Chapter 4: Elias's POV
1316 Words
It started, like most of my worst ideas, with a brushstroke.
I had been midway through repainting the back of a chair I didn't even like when the call came through. The official call. Dinner. Tomorrow. With my betrothed. My future wife. Amanda Leclerc.
The moment I hung up, I didn’t scream or protest.
No, no. I planned.
Petty vengeance is an artform. And I am, at my core, an artist.
"Monty," I said, addressing my long-suffering golden retriever as he lounged upside down on my studio couch. "We’re going to make a statement."
He yawned in response.
I didn’t need his approval. The vision was already alive in my head.
They wanted a groom right? I’d give them one worthy of the Louvre.
---
Three hours later, I had my stylist, makeup artist, and one very confused intern standing in my loft like they were preparing a human sacrifice.
"So... you're saying you want to look... worse?" asked Marianne, my stylist, blinking.
"No," I said, tying my hair into a loose bun with two strands falling dramatically over my eyes. "I want to look... intense. Theatrical. Like a romantic villain. Like the ghost of a poet who drowned in lace."
The intern gasped. "Like a Douyin makeup boy."
"Exactly."
Marianne looked like she was going to cry. "But Elias, you have the bone structure of a cursed cherub. Why would you do this?"
"Because," I said, hopping off the counter, "if I have to sit through a dinner with Amanda, I want everyone involved to suffer. Visually."
---
Outfit first.
Sheer lavender lace.
Not a shirt. A blouse. Ruffled cuffs, a dramatic bow at the neck, flared sleeves, the works. The pants matched. Slight bell bottom. Semi-transparent. Glistening embroidery that caught the light like gossip.
I looked like a Victorian fever dream. A haunted Fabergé egg. A 6'3" hallucination at a Versailles rave.
"Now," I said, stepping onto the makeshift pedestal in my studio. "Makeup."
Marianne whispered a prayer.
---
Pale foundation, three shades lighter than my actual skin tone. Contour carved my cheekbones into menace. My lips were painted a glossy, violent red, like I'd just feasted on the blood of a particularly juicy enemy.
My eyes? Watered. Not because I was emotional. No. Because I insisted on them applying two layers of shimmer shadow, false lashes, and a bottom liner that made me look like I hadn’t slept in weeks. Add a single beauty mark beneath my right eye for drama. Perfection.
When they finished, I turned to the mirror.
The stylist had to sit down.
I looked... unhinged. Gorgeous. Devastating. Like I’d been kissed by an archangel and then promptly abandoned.
"Wait," I said, holding up a finger. "Final touch."
I reached for the banana perfume.
Thick. Obnoxiously sweet. The scent of childhood trauma and artificially-flavored joy. I didn’t spray it. I bathed in it. Broke the entire bottle over myself like it was baptism.
"Elias," Marianne croaked, gagging. "You smell like a smoothie made by a war criminal."
"Good."
Monty barked and fled the room.
I was ready.
---
Étienne came to pick me up personally.
I knew he didn’t trust me not to bolt. I considered it, honestly. Jumping into the Seine and floating to artistic freedom. But I stood tall — clothed in lace, drenched in banana perfume, dripping in petty vengeance.
Étienne stared at me for a solid minute before speaking.
"You don’t have to do this," he said quietly.
"Oh, I do," I replied, adjusting my bow.
"You could just be normal. For once."
"And rob them of this experience? Of witnessing the full extent of my theatrical spite? Never."
" You are going to regret this"
" I won't."
He muttered something under his breath and turned to lead me out.
---
The dinner was on his cruise ship.
The same cruise ship I once asked to borrow for an art retreat and he said no because it was “a sacred family vessel.” Now it was Amanda's romantic venue.
My blood pressure spiked.
He said no to me. But he lit candles and spread rose petals for her. The audacity.
I hated her more.
If she kept making me angry, I would make her angry. And we’d all be angry together, sipping overpriced wine and throwing passive-aggressive looks across candelabras.
The ship was docked like royalty. Lights twinkled. Musicians played something elegant and annoying. There were fresh flowers everywhere—on the stairs, woven into the railings, floating in champagne.
Roses on the floor.
This man had never even remembered my birthday.
I stepped onto the deck and was assaulted by the scent of luxury and betrayal.
It was stunning. I hated it.
I marched to the edge of the ship and stared dramatically out at the view. The Seine sparkled beneath me. My sleeves fluttered in the wind like angry gossip.
I giggled to myself.
"She’s going to cry," I whispered. "Amanda’s going to scream, cry, throw a chakra stone, and leave in a cloud of sage. Perfect."
The scent of victory (and banana) wafted around me.
And then I heard it.
The heels.
Click. Click. Click.
Slow. Sure. Unbothered.
I turned, expecting dreamcatchers and moon crystals.
And instead.
I saw her.
Glowy caramel skin.
Large, pouty lips.
Seductive cat eyes that looked like they’d caught every secret you’d never meant to reveal. Three moles, like celestial alignment—one beneath her left eye, one on the bridge of her nose, one tucked like a wink at the corner of her mouth.
Her hair was as straight as a pin.
Her dress was red.
Not just red. Capital-R Red.
And it clung to her like it had signed a non-disclosure agreement. Hugging every curve like it was in love with her. Her walk? Purposeful. Slow. Balanced. Like she wasn’t afraid of anything—not of falling, not of being watched, not of me.
And that scent—vanilla and cocoa butter, warm, nostalgic, and criminally effective.
She was a vision.
And she wasn’t Amanda.
She was Amaya.
Amaya f*****g Leclerc.
My first crush.
My first heartbreak.
The first person who made me feel like art — and then left me unfinished
The girl who’d laughed at my first poem, then kissed my cheek the day before I was going to confess. The girl who disappeared like smoke, moved to America, and left me at a family gathering with a wilted rose and a broken teenage heart.
I stood there, frozen.
My brain stalled like an old car.
No thoughts.
Just: Abort. Jump. Flee. Jump.
“I'm the one honouring this marriage contract now. Amanda ran.”
Her voice had lost that awkward puberty pitch. It was lower now—softer, more seductive, breathy in a way that made you want to follow it into the sea. And truth be told, if not for the shame washing over me this very moment I would be lured .
Of course. Of course Amanda ran. She would run.
But they didn’t tell me it would be Amaya.
This wasn’t a date.
This was a divine punishment.
A cosmic joke.
The girl I never got over, now seated across from me as my betrothed, while I looked like an over-iced birthday cake and smelled like synthetic potassium.
She approached slowly. Her gaze swept over me with the precision of a scalpel.
Still nothing on her face.
Not a flicker of recognition.
No laughter. No horror.
Just a single raised brow.
“Nice outfit,” she said dryly, brushing past me with the kind of calm that felt like violence.
My heart actually flinched.
I stared after her, mouth dry.
Oh, this was worse than I planned.
Much worse.
I needed a drink.
Or a life raft.
Or divine intervention.
Possibly all three.
Amaya Leclerc was back.
And I had just declared fashion war on my first love.
- Writer
