Chapter Four: Beautiful Lies
1145 Words
Chapter Four: Beautiful Lies
Isla
We mingled for another hour, weaving through a sea of champagne flutes, designer perfume, and diamond-dusted conversation. Damien was a master of the room; charismatic, calculated, charming in that dangerously quiet way. I played my part beside him, poised and smiling, laughing on cue.
And if anyone noticed the tremble in my fingertips when his hand touched the small of my back?
They didn’t say a word.
“This is Isla Monroe,” he told a stern looking man in a velvet tux. “My partner.”
Partner. The word was deliberate. Not girlfriend. Not date. Not even companion.
Partner. Like we were equals. Like I belonged here.
Every time he said it, I had to resist the urge to correct him.
To remind him, and myself, that I wasn’t his anything.
Not really.
But something inside me warmed every time he said it anyway.
Partner.
As if we’d built something together.
The night was long and glittering. I smiled until my cheeks hurt, until the heat of too many gazes made me itch beneath my skin. Damien never left my side, not once and every time his fingers brushed mine or guided me through a doorway, I swore it wasn’t just for show.
And that was the most dangerous part.
By the time we made it into the car, I was exhausted in the way only pretending to be perfect can drain you. My heels were off, cradled in my lap, and I leaned against the door window as the city blurred past in gold streaks.
“You were brilliant tonight,” Damien said after a long silence.
I didn’t look at him. “You say that like I’m your latest acquisition.”
“You’re not,” he said, voice low. “You’re the first thing I’ve ever brought into this world that didn’t feel…strategic.”
I turned my head then, brows raised. “Is that your idea of a compliment?”
He looked at me, really looked at me like he was trying to memorize the way the streetlight curved over my cheekbones. “It’s the truth.”
The way he said it. Hmm, steady and sincere stirred something I didn’t want stirred.
So I smiled and turned back to the window.
“I’m not a pawn, Damien. If that’s what you’re looking for, you chose the wrong woman to fake a love story with.”
“I know exactly who I chose,” he replied. “And I’m not faking anything with you.”
When we got back to the penthouse, I moved through the front doors like I was gliding on the edge of exhaustion. The gown felt tighter now, too heavy with the weight of the night. I stopped at the foot of the staircase and turned to him.
“I’m going to bed.”
Damien undid the cuffs of his shirt as he stepped closer, voice casual. “There’s a bottle of ’96 Bordeaux with our names on it.”
“You mean your name and your ego’s?” I teased.
He smiled. “You wound me.”
“I’m sure your ego can take the hit.”
He studied me like I was a challenge he hadn’t figured out how to win yet. “Come have a drink with me, Isla.”
I hesitated. Not because I didn’t want to. But because I did.
“I don’t think that’s in the contract,” I said finally.
He stepped even closer, his voice dropping an octave. “I’m not asking you as part of the contract.”
“And I’m not saying no because of it.”
That made him pause. A flicker of amusement or admiration danced across his face.
“You’re impossible,” he said softly.
“And yet here you are,” I replied. “Still trying.”
I did join him, for one glass. I told myself it didn’t mean anything. I didn’t sit too close. I didn’t let the wine make me vulnerable. I made sure to ask about his business, his goals, to keep the focus off me. He tried, though. I saw it in the way he listened when I let something slip—my love for jazz music, the scar on my ankle from falling off a bike when I was six.
He filed it all away.
He was careful with my words. But there was something in his eyes—unrestrained, unreadable that wasn’t careful at all.
At one point, I caught him looking at my lips and I laughed softly, shaking my head. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t try to blur the lines.”
“What if I already have?”
I stood then, slow and deliberate. “Then I’ll be the one to un-blur them.”
He stood too, close now, his heat rolling off him. “Isla…”
“I’m not falling into bed with you, Damien. Not tonight. Not ever… unless I want to.”
His gaze smoldered, but his voice stayed calm. “So what do you want?”
I walked past him, paused at the stairs, and glanced back.
“Right now? A bath, my bed, and to remind myself that this” I gestured between us “isn’t real.”
And with that, I left him there alone in his luxury penthouse, holding a half-empty glass of wine and a look that said he hated that I didn’t stay.
But when I finally slipped beneath the silk sheets of the guest bed, heart still racing, I realized something terrifying.
It was real.
Maybe not to him.
But the tension?
The temptation?
The ache?
God, it was real to me.
And I hated myself for it.
Morning. The scent of bergamot and linen clung to the sheets. For a moment, I didn’t know where I was.
Then the marble ceiling came into view, and I remembered.
The penthouse. The gold gown. Damien’s eyes on me like I was a flame and he was trying not to burn.
I sat up slowly, the silk sheets slipping down my arms. The morning light spilled through the floor-to-ceiling windows in shades of rose and pearl. It was too beautiful. Too still.
I hated that I was starting to get used to waking up here. I hated even more that part of me didn’t want to leave.
The gala had ended, but its impression clung to me like perfume I couldn’t wash off. The memory of Damien’s voice, low and possessive, still echoed in my ears. You’re mine tonight. As if his words had the power to rewrite our contract.
They didn’t.
I reached for my phone, half expecting messages from Ivy or a slew of PR texts from Ava. Instead, I saw one missed call.
Unknown number.
And one message.
"I need to see you. Urgent. - R"
- Writer
