Chapter Four
899 Words
The ring was a trap.
I didn't know that yet when I followed Adrian Wolfe out of the elevator and into a world of marble floors and people who looked through me like I was furniture. But the moment he slipped it onto my finger—cold, heavy, ancient—I felt it.
Something had changed.
"It's a family heirloom," he said, not looking at me. We were standing in the lobby now, and every security guard, every assistant, every person in a suit was staring. "My grandmother's. She gave it to me on her deathbed and made me promise to give it to the woman I'd marry."
"You didn't mention marriage."
"Fiancée, Ivy. Not wife. There's a difference."
"Not to your grandmother's ghost."
That almost-smile again. Brief. Dangerous. "She's been dead for twelve years. I think she'll forgive me."
The ring glittered under the chandelier light. A diamond. Old-fashioned cut. Surrounded by sapphires so dark they looked black. It was worth more than my mother's house. My mother's neighborhood. My entire life.
"You can't give me this," I whispered.
"I already did."
"But what if I lose it?"
"Don't."
He turned to face me fully, and suddenly we weren't two strangers who'd just met in an elevator. We were performers. And the lobby was our stage.
"Smile," he said.
"What?"
"You're about to meet my assistant, my driver, and three members of the press who are always lurking near the exit. Smile like you're happy to be here."
"I'm not happy to be here."
"I don't care. Smile like you love me."
I smiled.
It felt fake. It was fake. But something in Adrian's eyes flickered when he saw it—a crack in the armor, there and gone—and I wondered if he'd ever seen anyone smile at him like that before.
Not because of his money. Not because of his power.
Just because.
---
The assistant appeared first.
Ms. Vane. The woman in the black uniform from earlier. She looked at the ring on my finger, then at Adrian, then back at me.
"Sir," she said, voice flat. "A word."
"Later."
"Now would be better."
Adrian's jaw tightened. He nodded once, sharply, and Ms. Vane pulled him aside. I stood alone in the middle of the lobby, wearing a dead woman's jewelry, trying to remember how to breathe.
"Hey."
A voice. Male. Close.
I turned. A man stood a few feet away—young, maybe Adrian's age, but softer. Softer clothes, softer expression, softer everything. He had the same sharp cheekbones, though. The same dark eyes.
"You must be the new one," he said.
"The new what?"
"The new project." He smiled, and it didn't reach his eyes. "I'm Liam. Adrian's cousin."
My stomach dropped.
"The one he's—"
"Firing? Yes. That's me." Liam glanced at Ms. Vane and Adrian, still arguing near the exit. "He moves fast, doesn't he? One day you're family. The next, you're a liability."
"I don't know anything about that."
"Sure you don't." He stepped closer. Too close. His cologne was different from Adrian's—cheaper, sweeter, somehow more threatening. "But I know about you, Ivy Cole. Bleaker Street. Sick mother. Cat named Pickles."
"How—"
"Adrian isn't the only one who can run a background check." He tilted his head. "Enjoy the ring. It belonged to my grandmother too."
He walked away.
And I stood there, cold, while the diamond dug into my skin like a warning.
---
The car was black. Stretching. The kind of car that had a minibar and seats that warmed up when you touched them. Adrian sat across from me, laptop open, typing furiously.
"You met Liam," he said. Not a question.
"He knew my name. My mother. My cat."
"I know."
"You said you'd protect me."
"I said I'd pay your bills. Protection is extra."
I wanted to throw something at him. The ring, maybe. Watch it bounce off his perfect, arrogant forehead.
"What did Ms. Vane want?" I asked instead.
Adrian closed his laptop. For the first time since the elevator, he looked tired. Genuinely tired. "She wanted to remind me that fake fiancées require fake paperwork. Contracts. NDAs. Background checks on your background checks."
"So this is real now."
"It was real the moment you said yes."
"I didn't say yes."
He looked at me. Just looked. And in the silence of that ridiculous car, with the city sliding past the tinted windows, I realized something.
I hadn't said yes.
But I hadn't said no, either.
"The contract is at my penthouse," Adrian said. "You'll read it. You'll sign it. And then you'll move in."
"Move in?"
"Fiancées live together, Ivy. Especially when the cousin you're trying to destroy is watching your every move."
The car stopped. Red light. I watched a woman cross the street with a grocery bag. Normal life. A life where men didn't put impossible rings on your finger and expect you to play pretend.
"What if I refuse?"
Adrian leaned forward. His knee brushed mine. Intentional or accidental, I couldn't tell.
"Then you walk away," he said quietly. "Right now. No hard feelings. I'll find someone else."
"And my mother's bills?"
"Unpaid."
"So it's not really a choice."
He held my gaze. "It's always a choice, Ivy. It's just not a fair one."
The light turned green. The car moved forward.
And I stayed.
- Writer
