Chapter 3

Another reporter stood up.

“Miss Gray, would you care to explain?”

“Oh, let me,” Celeste cut in, her voice sweet as a blade dipped in sugar.

She turned to me with a smile that never reached her eyes.

“Ophilia, I should thank you for staying by Kylan’s side these past few years. During the time we were temporarily apart because of certain family matters, it gave me great peace of mind knowing someone was taking care of him.”

She said it the way one thanks a servant for house-sitting.

“Of course, families destined to be linked always find their way back to one another, don’t they?” She gently squeezed Kylan’s hand. “Kylan and I grew up together. Our first family banquet, our first time handling outside business—we did it all together. Some emotions are carved into blood and interests.”

I saw Kylan’s jaw tighten hard.

“Celeste, enough—”

“I’m only clarifying the facts.” She turned to the reporters with an innocent expression. “I don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea. Ophilia was only ever a family friend. Just a friend.”

Friend.

After three years, that was all I was in her mouth.

The photograph in my pocket felt like a branding iron against my skin.

“Actually—”

I rose to my feet. Every camera in the room swung toward me.

I pulled out the photo and held it up under the lights.

“This photograph fell out of a frame in the apartment Kylan and I shared. Maybe Miss Morrow is right—maybe there was never any real relationship between Kylan Cosa and me.”

I flicked the photo toward them. It drifted down onto the open space in front of the main table, and my voice came out eerily calm.

“But there is one thing I want to make clear—we did not break up three months ago. Everything between us ended the moment he first lied to me.”

“Congratulations on your engagement.”

I turned and walked out.

Behind me, the questions exploded and the cameras clicked like gunfire.

I did not look back.

Not once.

At the end of the corridor, I leaned against the cold stone wall and tried to steady my breathing.

Footsteps sounded behind me.

I didn’t even need to turn around. The air was already thick with cold iron and gunpowder—the force of a godfather losing control and failing to hide it.

“Ophilia.”

Kylan’s voice was low, restrained, dangerous.

“We need to talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Stop saying stupid things.” He came at me in one stride, slamming a hand against the wall beside my head. “What you did in there—”

“What did I do?” I finally looked at him. “I told the truth. That’s all.”

“You’re destroying the Cosa family’s reputation and our alliance with the Morrows—”

“I don’t care!” My voice caught. “All I know is I was made a fool of for three whole years.”

He clenched his jaw.

“It’s far more complicated than you think.”

“No, it isn’t. You’re marrying her. You lied to me. That’s it.”

“Celeste is only a family arrangement—”

“Stop saying that!” I shoved him hard. “You grew up together. You went through your first... dealings together. This is not just politics, Kylan—she is the godmother you wanted. Not me.”

His whole body went still. His throat worked.

“Ophilia, listen to me.” He stepped closer and lifted a hand as if to touch my face. “Give me two years. The engagement and marriage are only to secure the alliance. In two years, I’ll void the contract. Then we—”

“Two years?” I stared at him. “So the marriage arrangement was already decided. You had all of this planned.”

“I’m not going to leave you with nothing. This apartment, extra security, the gallery under my name—I’ll transfer it all to you—”

“And then keep sleeping with me while you go home and play the perfect godfather and godmother with the woman everyone knows belongs to you?” I laughed, and the sound came out sharp and broken. “That’s your plan for me? To make me your mistress?”

“Don’t use that word—”

“Then what should I call myself? Secret lover? Pet?” The tears finally spilled, burning hot down my cheeks. “You’ll put a ring on her finger at the church, then crawl back into my bed at night. Every public event, every family celebration, I’ll have to disappear. You’re negotiating terms for your mistress like it’s a business deal, Kylan.”

His gray eyes turned to ice.

“I’m trying to secure us a future—”

“You want both.” I dodged his touch. “Her alliance. My body. Congratulations, Kylan. You almost had it all.”

“Ophilia—” His hand closed around my wrist again.

I tried to pry his fingers off with my other hand, but he pressed his whole body in and pinned me to the wall.

“You are not walking away from me like this—”

At that moment, his phone vibrated.

I watched him glance down at the screen.

I saw something flicker in his eyes.

Then he let me go.

“I’ll come by tonight.” He stepped back, adjusting his cufflinks, his voice turning cold and controlled again. “We’ll talk properly.”

“Don’t come.”

He didn’t answer. He was already turning away, phone at his ear.

“I’m on my way now.”

Of course.

Of course he was.

Anna drove me back to the apartment.

I dragged out a suitcase and started packing.

At last, I opened the bedside drawer and took out a small velvet pouch. Inside was a platinum tie pin—Kylan’s.

He had left it behind on his private yacht last year.

He was drunk, holding me in his arms while I fixed the crooked tie pin for him. I had secretly kept it.

When he noticed, he didn’t get angry. He only laughed softly and rubbed his chin against the top of my head.

“Keep it,” he had said. “That way, no matter where you are, everyone will know you’re under Kylan Cosa’s protection.”

And I had asked him then:

“Does that count as some kind of promise?”

Under the moonlight, those gray-blue eyes had looked impossibly gentle.

“It does,” he said. “I’ll always be yours.”

He had said always.

I snapped back to the present, pressed my lips together, and emptied the tie pin into the trash.

I rolled the suitcase into the living room and sat down to wait.

If I was ending this, I wanted to end it properly—face to face, a real goodbye.

But he never came back that night.

The next morning, my phone’s nonstop buzzing woke me.

The banquet had exploded overnight.

But not in the way I had expected.

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