POV: Sophie
Andrew's fingers dug into my bicep as he hauled me upright.
The soaked wedding dress slapped against my legs, a dead weight I couldn't shake. Water still dripped from my hair onto the tile, pooling around my bare feet. Julian stood three paces away, knuckles red and blistering, his chest rising and falling like he'd run a mile.
Nobody spoke.
Then Andrew shrugged off his suit jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders. The wool scratched against my chilled skin. His cologne flooded my nostrils—sandalwood and something sharper underneath. "We're leaving."
"Andrew—"
"Now." He didn't look at me. His gaze stayed fixed on Julian, a predator's stare promising consequences. "The shoot is over for today. Maxwell will handle schedule and contract."
Julian opened his mouth. Closed it. His camera hung from its strap around his neck, the lens cap still off. I saw the war behind his eyes—pride versus practicality, fury versus fear.
Andrew didn't wait for him to choose.
He bent, hooked one arm under my knees, and lifted me off the tile like I weighed nothing. My sodden train dragged behind us, leaving a dark smear on the limestone. I gripped his shoulder instinctively, my fingers pressing into the muscle beneath his shirt.
"You're making a scene," I whispered.
"I'm making a point."
The walk to the car took an eternity. Staff pressed themselves against the walls as we passed—a gardener, two assistants, someone's assistant's assistant. Their eyes skittered away from mine. No one asked if I was okay. No one offered a towel.
In Andrew's world, you didn't intervene. You just watched, and you remembered, and you prayed you weren't next.
The Maybach's rear door stood open. Andrew set me inside without ceremony, then climbed in beside me. The leather seat squeaked under the wet silk. He pressed a button on the center console and the privacy partition slid upward, sealing us off from the driver.
The heater kicked on. Full blast.
I shivered anyway.
Andrew didn't speak. He stared straight ahead, one hand resting on his thigh, the other turning his phone over and over in a slow, hypnotic rhythm. The screen lit with each rotation, throwing his face into sharp relief—that aristocratic nose, that cruel mouth, those eyes that saw everything and revealed nothing.
"Julian Vance," he said finally, the name rolling off his tongue like he was tasting wine. "International award winner. Photographer to the fucking stars. And your ex."
I pulled his jacket tighter around my shoulders. "It was seven years ago."
"Seven years. A long time." He turned to face me. "Long enough to forget someone?"
"Yes."
"Then why didn't you tell me you knew him?"
The lie came easily. Too easily. "I didn't think it mattered."
"Didn't think it mattered." He smiled. No warmth in it. No warmth anywhere in the car, despite the heater blasting against my legs. "My fiancée's former lover photographs our engagement shoot, jumps fully clothed into a pool to rescue her, stares at her like she's the last glass of water in a desert—and she didn't think it mattered."
"He's a professional. He was doing his job."
"He was doing a lot more than his fucking job, Sophie."
The partition was up but I still glanced at it. The driver couldn't hear us. The windows were tinted black. We could have been anywhere—floating through empty space, suspended in this leather-lined capsule where Andrew's voice dropped to a register that vibrated in my chest.
"Why did you hire him?" I asked. "Out of every photographer in the city. In the country. Why Julian?"
Andrew's thumb paused on his phone screen. A flicker of something—annoyance, or maybe amusement—crossed his face. "Because he's the best. And I don't settle for anything less."
"That's not the real reason."
"No?"
"No."
He leaned closer. The leather creaked. His hand found my knee under the jacket, palm warm through the wet fabric. His thumb traced a slow circle on the inside of my thigh.
"You want the truth, sweetheart? I hired Julian Vance because I wanted to see what would happen when he saw you. What you would do. Whether you'd flinch, or blush, or run to him the second my back was turned." His grip tightened. "And now I know."
"I didn't run anywhere."
"You didn't have to. He ran to you. Splashed right into that pool like a goddamn hero." Andrew's mouth curved. "It was almost romantic."
The car turned onto the long gravel drive that led to the estate. I recognized the rows of poplars, the iron gates, the fountain with its endlessly pouring stone cherubs. Home. If you could call it that.
"Here's what's going to happen," Andrew said, releasing my knee and smoothing the jacket over my legs. "You're going to go upstairs. You're going to take off that ruined dress. You're going to get into bed and stay there until I come for you."
"And then?"
"And then we're going to have a very long conversation about honesty. About loyalty. About what happens to women who make me look like a fool in front of the staff." He straightened his cuffs. "But first, I have calls to make."
The car stopped. The driver opened my door. Andrew didn't move to help me out.
The master bedroom was cold despite the fire crackling in the grate.
I stripped off the wedding dress and left it in a heap on the bathroom floor. The silk was ruined anyway, stained green from the pool chemicals, torn at the hem where I'd kicked against the weight of it. Six thousand dollars. Andrew was right. It had never looked better than when it was clinging to my tits.
His words, not mine.
I pulled on dry clothes—silk pajamas, pale pink, a gift from Eleanor last Christmas. The fabric whispered against my skin as I moved toward the door. I didn't know where I was going. Anywhere but that bed. Anywhere but waiting for Andrew's return.
The hallway stretched before me, lined with oil paintings of horses and hunting scenes. The carpet muffled my footsteps. I'd learned to walk quietly in this house. Years of practice. Years of making myself small.
Voices drifted from the study.
I stopped three feet from the door. It wasn't fully closed—an inch of space, a sliver of lamplight spilling onto the carpet. Through the gap I could see Andrew behind his desk, a glass of whiskey in one hand, his phone cradled against his ear.
"She was shivering like a fucking dog," he was saying. "The man jumped in with his boots on. His boots. Who does that?"
A pause. The voice on the other end—his assistant, Maxwell—was too quiet to make out.
"I don't care what it costs," Andrew said. "I want him contained. Clear his calendar. Buy the holds. Keep him when this turns ugly."
More murmuring.
Then Andrew laughed—that cold, hollow sound I'd come to dread. "His mother. Eleanor. She's the one with the Hermès addiction, isn't she? Send her a Birkin. Send her two. Send her the whole fucking store if that's what it takes. I want Julian Vance so indebted to me he can't breathe without my permission."
My hand pressed flat against the wall.
"His girlfriend?" Another sip of whiskey. "Cassandra. Right. The model. What's her price? Everyone has one. Find hers."
I leaned closer. The floorboard creaked under my foot.
Andrew's head turned toward the door.
I didn't breathe. Didn't move. Counted the seconds—one, two, three—until he turned back to his desk and said something I couldn't hear.
"You have until Friday," he finished. "Friday, Maxwell. Or I'll find someone who can do the job faster."
The call ended.
I backed away from the door, one silent step at a time, until the study faded behind me and I was standing in front of the bedroom again. My heart pounded so hard I could feel it in my temples.
Andrew knew Eleanor.
The same Eleanor who'd written me that check. The same Eleanor whose driver ran us off the road seven years ago. Julian's mother.
He knew her habits. Her weaknesses. Her price.
If Andrew knew all that before today, this reunion was no accident. He had gone looking for my past, found the deepest wound, and arranged for Julian to walk straight back into my life.
I pushed open the bedroom door. The fire had burned down to embers. The bed loomed before me—enormous, king-sized, white sheets, too many pillows. Andrew's side. My side. And in the center, on my pillow, my burner phone.
The screen was lit.
A message glowed on the display, sent from a number I knew by heart even though I'd deleted it from my contacts seven years ago. Even though I'd tried to forget it. Even though I'd failed.
You and your fiancé. What the fuck do you want from me?
Julian.
I stared at the words until they blurred. My thumb hovered over the screen, trembling. I could respond. I could explain. I could tell him about Eleanor, about the check, about the accident, about Leo, about everything that had forced me into Andrew's bed and Andrew's life and Andrew's diamond-studded cage.
Footsteps in the hallway.
I shoved the phone under the pillow. The screen went dark just as the bedroom door swung open and Andrew stepped inside, still holding his whiskey, still wearing that thin-lipped smile.
"Good," he said, seeing me on the bed. "You followed instructions for once."
He closed the door behind him. The lock clicked.
"Now," he said. "Let's talk about Julian."
