CHAPTER 2: ELIAS' POV
2083 Words
I woke up face-down in a canvas.
Not on a canvas. In it. Like, fully smothered. My hair was in my mouth, my cheek was stuck to a streak of dried paint, and my left eye blinked open to the sight of an unfinished thigh. Not mine. The painting’s.
My nose twitched.
I smelled like turpentine, dog breath, and oat milk.
Somewhere above me, a low woof rumbled, followed by a wet snort and a very intentional sneeze directly into my ear.
“Monty,” I mumbled.
Another snort. Then the weight of a seventy-pound golden retriever dropped across my lower back.
I groaned into the canvas.
This was how mornings worked. I didn’t need an alarm clock. I had a dog with zero sense of personal space and a bladder like a stopwatch. Every morning, at precisely too-early o’clock, Monty reminded me that being an heir to a billion-euro real estate empire didn’t make me immune to basic canine biology.
I rolled over onto my back with a grunt, the floor beneath me groaning in protest. Monty’s tongue was already halfway up my neck before I could protest.
“Gross,” I croaked, shoving him gently. “You smell like expired joy.”
He barked once, happily, then trotted toward the window, tail wagging like he’d just cured depression. The floor was littered with paintbrushes, coffee mugs with crusted edges, and a half-eaten croissant I didn’t remember abandoning.
I sat up, wincing as my spine clicked back into place, and pushed my hair out of my face. It fell right back in.
Long hair is great in theory. Very artist. Very romantic. In practice, it’s a curtain of damp spaghetti that constantly reminds you why normal men get haircuts.
Dragging myself upright, I yawned so hard my jaw cracked and shuffled into the kitchen of my loft—a sunlit space with tall ceilings, messy open shelves, and a sink full of shame.
Coffee first. Then oxygen.
Monty trotted at my heels, his tail rhythmically thumping against the wall, chair legs, and my shin.
“You are a golden menace,” I muttered, scooping food into his bowl.
I brewed my coffee the only way I knew how: lazily and emotionally. Grounds spilled onto the counter, and the machine made that sad groaning sound it always did when I forgot to clean it.
Still, the smell was holy.
I leaned against the counter, mug in hand, oversized sweatshirt slipping off one shoulder, and stared blankly at the skyline outside my window. Paris looked too alive for this hour. I envied the buildings—stable, predictable, sharp at the edges. I envied them even more when my phone buzzed and shattered the calm.
It was face-down on the counter, vibrating like a judgmental bee.
I flipped it over with the corner of my sleeve.
A news notification blinked up at me, followed by a photo I recognized instantly: my cousin Étienne, heir to the Moreau fortune, prince of Paris nightlife, shirtless and grinning with some model draped over his shoulder like a luxury scarf.
MOREAU HEIR CAUGHT IN LOVE TRIANGLE AT MONTE CARLO CLUB—AGAIN.
I groaned into my coffee.
“Seriously?”
I scrolled. Same old story. Flashbulbs. Champagne. A woman’s stiletto in the background. My cousin with that stupid perfect hair and look-at-me jawline, making headlines like it was his side hustle.
Not that I cared about the headlines. But I did care that it meant my phone would probably ring any second—
Ring.
And there it was.
I didn't even need to check the caller ID. Only Étienne had the audacity to scandalize a continent and then call his emotionally unstable painter cousin before 9 a.m.
I answered with a sigh.
“Yes, your highness?”
“Don’t be cute,” he said. “It’s too early for sarcasm.”
“It’s too early for your scandals.”
“You saw the article.”
“I inhaled it with my coffee. She was wearing Louboutin. Nice choice.”
Étienne made a noise that sounded like someone trying not to be amused. “I need you to come home.”
My hand froze mid-sip.
“Define ‘home.’”
“Our estate. The real home. Not your paint-splattered hovel. Today.”
I turned and looked around my loft: chaotic, yes, but loved. It smelled like oils and wet dog and potential. The thought of going back to the estate, with its echoing marble halls and judgmental chandeliers, made me want to bite my mug.
“Did someone die?” I asked, half-hoping the answer was yes.
“No. It’s... something else.”
“Étienne, I’m in boxers and a robe that smells like Monty’s feet. I haven’t washed my face. I don’t even know where my shoes are.”
“That’s fine. Show up barefoot. Just come.”
I could tell from his tone that he wasn’t joking. There was something stiff in it. Nervous, even. Étienne was many things—chaotic, dramatic, very punchable—but he was rarely nervous.
“What's going on?” I asked, voice lower.
A pause. Then: “I’ll explain when you get here. Trust me, you’ll want to sit down for this.”
“Great,” I muttered, already moving toward the closet like a man heading for a firing squad. “Can’t wait.”
---
Two hours later, I was driving back through the wrought iron gates of Moreau estate, Monty in the passenger seat with his head out the window and his ears flapping like a happy parachute. The manor hadn’t changed—still too big, too cold, and trying too hard to look like old money, which we absolutely were.
I parked beside Étienne’s ridiculous silver sports car—illegally imported, naturally—and made my way inside, trailing dog hair and artistic anxiety behind me.
The butler raised an eyebrow.
I waved. “Bonjour. Oui, oui. I’m here to be traumatized.”
Monty sneezed.
We were escorted to the drawing room. Étienne was already there, pacing like a man preparing for war. He looked... rumpled. And not his usual carefully curated, millionaire-playboy rumpled. This was actual stress.
I dropped onto the velvet couch and kicked off my boots. Monty immediately climbed up beside me like he paid rent.
“Well?” I said. “Which one of your girlfriends is pregnant?”
Étienne stopped pacing. He looked at me, exhaled, and then said:
“You’re getting married.”
I blinked.
Then I laughed.
And then I laughed harder, doubling over until Monty barked in confusion.
“I'm sorry—what?”
“I’m serious.”
“Oh, I’m sure you think you’re serious.”
He crossed his arms. “It’s the Leclercs.”
That shut me up. I sat upright, all humor draining from my face.
“The Leclercs? As in... Amanda Leclerc?”
He nodded slowly.
“So let me get this straight,” I said slowly, arms crossed, voice low. “You want me… to marry Amanda?”
Étienne didn’t even flinch.
“Yes,” he said, like it was no big deal. Like he wasn’t asking me to legally bind myself to the most emotionally unstable person to ever own a dreamcatcher.
I blinked. Then laughed. Then stared at him with full, open-mouthed horror.
“Amanda. Amanda Leclerc. The one who cries when her coffee’s too hot and once told our grandfather that she was born in the wrong dimension?”
“The same.”
“She brought a singing bowl to your twenty-first birthday and told your girlfriend her aura was aggressive.”
“She said it out of concern.”
“She said it while throwing salt at her.”
Étienne sighed and rubbed his forehead. “It’s not ideal.”
“Not ideal?” I choked. “Étienne, I’m not marrying a human Pinterest board. You can’t make me marry someone who refers to herself as a ‘moon empath with selective telepathy.’”
“She doesn’t call herself that anymore,” he said weakly.
“Oh, so what is it now? Energy doula? Vibration ambassador?”
He didn’t answer.
I threw my head back dramatically and groaned. Monty, sprawled on the couch beside me, let out a sympathetic sigh like even he knew this was hell.
“Look, I get it,” I said. “You’re in a tight spot. There’s a contract, there’s money, there’s history. But Amanda? She’s like a musical theatre student and a crystal shop had a baby.”
“She’s the only name left on the contract, Elias,” Étienne said, serious now. “If she doesn’t marry into our side, the Leclercs pull out of the estate merger. It will ruin the reputation our families spent the last decade building.”
“Yeah, well, maybe it should unravel,” I muttered. “Maybe the universe is telling you to stop using marriage as a business transaction and start going to therapy.”
“Too late.”
“You could’ve at least warned me,” I said. “Mentally prepared me.”
“I figured you wouldn’t come if I told you upfront.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Still. Amanda. She used to follow me around at family events humming Enya songs and asking what color my soul was.
“I thought you said she ran off to India to open a healing café for abused parrots.”
“She came back. Apparently, she’s ready to ‘serve her ancestral purpose’ now.”
“Serve it somewhere else!”
Étienne’s expression was growing more and more desperate. Which, frankly, was deeply satisfying.
“She’s calmer now,” he tried. “Softer. She doesn’t weep over fallen leaves anymore.”
“You say that like she’s a feral cat who’s been fixed.”
“Elias.”
I held up a finger. “One more question.”
He nodded cautiously.
“Does she still call the moon ‘Grandmother Sélène’ in public?”
Étienne said nothing.
“Okay, see,” I said, pointing. “That’s a hard no.”
“You don’t have to marry her tomorrow,” he said. “Just meet her. Have dinner. Smile. Be civil. If it doesn’t work, fine—we figure something else out. But if we cancel the whole thing now, the families will assume it’s a personal insult. To her. To her mother. To everyone.”
“Oh God, not her mother,” I muttered. “I can already hear her calling me ‘my little lion cub’ and telling me to cleanse my root chakra with paprika.”
“Paprika?”
“I don’t know, Étienne! They make it up as they go!”
He folded his arms. “Please. Just dinner. Please.”
I stared at him. The great Étienne Moreau, playboy of Paris, begging me to take one for the team like this was a football match and I was the water boy.
This man once bought a penthouse in Milan to avoid attending a board meeting. He once faked a hand injury to skip violin lessons. And now he was here, in our dead uncle’s antique armchair, looking like someone had replaced his champagne with vinegar.
Which meant this was serious.
I sighed so hard my bones deflated.
“You owe me three favors.”
“Done.”
“And you’re buying Monty’s raw food for the next six months.”
“I already do.”
“Well, now it’s official.”
I shoved my hair out of my face, tried to remember what my dress shoes looked like, and muttered, “Fine. I’ll go. I’ll meet Amanda. But if she brings crystals to the table, I’m fake-texting myself an emergency and leaving through the kitchen window.”
“Deal,” he said, standing up with obvious relief.
“And if she starts crying during the soup course—”
“You can leave.”
“And if she tries to psychoanalyze me using moon phases—”
“You can throw your wine at me instead of her.”
“Done.”
I grabbed my coat, Monty’s leash, and my last shred of sanity.
As we stepped back out into the cold Paris air, Monty wagging his tail like an i***t who had no idea his human was about to be legally sacrificed, I muttered under my breath:
“I swear, if I survive this dinner, I’m getting a medal. Or at least another dog.”
- Writer
