Chapter Nine: New Emotions
1333 Words
CHAPTER NINE Ethan Blackwood
Weeks had passed since the dinner.
The mansion had returned to its usual order — quiet, controlled, exactly as I preferred it. Yet something about the silence felt different now. Less like peace and more like absence. A distinction I had no interest in examining too closely.
I stood at Luciana's floor-to-ceiling windows, staring at the Los Angeles skyline while my sister's laughter filled the room behind me.
"She told Father he described himself," Lucy wheezed, wiping tears from her eyes. "Ethan. She looked him dead in the eye—"
"It wasn't funny."
"It was extraordinarily funny."
"Father was furious. She embarrassed him in front of everyone."
"She defended you." Lucy sat up, still grinning. "Without hesitation. Without strategy. Most women in that room would have smiled and looked at their plates. Amara went straight for him." She tilted her head. "That's more than Mother has ever done."
I said nothing. Turned back to the window.
"Yet here you are," Lucy continued, "thinking about her weeks later."
"She's reckless. No self-preservation. One day that mouth of hers—"
"You can't stop thinking about her."
I clenched my jaw.
Because the truth was far more troubling than I was willing to say out loud. Amara John had been a temporary solution. A convenient arrangement. She was supposed to remain exactly that.
Instead she had defended me at a dinner table and I hadn't stopped replaying it since.
When I arrived home the mansion was quiet, as expected.
Except it wasn't.
An aggressively off-key voice floated down from the upper floor — loud and completely without shame, filling the corridors with something that technically resembled a melody.
I stopped walking.
Eunice appeared from the hallway and bowed slightly. Her lips were pressed together in the specific way of someone suppressing amusement.
"When did she arrive?" I asked.
"Not long ago, sir."
"What is she doing?"
"Bathing." A pause. "She's been singing for nearly an hour."
I exhaled and climbed the stairs.
Her bedroom door was open — of course it was, another careless habit — and I reached the threshold intending to tell her to close it. The words died immediately.
Amara stood in front of the full-length mirror in nothing but a white towel, completely lost in her own performance. Dancing without coordination. Singing without accuracy. Entirely unaware of anything outside her own world.
Then the towel slipped.
I turned and walked directly to my room. Closed the door. Stood in the center of the floor with my jaw clenched so tightly it ached.
My breathing was not entirely even.
I didn't find her attractive. I had decided that weeks ago. I had decided it thoroughly and filed it away and that was supposed to be the end of it.
"I don't even find her attractive," I said to the empty room.
The empty room offered no support whatsoever.
Lucy's party was exactly what I expected — expensive perfume, crystal glasses, conversations designed to perform rather than connect. Luciana's circle of friends arrived in designer clothes and sharper smiles and immediately began doing what wealthy people did at gatherings like this.
Watching each other.
I had instructed Eunice to have Amara ready. When she descended the stairs in a black silk gown that moved with her body like it had been designed specifically for her, something shifted briefly in my chest before I contained it.
"I'm ready," she announced. The tone suggested she was anything but.
"You're meeting another Blackwood," I said. "Fix the expression."
"I'll try not to be too disappointing," she said pleasantly.
I almost smiled. "I see."
I opened the door for her.
At the penthouse, Lucy immediately claimed her and pulled her toward the group. I stationed myself against the wall with a glass of whiskey and watched from a distance.
Bianca was there. She had positioned herself at the center of Lucy's circle with the practiced ease of someone who had spent years engineering exactly this. The moment she registered Amara, her smile sharpened.
For the first few minutes, Amara held herself together surprisingly well. Smiled at the right moments. Laughed without saying anything catastrophic.
Then she started talking.
"I literally walked up to Ethan and told him I didn't want him," she announced brightly. "I just needed a job. I said he wasn't even my type."
Silence fell over the circle.
I closed my eyes briefly.
Before anyone could react, she gestured with her wine glass and half of it emptied directly down the front of Bianca's cream dress. The dark red bloomed across the fabric dramatically.
The circle froze.
Amara froze.
Then she tilted her head and studied the stain with what appeared to be genuine artistic consideration.
"Wait," she said slowly. "That actually looks incredible. The way the burgundy bleeds into the cream — that's high-fashion editorial. You look like you did it on purpose. Avant-garde. Honestly iconic."
One beat of silence.
Then Lucy's friend burst out laughing. "She's right. It looks completely intentional."
The circle dissolved into laughter. Even Lucy was grinning. Bianca stood in the center of it, immaculate except for the ruined dress, eyes burning with a fury she was too composed to voice.
I watched Amara's face flood with relief as the room laughed with her rather than at her. The way her eyes lit up. The way she laughed too — surprised by her own survival.
My fingers tightened around the glass.
Reckless. Chaotic. Unpolished.
Magnetic in a way that had no right to be this difficult to look away from.
Bianca found me near the balcony bar twenty minutes later.
"She's embarrassing," she said quietly.
"She spilled wine on you. You survived."
"Ethan—"
"She handled herself well tonight."
The words came out before I could weigh them. Bianca blinked. So did I. Because I had defended people before — strategically, when it served a purpose. This hadn't been that.
Bianca studied me for a long moment, something shifting in her expression.
"You actually like her," she said softly.
"Don't be ridiculous."
"I've known you for twenty years." Her voice was quieter now. Almost sad. "I've never heard you defend anyone like that."
I said nothing.
She smiled — small and resigned and genuine in a way I hadn't seen from her in years. Then she walked away.
Lucy caught my arm near the elevator, flushed and entertained.
"The room loves her."
"She's chaos."
"You love control." Lucy grinned. "Which is exactly why you can't stop watching her."
I left.
The mansion was quiet when we returned.
Amara disappeared from the car almost immediately. I climbed the stairs slowly, loosening my tie, and found her on the balcony outside her bedroom — barefoot, holding a wine glass loosely, staring at the city while the night breeze moved through her hair.
She wasn't performing. Wasn't talking. Just looked tired in the honest, unguarded way of someone who had been holding themselves together all evening and had finally put it down.
I leaned in the doorway.
"You handled yourself well tonight."
She turned quickly, eyes widening. "Are you sick?"
Something in my chest moved reluctantly. "Go to sleep, Amara."
"I was trying not to embarrass you," she said quietly. Looking away. "I was really trying."
The honesty of it landed somewhere I hadn't expected.
The wind picked up. She shivered slightly in the thin silk. I removed my jacket before I had consciously decided to and draped it over her shoulders.
She looked up at me.
I hadn't stepped back yet. The city light caught her eyes and she smelled faintly like vanilla and the evening and something I didn't have a clean word for. The jacket swallowed her small frame. Her fingers curled around the lapels.
The space between us was not enough space.
I stepped back.
"Get some sleep," I said. My voice came out rougher than intended.
I walked away before she could see what staying another second might have cost me.
- Writer
