BABY, JUST SAY YES!

Chapter 2

The night air on the terrace was cooler than the ballroom, laced with the faint scent of chlorine and night-blooming jasmine. Elena stepped through the open glass doors with her spine straight and her silver gown whispering around her ankles. She needed space. She needed air that did not taste of champagne and lies.

The illuminated pool stretched before her like a sheet of black glass, underwater lights turning the water a soft, unnatural turquoise. Guests milled along the edges, laughing too loudly, glasses in hand. No one seemed to notice that the bride-to-be had walked out of her own engagement party with her ring finger bare.

Elena stopped at the far edge of the deep end, gripping the stone railing until her knuckles whitened. The city glittered beyond the estate walls, distant and indifferent. She closed her eyes and tried to slow the furious pounding of her heart.

Five years.

Five years of careful smiles. Five years of telling herself that affection would grow into something warmer. Five years of pretending Marcus’s distant touches and distracted kisses were enough. And all of it had been a performance—for her father, for the board, for the will her mother had left behind like both a gift and a cage.

The soft click of heels on stone made her open her eyes.

Sophia stood a few feet away, red dress glowing under the terrace lights. She held two fresh glasses of champagne and wore the expression of someone who had already won. Marcus hovered behind her, looking uncomfortable but not nearly uncomfortable enough.

“There you are,” Sophia said brightly. “I was worried you’d run off and spoiled the evening.” She extended one of the glasses. “Peace offering?”

Elena did not take it. “Stay away from me.”

Sophia’s smile only widened. She set both glasses on a nearby table and stepped closer. “Don’t be dramatic, Elena. It’s unbecoming. Besides, you should be thanking me. I saved you from a lifetime of disappointing sex.”

Marcus made a low sound of protest. “Sophia—”

“Oh, quiet,” she said without looking at him. Her eyes stayed locked on Elena. “He told me everything, you know. How you lie there like a statue. How you treat intimacy like another item on your to-do list. ‘Efficient,’ he called it. God, even the word is tragic.”

Elena felt heat climb her throat. Guests were beginning to notice the three of them. A few drifted closer, drawn by the tension the way moths were drawn to light.

“You’re drunk,” Elena said flatly.

“I’m honest.” Sophia tilted her head, studying her with glittering malice. “You’ve always been so perfect. Perfect grades. Perfect posture. Perfect little heiress who never got her hands dirty. But men don’t want perfect, Elena. They want someone who actually feels something. Someone who knows how to make them lose control.” She glanced over her shoulder at Marcus and laughed softly. “Isn’t that right?”

Marcus looked away.

Elena’s voice came out low and dangerous. “You are my sister.”

“Half-sister,” Sophia corrected sweetly. “And blood never stopped anyone from taking what they wanted. You had everything handed to you—Mother’s company, Father’s attention when it suited him, the golden future. I only took one thing. It’s not my fault you couldn’t keep him interested.”

The words landed like open-handed slaps. Elena felt something sharp and brittle crack inside her chest. Years of swallowed insults, of polite silences, of watching Sophia charm and manipulate her way through every room, rose up at once.

“You are pathetic,” Elena said, each word precise. “You have never built a single thing in your life. You only know how to steal. And still it isn’t enough. It will never be enough, because no matter how many men you take from me, you will still be the second choice. The afterthought. The girl who has to climb into someone else’s bed to feel important.”

Sophia’s smile vanished.

For a moment the only sound was the soft lap of water against the pool tiles and the distant murmur of the party. Then Sophia’s face twisted into something ugly and raw.

“You think you’re better than me?” she hissed. “You can’t even keep a man. You can’t even swim.” Her voice rose, sharp enough to cut through the night. “Everyone knows it. Poor little Elena, so terrified of the water she won’t even put her feet in. What kind of woman is afraid of a swimming pool?”

Elena’s stomach tightened. The old childhood fear—the memory of slipping under at a summer party when she was seven, of water closing over her head, of lungs burning—rose like a ghost. She had never learned. She had never wanted to.

Sophia saw the flicker of fear and smiled with pure, vicious delight.

“Let’s see how perfect you look when you’re drowning,” she said.

She moved faster than Elena expected.

Both hands slammed into Elena’s shoulders. The force sent her stumbling backward. Her heels caught on the edge of the pool. For one weightless second she was suspended between air and water, silver gown flaring around her like broken wings.

Then she hit the surface.

The water closed over her head with a cold, shocking slap. Her gown became a heavy, clinging trap. She kicked wildly, but the fabric tangled around her legs. Chlorine burned her eyes and throat. She tried to scream and swallowed water instead.

Panic exploded through her body like electricity.

She thrashed, arms flailing, lungs already on fire. The underwater lights turned everything turquoise and distorted. She could see the surface—so close, so impossibly far. Her feet could not find the bottom. The deep end was a black void beneath her.

She was going to die in a swimming pool at her own engagement party while her sister watched.

Above the water, voices shouted. Someone screamed her name. Bodies moved at the edge of the pool in a blur of color and light.

Marcus’s polished shoes appeared at the edge. He hesitated only a second before diving in—expensive tuxedo and all.

Elena’s heart lurched with desperate hope. He was coming. He would pull her up. He would choose her this time.

But Marcus swam past her.

He swam straight to Sophia, who had slipped into the shallow end with a theatrical little splash and was now floating on her back, red dress blooming around her like a flower, laughing as if the entire scene were the best joke she had ever told.

Marcus reached her in three powerful strokes and wrapped an arm around her waist, lifting her toward the steps as if she were the one in danger.

Elena’s vision began to darken at the edges. Water filled her mouth again. Her limbs grew heavy. The surface light receded.

So this was how it ended. Not with a boardroom battle or a quiet resignation, but choking on chlorine while the man who had promised to marry her saved the sister who had destroyed her.

A new splash cut through the water.

Strong arms closed around her from behind. A solid chest pressed against her back. She felt herself being hauled upward with relentless strength. Her head broke the surface and she dragged in a ragged, burning breath that turned into a fit of coughing.

“I’ve got you,” a low male voice said near her ear. “Stop fighting. I’ve got you.”

She tried to speak and only choked again. The stranger adjusted his grip, one arm locked firmly around her waist, the other cutting through the water in powerful strokes. He swam them both to the edge of the deep end where the water met the stone.

Hands reached down—waiters, guests, someone shouting for towels. The stranger lifted her as if she weighed nothing and pushed her onto the cold tiles. She collapsed onto her side, vomiting pool water, silver gown plastered to her skin like a second, ruined skin.

For several long seconds she could only gasp and shake. When her vision cleared, she found herself staring at a pair of worn work boots.

The man who had saved her crouched beside her. He was not wearing a tuxedo. He wore faded jeans and a dark long-sleeved shirt soaked through and clinging to a lean, powerful frame. His dark hair was plastered to his forehead. Water ran down a sharp jaw and a mouth set in a tight, controlled line. His eyes—gray, or maybe blue-gray in the terrace light—moved over her face with focused intensity.

“Can you breathe?” he asked.

Elena nodded weakly, still coughing. Her throat felt raw. Her chest ached with every inhale.

The stranger glanced toward the shallow end where Marcus was now helping Sophia out of the water as if she were made of glass. Sophia’s laughter still floated across the pool, bright and triumphant. Marcus did not look in Elena’s direction once.

The stranger’s jaw flexed. Something cold and dangerous flickered in his eyes before he looked back at Elena.

“You’re okay,” he said, quieter this time. “You’re out. Just breathe.”

Elena tried to sit up. The world tilted. His hand settled firmly between her shoulder blades, steadying her. The touch was impersonal, efficient, and somehow more comforting than any touch Marcus had ever given her.

“Who… are you?” she managed, voice hoarse.

He hesitated for half a second. “Julian.”

Just the first name. No last name. No explanation for why a man in work clothes had been on the grounds of a private engagement party, or why he had dived into a pool without hesitation while her fiancé swam the other way.

Sirens wailed faintly in the distance. Someone had called an ambulance. Guests crowded closer, phones already out, recording. Sophia stood wrapped in a large white towel, mascara slightly smudged, playing the shaken victim to a circle of concerned faces. Marcus stood beside her with one arm around her shoulders, speaking in low, soothing tones.

Elena watched them and felt something inside her go very still and very cold.

Julian followed her gaze. His expression did not change, but the hand still resting lightly against her back pressed a fraction firmer—an unspoken anchor.

“Don’t look at them,” he said quietly. “Look at me.”

She did.

Up close she could see the water droplets caught in his lashes, the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, the absolute steadiness in his eyes. He did not look at her with pity. He did not look at her as if she were a scandal or a problem to manage. He simply looked at her as if she were a person who had nearly drowned and needed to keep breathing.

“You’re safe,” he said again.

Elena’s throat tightened with something that was not pool water. She nodded once, small and sharp.

The paramedics arrived in a flurry of equipment and calm professional voices. Julian stepped back to give them room but did not leave. He remained a few feet away, arms crossed over his wet shirt, watching every movement as if he had appointed himself her silent guardian for the night.

Elena let the paramedics check her oxygen levels and wrap a foil blanket around her shoulders. She answered their questions in a low, steady voice that did not sound like her own. All the while she was aware of two things with perfect clarity:

Marcus had chosen Sophia.

And a complete stranger had chosen her.

When the paramedics finally helped her to her feet, she swayed. Julian moved in without being asked, offering his arm. She took it. The solid strength of him was the only solid thing left in a night that had shattered every careful plan she had ever made.

As they walked toward the waiting ambulance, Elena glanced back once.

Sophia stood under the terrace lights, red dress clinging wetly to her body, smiling like a woman who had just rewritten the evening in her favor. Marcus remained at her side, already spinning the story for anyone who would listen.

Elena turned away.

She did not know who Julian was. She did not know why he had been there or why he had saved her when the man who was supposed to love her had not. She only knew that when the water closed over her head and the world began to go dark, it had been his arms that pulled her back.

And for the first time in a very long time, someone had chosen her without being asked.