Chapter 9
712 Words
Smoke and Silk
The kiss haunted her.
Leona hadn’t slept much. Not because of Elias—he hadn’t touched her again, hadn’t even mentioned it. But she kept remembering it.
The heat. The way he breathed her name against her lips. The terrifying way her body leaned into him before her brain could say this is wrong.
By morning, she was scrubbing the memory out of her mouth with bitter coffee and too much silence.
Elias, of course, looked unbothered. Leaning against the kitchen counter in a black T-shirt and low-slung pajama pants like the cover model of an accidental fantasy.
She hated how good he looked.
“How’s the clinic?” he asked casually, scrolling through something on his phone.
“Stable. For now.”
“Good. My legal team will keep the auditors off your back. At least until the next strategic smear campaign.”
“How comforting.”
His eyes lifted. “You okay?”
“I’m married to a man I barely like, living in a lie that’s getting too convincing, and I kissed you last night like I meant it. So no. Not particularly.”
He didn’t smile. Didn’t smirk. He just said, “I meant it too.”
And then the silence became something else.
Thick. Charged.
Before either of them could say more, his phone buzzed.
He frowned at the screen. “Vivienne.”
Leona blinked. “Why is she calling you?”
“She never calls. She commands.”
He answered, putting it on speaker.
Vivienne’s voice sliced through the air. Cool. Calm. Dangerous.
“I assume you’ve seen the footage?”
“What footage?” Elias asked slowly.
A pause. A click. Then a short video played.
Grainy surveillance footage from outside the gala. Leona and Elias on the balcony.
The kiss.
Zoomed. Enhanced. Framed like a scandal. Like it wasn’t just a kiss—it was a betrayal.
Vivienne spoke again. “If you were trying to convince the world your marriage was real, congratulations. They’ll eat it up.”
Leona’s stomach sank. “She had us followed.”
“She always has us followed,” Elias muttered.
Vivienne continued, voice silk and poison. “Unfortunately, this complicates things for you, darling. Franklin is not impressed. And he’s now reconsidering your inheritance deal. There’s talk of removing you from the succession line entirely.”
“Let him,” Elias said.
Vivienne laughed softly. “Then maybe you’ll care about this: your little wife’s clinic? I just bought the building next door. The permits will choke her expansion plans for a year.”
Elias’s jaw locked. “You don’t want this war, Vivienne.”
“Oh, Elias,” she purred. “You married the pawn. Now you get to watch me play the board.”
The line went dead.
Leona paced the living room like a caged animal. “She’s going to destroy me.”
“No,” Elias said. “She’s trying to destroy me. You’re just the weapon.”
“And I’m supposed to just sit here while she aims me at your chest?”
He walked over, calm but sharp. “You’re not a weapon. You’re the only thing in this entire mess that doesn’t feel like a lie.”
She stared at him.
And for a second—just a flicker—her heart cracked open.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she whispered. “I don’t know how to be part of your world without losing mine.”
“Then let’s build a new one,” he said. “Yours. Mine. Ours.”
She laughed once. Shaky. “You’re serious?”
“I married you, didn’t I?”
“You blackmailed me.”
“Details.”
She shoved him gently. He caught her wrist.
The air between them snapped again.
He leaned in. “Say it, Leona.”
“Say what?”
“That you want me.”
She exhaled. “I want you.”
“Say it’s not just the ring.”
“It’s not.”
He kissed her again—and this time, there was no pulling back.
Not when his hands slid up her waist.
Not when hers tangled in his hair.
Not when the fake marriage stopped pretending it was fake.
- Writer
