I opened the door. The living room was dim.
Silas hadn't gone to his study. Instead, he was sitting on the sofa — an unprecedented move — facing my bedroom door.
The man who normally buttoned his shirts all the way to the throat now had his silk collar hanging wide open.
Pale skin flickered in and out of shadow, collarbones rising and falling with rapid breaths.
And that limited-edition tie I'd given him was slung crookedly around his neck.
Exuding a kind of decadent, ruined beauty.
I was about to ask if he'd been the one knocking, but the strange energy radiating from him stopped me cold.
"May I come in?"
He sat ramrod stiff.
Those silver-gray eyes were locked on empty space, cheeks flushed an unnatural pink. Even the tips of his ears — always so frigid — had gone red enough to bleed.
"Silas, you—"
Before I could finish, he turned to face me as though he'd just received a suicide mission.
The next second, his trembling hand seized the end of the tie and shoved it into my palm.
Where our fingers touched — ice-cold and quivering.
I looked down at the expensive silk in my hand, stunned.
Silas said nothing. Thin lips pressed tight, that pristine composure cracked to reveal something achingly, humiliatingly vulnerable.
The scene was a carbon copy of the desperate incubus on the forum.
But this was Silas.
I thought about the bet-the-company agreement between the Ashford and Whitmore families. I thought about this transactional marriage.
My racing heart went cold.
Right in front of him, I grabbed the tie like I was lacing a shoe — crossed it, looped it, and yanked it tight around that expensive neck.
"Mr. Ashford, since we're getting divorced, you should really pay more attention to your appearance."
My tone was flat. I tied an impossibly ugly, impossibly tight knot right at his throat.
Then I stuffed the tie back into his shirt and gave the wrinkled fabric a dismissive pat.
"You look like you've been mugged. People will think I mistreated you."
His expression cycled through several shades — from flushed to ashen.
His pupils contracted like a startled animal's, and the life seemed to drain out of him entirely.
I stepped back and regarded him like a stranger:
"Our contract has one month left. Let's not waste each other's time finding our next... business partners."
I turned, walked into my room, and shut the door in one fluid motion.
It wasn't until I'd buried myself under the covers that I realized my fingertips were burning.
That look in his eyes — from hope, to disappointment, to despair — like he'd lost something he'd never get back.
Had I gotten something wrong?
Almost against my will, I opened Mischief & Mayhem again. The wild theory screaming in the back of my mind was getting harder to ignore.
