The morning sun hit the floor of the Vane mansion like a spotlight, but the heat didn't reach Elara.
She sat at the edge of the massive bed, her fingers tracing the place where Silas had pinned her against the elevator wall just hours before. The kiss had been a tactical error. A glitch in the system.
"It was just adrenaline," she whispered to the empty, gray room. "He was cornered, and I was the nearest exit."
But her lips still tingled, and the memory of his heartbeat against her palm felt more real than the eight-million-dollar debt hanging over her head.
A soft chime came from the bedside table. A sleek, black tablet lit up.
[SCHEDULE UPDATE: 08:00 AM - Breakfast with Mr. Vane. Conservatory.]
Elara dressed quickly in a simple, cream-colored silk dress—another "gift" from Silas's stylists. She found him in the conservatory, a room made entirely of glass and tropical plants that looked too perfect to be real.
Silas was focused on a wall of monitors, his eyes tracking red and green stock lines with a intensity that bordered on violent. He didn't look like a man who had kissed someone the night before. He looked like a machine calculating its next move.
"Eat," he said without looking up. "We have a gala tonight. The 'official' engagement announcement."
Elara sat across from him, ignoring the plate of smoked salmon. "Are we going to talk about it?"
Silas finally looked at her. His eyes were bloodshot. "Talk about what? Your performance at lunch? It was acceptable. I've added a bonus to your escrow account for the Marcus distraction."
"Not the lunch, Silas. The elevator."
The air in the room grew heavy. Silas slowly closed his laptop. "The elevator was a lapse in judgment. You were convincing, I was... reactive. It won't happen again."
"Is that why you're hiding behind those screens? Because you're 'reactive'?" Elara stood up, her frustration boiling over. "You talk about your life like it's a ledger. But Marcus mentioned a 'condition.' He mentioned the empty frames. If I'm going to be your wife, even a fake one, I need to know what I'm protecting you from."
Silas stood up so abruptly his chair screeched against the marble. He moved toward her, his stature casting a long, dark shadow over the breakfast table. Elara expected anger, but when he reached her, he simply took her hand and pressed it against his chest.
Not over his heart. Over his eyes.
"What do you see, Elara?" he asked, his voice low and jagged.
"I... I see your face. Your eyes."
"I see a blur," he confessed. The words felt like they were being torn out of him. "It's a degenerative neurological condition. Stress accelerates it. In six months, I'll be legally blind. In a year, I might see nothing at all."
Elara's breath hitched. "That's why you're clearing the frames. That's why you're so obsessed with the Board..."
"If they find out, they'll declare me unfit. Marcus will take the company and dismantle everything my grandfather built. I don't need a wife, Elara. I need an observer. Someone who can be my eyes when the lights go out, without the world ever knowing I'm stumbling in the dark."
He let go of her hand, his expression turning back to stone. "That is the real contract. Now, do you still want to talk about the kiss? Or are you ready to be my vision?"
Elara looked at the powerful man in front of her. He wasn't a vulture; he was a king trying to hide the fact that his kingdom was fading into gray.
"I'll do it," she whispered. "But on one condition."
Silas narrowed his eyes. "More money?"
"No. You stop pretending that you don't feel anything. If I'm going to be your eyes, Silas, you have to let me see you."