lies, none of the smug certainty I'd learned to fear. It was patient. Grounded. But there was a flicker there too—a trace of something raw, almost wounded.
"The kiss," he said, "was not a negotiation tactic."
He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. "What I feel for you is not a business strategy. It is the complication I never saw coming."
My heart thudded painfully. The words should have soothed. They didn't. They terrified.
He went on, his tone low, steady—like he was afraid raising it would shatter me. "I am not my nephew, Elara. My offer isn't a cage. It's a choice. Yours. Whether you say yes tonight, tomorrow or never."
That quiet certainty only made the panic worse. Because it sounded true. And truth was far more dangerous than lies.
I shook my head, unable to trust my voice.
He exhaled softly, the faintest trace of hurt flickering through his composure. But he didn't chase me. Didn't argue. He simply rose, crossed to the window, and said in a voice barely above a murmur, "I'll take you home."
The car ride was suffocating in its silence.
I sat angled toward the window, eyes locked on the dark blur of city lights streaking by. His reflection hovered beside mine in the glass—motionless, distant, composed. The scent of rain still clung to us both.
The warmth of his penthouse had vanished, replaced by the brittle chill of everything unsaid.
When the car finally stopped before the Sterling gates, he stepped out first, the perfect gentleman once more. The mask of restraint was back in place, but something in his eyes had changed—an emotion pulled tight and carefully hidden beneath the surface.
He walked me to the door. The rain had thinned to a mist, clinging to his hair, glinting in the dim porch light.
Just before I turned the handle, his voice came, low and even.
"The weapon is still yours to wield," he said. "The alliance stands, no matter your answer to… the rest. My feelings don't come with conditions."
It was the kindest thing he could have said—and it broke something in me.
I opened the door without looking back.
My room felt wrong. Too quiet. Too neat.
I peeled off the cashmere sweater and caught my reflection in the mirror. The woman staring back wasn't the girl who had been kissed in the rain, or the heir who knew every move on the board. She looked like someone caught mid-transformation, half-drowned in her own uncertainty.
"He said he cares," I whispered to the empty room. "But Liam said he loved me too."
My fingers clenched on the fabric.
"He said it's my choice," I continued bitterly. "But Diana made me believe every choice was mine too."
The voice in my head—the calm, rational strategist—whispered that I was right to be cautious. That survival meant never believing too easily again. But another voice, small and traitorous, whispered something else.
What if he means it?
The thought was unbearable.
I was given a chance to choose again. This life. I can't make the same mistake twice. I can't risk it.
I sank onto the edge of the bed, pressing my hands to my temples. The silence roared. Then—my phone buzzed.
Liam (10:48 PM):Where were you tonight? Chloe said she saw someone drop you off. Who is it? Everything okay?
I stared at the screen until the letters blurred. The message was dressed in concern, but I could feel the steel beneath it. The ownership. The surveillance. The reminder that I was still his.
I didn't reply. I couldn't.
The irony was sharp enough to taste. Kaelen had offered me freedom—and I'd run straight back into the prison I built myself.
I was standing at a crossroads in the dark, and both paths were lined with Vancourts.
One path led back to the devil I knew—the betrayal that had already killed me once.
The other led to a man who looked at me like I was the answer to a question he'd spent his whole life asking. A man who offered not a cage, but a crown.
And I was so, so much more afraid of the crown.
Because what if I sat upon it…only to find another trap hidden beneath the velvet?
What if the fall from there was even higher?
Right before I fell into a deep, unsettling sleep, a thought surfaced.
Do you really harbour feelings for him, Elara?
You needed to be with a Vancourt — to find out what they were doing. He needed a wife. He is a Vancourt too.
So why couldn't it just be an alliance of necessity?