Chapter 11 – Unwritten Rules
332 Words
That night, Amara couldn’t stop replaying Leon’s words in her head. I’d burn the contract before I let anything happen to you.
It wasn’t the kind of thing you said to someone you were just paying to be around.
When she finally stepped out of her room the next morning, Leon was already at the dining table, papers spread out in front of him. The smell of coffee hung in the air, but it did nothing to settle the tension curling in her stomach.
> “We need to talk,” he said without looking up.
She crossed her arms. “That sounds ominous.”
> “I think we need to rewrite some of our… rules.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What rules? You mean the ones in the contract, or the ones we never wrote down but somehow keep breaking?”
That earned her a small, almost reluctant smile. “Both.”
Leon pushed the papers aside and finally met her eyes. “If people are going to start digging into our arrangement, we need to make sure the story they find is believable. That means more public appearances, more photos, maybe even a weekend trip.”
Her stomach flipped. “A trip?”
> “Someplace where it’ll look natural for us to be… together.”
The word together lingered between them, heavier than it should have been.
Amara hesitated. “And what happens if all this pretending starts to feel real?”
For a long moment, he didn’t answer. Then he stood, walked over to her, and said quietly, “Then maybe we stop pretending.”
Her pulse stuttered, and she hated how much she wanted to agree. But she forced a smirk. “Careful, Leon. That wasn’t in the original deal.”
> “Maybe it should have been,” he murmured.
And with that, he returned to his papers, leaving her to wonder whether the new rules would protect them — or destroy them faster.
- Writer
