It was blackmail dressed in cashmere.
I walked out of the house without a jacket, my shoes sinking into the soft lawn of the east garden, the same one that used to host charity luncheons and Fourth of July galas. Now it just felt cold. Hollow.
Above me, the sky was bruised—charcoal clouds swallowing up the last blush of sunset, the air sharp with the bite of fall creeping in early.
I used to love this time of year. Fall in New England always smelled like woodsmoke and change. Now it smelled like grief.
Because I was about to lose her.
Not by accident. Not by drifting apart. But by force. My own hand.
I pressed my palms to the back of my neck, breathing hard, trying not to cave under it.
It wasn’t just that I was in love with her.
It was that for the first time in my whole damn life,someone looked at me and didn’t just see the trust fund. The Holt name. The Rothschild bloodline.
She saw me.
And now I had to lie straight to her face. Sell her a story so ugly it would hurt enough to push her away—but believable enough that she’d never come looking for the truth underneath.
The truth that my family was poison.
And I couldn’t warn her, couldn’t whisper it into her neck when she curled into me during stargazing drives or early morning cliffside makeouts. Couldn’t beg her to run before they turned her dreams into ash.
No.
I had to make her believe that I didn’t care.
That she was just a fun distraction. A phase. A novelty.
Like everyone else before her.
I buried my hands in my trouser pockets, rolling my tongue against the inside of my cheek, rehearsing it like a line from a script I hated.
“You’re great, Jade. But the whole scholarship-girl-turns-princess thing? It wore off.”
Classic.
Cruel.
Completely believable.
Because no one would question Leo Holt losing interest in a girl after a few months. Especially not one like her.
And when the gossip vultures started picking her apart, I’d have to stand there and pretend like I didn’t care. Like her tears weren’t my fault. Like I hadn’t loved the way she said my name like it was a secret.
Even X and Tristan couldn’t know. The second they found out the truth, they’d be at my parents’ doorstep with molotov cocktails.
I had to make it look real.
So real she’d never doubt it.
And maybe that was the worst part.
Not the heartbreak. Not the silence I’d be forced to keep.
But knowing I’d become exactly the kind of monster she thought she’d left behind in Ohio.
