"A top-tier university student, reducing herself to this?"
The contempt in his voice stung like a lash. I bit my lower lip, shame burning so hot I couldn't find the words to defend myself.
Yet in my scramble to stand, I stumbled. My teeth grazed his fingertip, drawing blood. In that split second, the mask of the ascetic, untouchable Julian Sterling shattered. The beast beneath was exposed.
He didn't push me away. He picked me up.
For seven days, I didn't leave his villa. I had fallen from grace, but I had caught a lifeline. I clung to Julian Sterling, the most powerful man in Harbor City, to survive.
Cold fingertips trailed up my spine, snapping me back to the present. Julian pressed his chest against my back, his breath hot against my ear. "Been waiting anxiously?"
He didn't wait for an answer. "Bella, you're a smart woman. Between a title and me... you know which holds more value, right?"
I turned, my gaze crashing into eyes so deep they could bewitch a soul.
The pure, restrained Julian of the past was gone. In his place stood a cold, calculating businessman.
"Julian," I said, my voice icy, "do you think I'm that cheap?"
He raised a brow, feigning ignorance, and casually adjusted the silver frames perched on his nose—frames that held no lenses, a mere prop for his deceptive persona.
"I never said that. And I never thought it."
As the words fell, he removed the glasses and captured my lips. His hand gathered my hair at the nape of my neck, stroking it rhythmically, as if soothing a temperamental cat.
A metallic taste bloomed between our mouths. He had bitten me. He pulled back slightly, his thumb brushing the corner of his own lips where I had retaliated.
His smile didn't reach his eyes. "My Bella has claws."
He shifted, and a velvet box appeared. He opened it, revealing a diamond the size of a pigeon's egg shimmering under the dim lights.
"Is it enough? Hmm?"
I opened my mouth to speak, but his index finger pressed against my lips, silencing me.
"Anything you want, Bella. Except the title of Mrs. Sterling."
I narrowed my eyes, studying the man beside my pillow. I looked for a trace of a joke, a hint of irony.
There was none. Only the steely determination to win.
He was certain I would compromise. He believed that, just like every other time I tested his limits over the years, he simply had to coax me, and I would fold.
"Tell me, Julian," I whispered, "is being a kept man thrilling for you?"
The humor in his eyes vanished. His gaze darkened. He reached out and pinched my cheek, his voice devoid of emotion.
"Bella, sometimes a woman can be too smart for her own good. Especially a canary."
He leaned in closer. "The little tricks you used to seduce me seven years ago won't work anymore. Right now, I prefer obedience."
I forced a mischievous smile, aiming my words like daggers at his chest. "It seems you're satisfied with me, but Elisa isn't willing to acknowledge you publicly, is she?"
His jaw tightened. I pressed on.
"What a pity. We're actually the same, you and I. You knew Elisa had a fiancé, yet you deliberately drugged her—or perhaps pretended you were the one drugged—just to compromise her. You forced a scandal to make the marriage inevitable."
I laughed softly. "When it comes to dirty tactics, I should be the one admiring you. Was it a long-term play for the family merger? Or, as you claim, were you simply 'taking responsibility' for her?"
He let out a soundless laugh. His hand clamped around my throat, tightening just enough to warn me, before releasing me as I gasped for air.
"What am I going to do with you?"
It sounded like indulgence, yet it carried a heavy note of helplessness.
The conversation ended there, replaced by fierce, demanding possession. I found it suffocating. I reached out and handed him the foil packet from the nightstand.
"Julian... I hurt."
Not just my body. My heart, too.
His eyes were rimmed with red, his breathing ragged. He answered incoherently, but his hands obeyed my request.
As I lay there, I couldn't help but think: if not for our disparate backgrounds, we would be the most perfect soulmates in the world. Our minds matched. Our bodies matched.
But after that day, the relationship between the three of us reached a fragile, subtle balance.
I stopped asking for love. I only asked for money.
Julian and Elisa continued their public performance, playing the part of the engaged couple when the occasion called for it. But I could see the shift.
Julian had truly taken Elisa to heart.
He began to care about her moods—her joys, her anger, her sorrows. He no longer treated her as a naive little rabbit, easy to control.
He memorized her cycle. He orchestrated elaborate holiday surprises for her. He even abandoned me when I was seriously ill just to go read her bedtime stories.
His obsession grew dark. He began to covet another man's woman in earnest, taking out his twisted frustrations on her photograph in the dead of night.
But no matter what he did, he couldn't change the Fox family's arrangements, nor could he sway Elisa's heart, which had already tilted toward another.
