The click of designer heels on polished concrete announced her arrival. Rowena Sterling paused at the entrance to the sunroom, her cool gray eyes taking in the scene with the swift, brutal efficiency of a hawk spotting prey. She saw Damien, standing close to the disheveled woman. She saw the aggressive, dark painting on the easel. She saw the charcoal smudges on the woman's fingers and the defiant fire in her unusual violet eyes.
A perfectly sculpted eyebrow arched. "I see you've hired new staff, Damien. Though I am not sure the abstract expressionist look is quite right for a caterer." Her voice was a smooth, polished weapon, designed to demean without raising its volume.
April felt a hot flush of humiliation, but she straightened her shoulders, refusing to be diminished. Damien, however, didn't move. He was a rock in the stream of his fiancée's venom.
"This is April," he said, his tone flat. "She's an artist. A guest."
"A guest." Rowena's smile was a frosty, fleeting thing. "How… bohemian." Her gaze swept over April once more, from her messy curls to her clothes, dismissing her entirely. "Darling, we have the wedding planner. The ballroom at the St. Reginald is holding our date, but we must confirm the floral arch. You know how I feel about peonies."
It was a masterclass in power. In three sentences, she had established April as hired help, trivialized her presence, and reasserted her own claim on Damien and their shared, opulent future. She turned, expecting him to follow.
Damien's eyes met April's for a single, charged moment. Then, without a word, he turned and followed his fiancée, leaving April standing alone in the sunroom, the scent of Rowena's expensive perfume hanging in the air like a threat.
The low murmur of voices drifted from the living area. April moved warily to the doorway, staying hidden in the shadow of the hall. She watched them. Damien stood by the window, a dark, impatient silhouette. Rowena was a vision in cream silk, gesturing elegantly as a woman with a large binder, the planner, nodded enthusiastically.
"…and we will have the ice sculptures here, and the string quartet there," the planner was saying.
"Fine," Damien said, his voice bored.
"Darling, you must at least pretend to care," Rowena chided lightly, placing a possessive hand on his arm. "It is our wedding."
April's stomach churned. The scene was so normal, so domestic. It painted her as the third wheel, the interloper. What was she even doing here? She was going to be a secret he was keeping from his picture-perfect life. The anger that had fueled her painting was rekindled. She was about to retreat when Rowena's gaze flickered toward the hallway. Their eyes met for a split second. Rowena's lips curved into a tiny, knowing smile before she turned back to Damien, her hand sliding down to clasp his.
It was a message. I see you. And you are no match for me. You are nothing.
Back in the supposed safety of her room, April paced. The lock on the door felt less like protection and more like the lid on her own coffin. She was trapped in a game she didn't understand, with a man who was an enigma and a woman who was clearly a viper. She felt confused. More so she was attracted to him. What woman wouldn't anyways, he was Damien Alastair! Handsome, super rich and famous. She wasnt going to blame her heart for fluttering.
A soft knock came at the door. It wasn't Damien's assertive rap or Marcus's quiet alert. Warily, she opened it a crack.
A different staff member, an older woman with kind eyes, stood there. She held a small, folded note. "For you, miss," she whispered, before quickly walking away.
April unfolded the heavy, monogrammed stationery. The handwriting was elegant and slanted.
"A word of advice, from one woman to another. Men like Damien enjoy collecting strays. It makes them feel powerful. But they always, always return to their own kind. Do not confuse a moment's distraction for a change of heart. It will only end in tears. Your tears. - R.S."
The note was a poison dart, expertly aimed. It put words to her deepest fears. She was a stray. A distraction. The painting in the sunroom wasn't a masterpiece; it was the tantrum of a temporary amusement. Crushing the note in her fist, she felt a fresh wave of determination. She would not cry. She would find a way out of this beautiful hell, even if it killed her.
She didn't see him until the following day at dinner. She had tossed and turned all night thinking about the whole situation. She didn't want to admit she was keenly listening for any sound of his footsteps returning. She didn't dare to dwell on such thoughts. She wasn't sure if prison would be better than this. She didn't want her attraction to him to deepen.
She didn't hear him come back. Neither the next day. She wondered where he was. However, she refused to let her mind dwell on him. Until she realized she was unconsciously waiting for him to stride in. She thought about her future. What was she going to do when he got tired of her? She knew she was going to be cast aside. His fiancée has already become an adversary she wasn't ready for. Her cold, triumphant smile still burns in her memory. She reminded her of a malevolent cougar. She shuddered suddenly.
She decided to make the most of her stay. She picked up her small duffel bag and headed downstairs to sketch. Observing her surroundings, she set up her easel and began drawing her surroundings. Gentle strokes that captured the turmoil on the inside . Every stroke indicated the gathering of a storm that was building up inside of her. Possibly around her. She wasn't going to drown in any storm, she resolved in her heart.
He came in the next day. She heard the flurry of activities. The staff had avoided her in his absence and the house had been very quiet. That evening, dinner was a silent, suffocating affair. Damien had returned alone, his mood dark and impenetrable. He offered no explanation for Rowena's visit, no reassurance. He simply ate, his mind clearly elsewhere.
April pushed her food around her plate, the note burning a hole in her pocket. "Your fiancée is very… attentive," she finally said, her voice tight.
He looked up, his eyes narrowing. "What did she say to you?"
"Nothing that wasn't true." She met his gaze, her own blazing with renewed defiance. "I'm the stray. The distraction. How long until you get bored and toss me back out?"
He put his fork down with a sharp click. "I decide when I am bored. Not you. Not her."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one you're getting." He leaned forward, his voice dropping. "This… arrangement is between you and me. Rowena is part of another world. They do not touch."
"They're touching right now!" she shot back, her composure cracking. "She was in your home, planning your wedding, while your 'guest' was hiding like a shameful secret. They're crashing together, Damien, and I'm the one who's going to get crushed. I am leaving this stupid house and your annoying presence."
He studied her, the anger in his eyes shifting into something more complex, more intense. "You think you're so easy to crush?
He stood up so suddenly his chair scraped back. He came around the table, and for a wild moment, she thought he was going to strike her. Instead, he stopped behind her chair, his hands gripping the back of it, caging her in.
She could feel the heat of his body, smell the clean, sharp scent of him. Her heart hammered, a frantic drum against her ribs. This wasn't fear. Not entirely. It was something darker, more primal.
"Let me go," she whispered, the command lacking any force.
His breath stirred the hair at her temple. "No."
He said it with such finality, such raw possession, that a shiver racked her body. One of his hands left the chair and came to rest on her shoulder. His touch was searing through the thin fabric of her shirt. It wasn't a cruel grip. It was firm. Certain.
Every nerve ending screamed in protest and in a terrifying, thrilling kind of anticipation. This was a new front in their war. He was no longer just challenging her will. He was challenging her body's loyalty to its own anger.
His lips were dangerously close to her ear. "You can fight me with every breath in your body, April. But you are here. You are mine. And until I decide otherwise, you will stay."
His words should have felt like a sentence. So why did they feel like a promise? The conflict inside her was a living thing, and as his thumb stroked a slow, deliberate circle on her shoulder, she was terrified to discover that a part of her, a treacherous, hidden part, didn't want him to stop.