The Wrong Kind Of Yes.

Rehearsal

They ran through it like a script, because that's what it was, sitting knee to knee on the low couch in his apartment two nights before the board meeting, a legal pad of talking points balanced between them, trading facts about each other like flashcards neither of them had studied hard enough.

"Favorite color," Callum said, pen tapping against the pad.

"Why does that matter?"

"Because my aunt Rosa will ask, and if you say the wrong thing she'll know within thirty seconds, and my aunt Rosa talks to three board members socially. Trust me, this matters more than it sounds like it should."

"Green," Mara said, deciding it was easier not to argue. "It's green. What's yours?"

"I don't have one."

"Everyone has one."

"I have a strong opinion about efficient portfolio diversification. That's the closest thing I have to a favorite color." He said it completely straight faced, and it took her a beat to realize he might actually be joking.

Despite herself, she laughed, a real one, surprised out of her, the kind she hadn't let herself do much of since the vote clock started counting down. Something in Callum's expression shifted at the sound of it, subtle but unmistakable, like he hadn't expected to cause it and wasn't entirely sure what to do now that he had.

"Your turn," she said, recovering. "What convinced you? At the fundraiser. Our fake origin story needs an actual detail or Rosa will smell a lie from across the room, she's very good at smelling lies, apparently."

He was quiet for a moment, considering her with an intensity that made the air in the room feel smaller, the apartment's low lighting suddenly doing more work than she wanted to admit. "You argued with a senator about zoning law for eleven minutes and didn't back down once, even after he mentioned donating to your father's campaign. I counted. Eleven minutes."

"That's not a very romantic detail."

"It's the true one." He held her gaze, steady, none of his usual deflection. "Most people fold the second the stakes get personal. You don't. I noticed that about you a long time before any of this started, if I'm being honest , long before the takeover, long before any of it made sense to say out loud."

The air between them had changed, subtly, the practiced rhythm of the rehearsal giving way to something neither of them had scripted or planned for. Mara found herself very aware of how close they were sitting, of the low light, of the particular quiet of an apartment where no one was performing for anyone, no board, no press, no Rosa collecting details like ammunition. Just the two of them and a legal pad neither of them was looking at anymore.

"We should keep going," he said abruptly, standing, putting physical distance between them like he'd caught himself doing something dangerous and needed a moment to recalibrate. He crossed to the window, back to her, hands in his pockets. "Rosa also collects biographical details like ammunition. Middle names. We need middle names, and a story for how your father reacted when I supposedly asked his permission, which he'll definitely bring up."

"Callum James," Mara offered, watching him carefully. "Yours?"

"Alexander." A pause. "My father's name, actually. Small irony there, if you want one."

"I don't think that's an irony. I think that's just sad."

He turned back to look at her then, something almost vulnerable crossing his face before he could smooth it away. "Most things about my family are, if you dig far enough. It's why I generally don't let people dig."

"And yet."

"And yet," he agreed quietly, and for a moment neither of them said anything else, the unfinished sentence sitting between them like an admission neither was ready to make out loud.

He crossed back to the couch eventually, dropping down beside her with more space between them than there had been before, like he needed the distance to keep talking. "There's one more thing Rosa will ask, and it's the one you actually need to get right. She'll ask how I proposed."

"I assumed we were skipping that part, Given the circumstances."

"We can't skip it. Not with her." He rubbed a hand over his jaw, the closest thing to nervousness she'd seen from him all night. "She's sentimental about things like that. If I say I don't remember, or that it wasn't a big production, she'll know something's off before we've even sat down to dinner."

"So what actually happened, in the version we're telling?"

He was quiet for a moment, considering. "I think," he said slowly, like he was building the story as he spoke, testing each piece before he offered it to her, "I asked you somewhere quiet. Not a restaurant, not anywhere with an audience, somewhere that mattered to both of us for reasons no one else would understand. I think I was more nervous than I'd ever admit to anyone in this family, and you said yes before I even finished the question, because apparently in this version of events, you'd been waiting for me to catch up for a while."

Something in his voice had shifted as he said it, less like a man inventing a cover story and more like a man describing something he wished were true. Mara felt her pulse pick up, aware she was reading too much into a hypothetical, aware she couldn't quite make herself stop.

"That's oddly specific," she said, "for something we're making up."

"Details sell a lie better than generalities do. That's just strategy." But he wasn't looking at her when he said it, and his voice had none of its usual conviction.

"Is that all it is? Strategy?"

He didn't answer right away, and the silence stretched long enough that she wondered if she'd pushed too far, too fast, into territory neither of them had agreed to enter yet. "I don't know anymore," he said finally, quiet, honest in a way that startled them both. "I used to know exactly where the line was, Mara. Between the performance and whatever this actually is. I'm having a harder time finding it lately."

Mara let him retreat back into logistics after that, venue layout for Thursday, who to shake hands with first, how long to linger near her father before the board arrived, telling herself she was relieved to have the tension broken. She wasn't entirely sure that was true, and she suspected, watching him avoid her eyes for the rest of the night, that he wasn't sure either.

By midnight, the legal pad was full of notes neither of them would probably need, and Mara was gathering her coat when Callum stopped her at the door, one hand braced against the frame.

"For what it's worth," he said, "I don't do this. Rehearsals, prep sessions, letting someone see this much of the machinery. I usually just show up and perform."

"I noticed you're better at deflecting than most people I've met."

"High praise, from someone who argued with a senator for eleven minutes." A faint almost smile. "I mean it, Mara. Whatever tonight was, I don't know what to call it, but I know it wasn't nothing."

She held his gaze for a moment longer than was strictly comfortable. "We should probably figure that out before Thursday."

"Probably," he agreed, not moving out of her way just yet. "I'm not sure either of us is going to manage that in two days."

He stepped back to let her through eventually, and she left with the odd, unsettling sense that she'd learned more about Callum Reyes in one evening of flashcards than in three years of watching him across boardrooms, and that whatever answer he was looking for about the line between performance and reality, she was starting to suspect she didn't want him to find it just yet, not until she'd worked out her own answer first.

[End of Episode 6 : the rehearsal cracks the professional distance between them for the first time, and Callum's abrupt retreat signals he felt it too, setting up the tension that will carry into the board meeting.]