Page 116 of Broken Blades

Her eyes lifted, found mine across the room. And something sharp flickered in her gaze. Recognition. Assessment. And something else I couldn't quite name.

My stomach dropped.

This was going to be a very long night.

Barbara’s eyes flicked over my outfit—slow, deliberate, assessing. "Cute sweater. Very… girlfriend."

I stiffened, fingers curling against my sides.

My father cleared his throat behind me, voice carrying that boardroom smoothness I knew too well. "She's here to support Wyatt. It reflects well on the organization."

Barbara's smile was thin. Practiced. The kind that didn't reach her eyes. "Oh, it absolutely does. Fake relationships are amazing publicity. Fans eat it up."

The words hit like ice water.

Fake.

Publicity.

My chest tightened, breath catching somewhere between my lungs and throat. I wanted to argue. Wanted to defend—what? Us? The arrangement we'd both agreed was temporary? The performance we were selling to the world?

Except it hadn't felt fake last night when he'd held my hair back. When he'd covered me with blankets and left water by my side. When he'd touched my cheek and checked my temperature like it mattered.

Barbara sipped her drink, feigning innocence with surgical precision. "Honestly, I'm proud of Wyatt for pulling it together. He's never been good with… keeping things stable."

Heat flooded my veins. Sharp. Defensive. Instinctive. "He's been nothing but stable with me."

The words came out harder than I meant them to. Sharper. More protective than a girl in a fake relationship had any right to be.

Barbara raised an eyebrow, something amused flickering in her expression.

"Darling, everything he does is calculated. Especially now." She leaned in slightly, voice dropping to something almost conspiratorial. "Don't confuse performance with affection."

My heart kicked against my ribs.

Performance.

The word echoed in my skull, pulling up every moment I'd tried to dismiss as strategy. Every touch I'd told myself was for the cameras. Every soft look I'd convinced myself meant nothing.

But Wyatt steadying my hand during practice—that had been in his living room. No cameras. No audience. Carrying me home drunk, holding my hair back while I was sick, covering me with blankets—that had been private. Necessary. Nothing to gain. Brushing my hair back in the car. Kissing my cheek in the kitchen when I'd stumbled into him. Telling me I didn't have to earn anything from him. Asking me to come to this game.

If you want.

Those two words had been quiet. Almost uncertain. Nothing like the cold, calculated man Barbara was describing.

None of that had been for show.

Had it?

My stomach twisted, doubt creeping in like frost along glass. Because Barbara knew him longer. Barbara had been married to him. Barbara understood the man behind the scars in ways I couldn't begin to.

Maybe she was right. Maybe I was just another piece in whatever game he was playing. Another strategy. Another move on a board I didn't fully understand.

Except…

My mind flashed to the way he'd looked at me last night. The stillness in his body when I'd kissed his cheek. The tension in his jaw. The way his hand had almost reached for me before he'd stopped himself.

That hadn't looked calculated. That had looked like a man barely holding himself together.