The Ashford Foundation Gala is a war zone dressed in diamonds.
Crystal chandeliers hang like weapons. Champagne flows like blood. Photographers position themselves at every entrance, waiting for the kill shot. Scarlett stands in the dress Cameron's team sent her—black silk, expensive, designed to make her invisible by making her perfect.
Cameron's hand is on the small of her back.
She can feel the heat of his palm through the fabric. It's the only warm thing about him tonight. His arm is there. His body is next to hers. But his attention is everywhere except on her.
He smiles for the cameras. Professional. Polite. A man performing satisfaction with his new fiancée.
Scarlett plays her part. She laughs when he laughs. She touches his arm. She looks at him like he hung the moon. But inside, she's screaming.
Because they're not alone, and yet she's completely invisible.
People approach Cameron. Business partners. Society women. The mayor of London. Everyone wants his attention. Everyone gets it. Scarlett stands beside him like a beautiful accessory, smiling until her face aches.
"Excuse me," Cameron says finally, steering her toward the bathroom corridor. "I need to handle something. Wait here. Don't move."
He leaves her in an alcove near the restrooms. Scarlett watches him disappear into a crowd of men in expensive suits. She's left with champagne she won't drink and a smile that doesn't reach her eyes.
A man approaches. Older. Drunk. His tie is loose and his eyes are cruel.
"You're her," he says. It's not a question.
Scarlett doesn't answer.
"The leaked-photo girl," he continues, his voice loud enough for people to turn and stare. "I remember you. You were quite flexible in those pictures."
He laughs. It's the kind of laugh that makes her skin crawl.
Scarlett sets down her champagne. She doesn't know what to say. She's so tired of being defined by her worst moment. She's so tired of people thinking they own her because they saw her naked.
"You should be thanking me," he says, stepping closer. "Those photos made you famous. They made you interesting. Without them, you'd be nothing."
He reaches for her arm.
The champagne he's holding tips over her dress. Red wine mixed with alcohol. It spreads like a stain.
"Oops," he says, not sorry at all.
Scarlett looks down at the dress being destroyed. It costs more than she made in a month at any job. It's ruined. Just like that. Ruined.
She wants to cry. She wants to scream. She wants to disappear.
But then Cameron is there.
She doesn't see him arrive. He just appears between her and the drunk man like he materialized from the walls themselves.
"Never speak to her that way again," he says.
His voice is ice. But it's not the cold indifference she's learned to expect. This is cold fury. This is controlled violence dressed in words.
The drunk man steps back. "I was just—"
"I don't care what you were doing," Cameron says. "If you ever approach her again, if you ever speak to her again, if you ever acknowledge her existence, I will destroy you. Not figuratively. Actually destroy you. Do you understand me?"
The man nods and scurries away like a rat.
Cameron turns to Scarlett. She sees his eyes. Raw. Angry. Something that looks like care burning beneath the surface.
He doesn't ask if she's okay. He doesn't apologize for leaving her alone. Instead, he removes his jacket and wraps it around her shoulders without asking. His suit jacket. Expensive. Perfect. It smells like him. Like the scent she's learned to recognize in every room he enters.
"We're leaving," he says.
No one stops them. No one dares to.
In the car, the silence is suffocating.
Cameron drives with both hands gripping the steering wheel. The city passes outside the windows. Red lights. Green lights. The ordinary world continuing while something extraordinary crumbles between them.
Scarlett watches him. She watches his jaw clench and unclench. She watches his shoulders stay rigid. She watches a man fighting something with every muscle in his body.
"Thank you," she says quietly.
His hands grip the steering wheel harder. She can see his knuckles turn white.
"Don't," he says. His voice is flat again. The coldness is back in place like a mask snapped down.
"Don't what," Scarlett asks.
"Don't thank me. Don't make this into something it's not. This was the arrangement. I protect your reputation because it protects mine. That's all."
But his hands are still white with tension. His jaw is still clenched. He's not fooling her anymore.
"You were angry," Scarlett says.
"I was not," Cameron denies, but his voice cracks slightly.
"You were furious," she continues. "Not because he damaged your engagement cover. Because he hurt me. You cared that he hurt me."
The car lurches slightly. Cameron's breathing becomes heavier.
"You don't know what you're talking about," he says.
"Then why are your hands shaking," Scarlett asks.
Cameron pulls the car over suddenly. They're on a quiet street under streetlights that make everything look like a movie. A movie about two people destroying each other.
He turns to face her. His eyes are wild. Whatever walls he builds, whatever distance he maintains, they're cracking right now. She can see everything he's trying to hide.
"Because you're sitting next to me in my jacket and you look like you belong there," he says, his voice raw. "Because I wanted to hit that man for looking at you. Because every time I try to build distance, you pull it apart. Because I'm terrified of what I'm starting to feel for you."
Scarlett's breath stops.
"And it can't happen," he continues, turning away from her. His voice drops to almost a whisper. "It can't happen because the moment you become real to me is the moment I destroy you. That's what happens to people I care about, Scarlett. They get destroyed."
He puts the car back in drive.
"I need to keep you at a distance," he says as he drives again. "Not because I don't care. Because I do. And that's the most dangerous thing that could possibly happen to you."
They drive the rest of the way in silence. When he drops her off at her apartment, he doesn't walk her to the door. He doesn't even look at her.
But as she steps out of the car, she hears him whisper something so quietly she might have imagined it.
"I'm sorry."
Scarlett stands in the lobby of her apartment building wearing Cameron's jacket, soaked in red wine, with the taste of tears on her tongue.
She finally understands.
It's not that he doesn't care. It's that he cares too much. His distance isn't rejection. It's protection. He's keeping her away because he believes love destroys people. And the cruelest part is that he might be right.
Because now she's in love with a man who's convinced that loving her will destroy them both.
And she doesn't know how to save him from that belief.