Page 37 of Broken Blades

His hand lifted. Hesitated. Then took Wyatt's.

They shook.

The movement felt like surrender. Like watching a flag lowered. A fortress gate opened from the inside. My father's grip tight and bloodless. Wyatt's controlled and steady.

When they released, Wyatt's expression hadn't changed. Still calm. Still assessing. Still winning.

My stomach churned. Bile rising. Everything spinning.

Wyatt turned slightly. Met my eyes. His gaze traveled over my face. Slow. Deliberate. Reading every emotion I couldn't hide. The fury. The humiliation. The trapped-animal panic clawing at my ribs.

He smiled. Small. Cold. Satisfied. Like he'd just acquired something valuable. Something he'd been hunting for a very long time.

"I'll be in touch," he said. To my father. Not to me. Like I wasn't even part of the conversation. Just property changing hands.

I moved ahead of them. Put distance between myself and that table. That handshake. That surrender.

My heels clicked sharp against the polished floor. Each step punching through the silence. I needed air. Needed space. Needed to be anywhere that man wasn't.

Footsteps behind me. Measured. Unhurried. Then he was beside me. Too close. Heat radiating from him despite the cold restaurant. His presence crowding my periphery. Impossible to ignore. Impossible to escape. He leaned down. Breath warm against my ear. "Don't worry, sweetheart." The endearment scraped like sandpaper. False intimacy wrapped around a threat. A beat of silence. Long enough for my pulse to spike. "I'll make it look real."

My spine went rigid. Every muscle locking. Ice flooding my veins.

I stopped walking. Turned. Looked up into those dark eyes that revealed nothing and promised everything I didn't want to understand. "I hate you."

He smiled. Like he'd been waiting for exactly that reaction. "You don't even know me."

The truth of it landed wrong. Twisted something in my chest. Because he was right. I didn't know him. Didn't know why he was doing this. What he wanted. Why my father looked at him like staring down the barrel of a loaded gun.

I didn't know anything.

Except that one month suddenly felt like forever.

A shiver ran through me. Not fear. Not exactly. Something more complicated. More dangerous. An awareness that prickled across my skin where his breath had touched. Where his voice had settled low in my stomach.

Heat I refused to name. Refused to acknowledge. Refused to feel.

Behind us, the electronic chirp of car locks disengaging. Dad waiting. Silent. Defeated.

Wyatt's gaze shifted past me. Locked on my father for one long moment. Something passing between them that I couldn't read. Couldn't translate.

Then back to me. His smile widened fractionally. Victory without triumph. Acquisition without celebration. Just cold satisfaction.

One month, his expression said. One month, and we'd see who hated whom.

The car ride was silent at first. Not the comfortable silence from the drive to the masquerade. Not the easy quiet of two people who understood each other perfectly. Who fit together like interlocking pieces.

This silence suffocated.

Dad gripped the steering wheel too tight. Knuckles white. Tendons standing out in sharp relief. His jaw worked like he was chewing something bitter. Grinding it between his molars. Trying to break it down into something he could swallow.

I stared out the window. Watching the city blur past. Clean streets. Pristine storefronts. The perfect facade we'd always lived behind. Everything in its place. Everything controlled.

Except this.

Except me.

"You can't seriously expect me to do this."