After the presentation, Elara retreated to the restroom, desperate for a moment of silence. Her reflection looked strained, the pearls pale and accusing against her skin. The door opened, and a woman named Chloe walked in. She was a staff member who revealed she had interned at Vance Pharmaceuticals.
"I knew your father," Chloe whispered, her eyes sympathetic. "He was kind to me. I'm sorry for what happened. But please… be careful with Adrian. He's not what he seems. Everything he does is calculated."
The unexpected kindness was a crack in Elara's armor. She nodded, unable to trust her voice as Chloe left. When she returned to Adrian, he immediately sensed the change in her. He extricated himself from a group of donors and led her to the car.
"You did adequately," Adrian said as they pulled into traffic.
"You keep using that word," Elara snapped.
"It's an accurate assessment. Tomorrow, you'll meet with a stylist. The Kensington Gala requires a specific aesthetic. Expensive."
"And if I don't want to go?"
"It's not a choice. It's in the contract." He didn't even look up from his phone. "You'll go. You'll smile. You'll wear what you're told. And you'll remember why you're doing it."
Elara looked out the window at the city blurring past. "Chloe seemed nice. She said she knew my father."
The air in the car grew ice-cold. Adrian set his phone down with a slow, deliberate movement. "You spoke to a staff member about your father?"
"She mentioned him. I didn't—"
"Don't," he hissed, his voice low and dangerous. "Don't speak to anyone about your family. Your past is a liability. Your father's name is a stain. You will not drag that stain into my world."
"My father was a good man!" Elara cried, her voice trembling.
"Your father was a failure who got people killed and took the coward's way out," Adrian replied calmly, as if stating the weather. "If you insist on romanticizing him, you'll find this arrangement much more difficult than it needs to be."
Back at the penthouse, they were trapped together in the mirrored elevator. Adrian moved suddenly, bracing his hand against the wall beside her head. He didn't strike her, but his fingers brushed her cheek with a touch so light it felt worse than a slap.
"I can make you wish you'd never been born," he whispered. "I can strip away everything you are until you forget what it felt like to be Elara Vance. But I'd rather you simply… behave."
The doors opened, and he walked out, leaving her trembling. Elara retreated to her room, but her spirit hadn't vanished. She changed into her own old jeans and sweater—the last pieces of her real life. She went to the kitchen and made scrambled eggs on toast, the simple meal her father used to make for her.
She ate alone at the massive marble island, then walked to the study door. She knocked and entered without waiting.
"I'll go to the gala," she said, her voice steady and cold. "I'll play the part. But understand something, Adrian. I'm not broken. You can have my time and my compliance, but you don't get my truth. My father was a good man, and I won't let you rewrite him."
Adrian looked up from his papers, his expression unreadable as she drew her line in the sand. "The stylist comes at ten," he said, ignoring her defiance. "Don't be late." Elara walked out, her heart pounding. She had won a small victory, but as she looked at the pearls on her dresser, she knew Adrian's "lessons" were only going to get more painful. He didn't want her body—he wanted to erase her soul until there was nothing left but a Blackwood.
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