"He called me a stray. He called me a liability." My voice cracks. The reality of what I just walked into is finally hitting me. I didn't just pick a fight with my cheating ex-fiancé. I picked a fight with a cartel masquerading as a corporation.
"Audrey, look at me."
I open my eyes.
Malcolm is leaning toward me in the dim light of the backseat. The cold, calculating enforcer who just threatened his father is gone.
He reaches out. He doesn't grab my hand this time. He slides his fingers into my hair, his palm resting against the side of my head, right above my ear. The touch is shockingly gentle.
"He is not going to touch you," Malcolm says, his thumb brushing against my cheekbone. "Simon is not going to touch you. I don't care what they dig up. I don't care what they try to do. You are not a liability to me."
I stare at him, my breath catching in my throat. The heat of his hand is anchoring me, pulling me back from the edge of the panic attack.
"Why are you doing this?" I ask, my voice barely a whisper. "You could have ruined Simon without me. You could have just leaked the files. Why did you bring me into this?"
Malcolm looks at my mouth. His thumb stops moving.
The silence in the car stretches, heavy and loaded with the confession he almost made in the museum.
"Because," he murmurs, his dark eyes lifting to meet mine, "ruining Simon from the shadows wouldn't have put you in my car. And I am a very selfish man."
He doesn't kiss me. He doesn't cross the line. He just leaves the truth hanging in the air between us, raw and undeniable.
The fake engagement is a lie. The revenge plot is an excuse.
I am not the bait for his family. I am the prize.
And the most terrifying part isn't that I just realized it.
The most terrifying part is that I don't want to get out of the car.
CHAPTER 8
MALCOLM
The photograph is on the front page of theChicago Tribune’ssociety section.
It is a high-resolution, perfectly framed shot taken just as we reached the top of the marble stairs at the Field Museum. Audrey is looking slightly over her shoulder, the emerald silk of her dress clinging to her hips. I am standing directly behind her, my hand resting flat against the bare skin of her lower back. The angle of the camera catches the vintage diamond on her left hand in blinding detail.
The headline above the photo reads:Vance Security CEO Steps Out with Mystery Fiancée.
I swipe my thumb across the tablet screen, closing the article. I don't need to read the text. I already know what it says. Grant forwarded me the media analytics at six this morning. The photo has been syndicated to three national gossip blogs, and the Vance holding company’s PR department has received forty-two requests for comment in the last three hours.
I set the tablet down on the kitchen island and pick up my coffee mug. The black coffee is lukewarm, but I drink it anyway.
The trap worked. The narrative is set.
But as I stare at the dark screen of the tablet, the cold satisfaction I usually feel after executing a successful operation is completely absent.
I am thinking about the car ride home.
I shouldn't have said it. I operate on the principle of withholding information to maintain an advantage. Confessing to Audrey that I brought her into this arrangement because I wanted her—because I was too selfish to let her walk away—was a tactical error. It gave her leverage.
But when she looked at me in the dim light of the SUV, her voice cracking as she asked why I did it, the lie simply refused to form in my mouth.
I hear the soft, muffled sound of a door opening down the hallway.
I set the mug down, the ceramic clinking softly against the marble counter.
