"The dinner," he says, pulling back just enough to look at me. "There's an investor dinner tomorrow night. It's important—crucial for a deal I've been working on for months. I want you there."
"Why?"
"Because I want you beside me." His eyes bore into mine. "I want them to see you. To know you're with me."
Part of me softens at that. The part that still wants to believe this is real.
"Like a date?" I ask.
"Like you're mine." He says it simply. Factually. Like it's not the most possessive thing anyone has ever said to me. "And I want everyone to know it."
The words should send me running. Should trigger every alarm Mom ever installed in me.
Instead, they make my stomach flip.
What is wrong with me?
"Fine," I hear myself say. "I'll go to your dinner."
Something shifts in his expression. Triumph, maybe. Or relief. It's hard to tell with him.
"But I have conditions," I add.
"Name them."
"No more secrets. No more lies. If I ask you something, you tell me the truth. Even if you think I won't like it."
He studies me for a long moment. "And if the truth makes you leave?"
"Then at least I'll be leaving for the right reasons."
A muscle ticks in his jaw. I can see him weighing it—the risk of honesty versus the risk of losing me. I wonder which one scares him more.
"Agreed," he says finally.
We stand there in the sand, the waves crashing behind us, the sun starting its descent toward the horizon. Something has shifted between us. Not resolution—we're nowhere near that. But a recalibration. A new understanding of the ground we're standing on.
He takes my hand. His grip is firm, possessive, like he's afraid I'll slip away if he doesn't hold on tight enough.
Maybe he's right to be afraid.
"Let's go back," he says. "I'll have dinner brought in. We can talk more."
I let him lead me up the beach toward the house. But as we walk, I'm aware of something changing in my own mind. A wall going up. A distance I'm creating without him knowing.
He thinks he's won something today. Thinks my agreement to the dinner means I'm falling back in line.
He doesn't realize I'm not the same girl who stepped off that plane.
I'm watching him now. Cataloging every word, every look, every half-truth and careful omission. Testing the bars of this beautiful cage to see which ones might bend.
He thinks he's the one in control.
He has no idea that I'm studying him just as carefully as he's been studying me.
The game has changed.
And he doesn't even know we're playing.
