Ethan's POV
The silence between us lasts longer than it should.
Long enough for the city behind me to become a blur of soft gold lights and the faint hum of traffic winding through the hills. Long enough for her breathing to turn uneven, for me to measure every intake of air like data points.
Raina is standing exactly where I knew she would stop, one step inside the doorway, one hand still near the frame as if she could close it any moment.
She will not.
She has never been able to finish a retreat once she begins listening.
"Raina," I say, not softly, not cruelly, just fact. Her name has weight; it sounds like a verdict issued by the night.
Her eyes lift, those dark almond irises widening the way they used to when she was deciding whether to argue or to run.
"You can't be here," she whispers.
The tremor in her voice is small, but I hear it. I hear everything.
"I can," I answer, stepping across the threshold. The air between us contracts; the faint scent of lavender and disinfectant from her clinic clings to her skin. "And I will."
Her shoulders straighten. "Why? To finish whatever you started?"
"No." My gaze travels around the apartment, neutral tones, curated restraint, the quiet of someone who fears clutter because clutter invites memory. "I'm here because you don't get to live alone anymore."
She flinches as if I'd touched her. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me." I take another measured step. "From tonight, you'll live with me. In Bel-Air."
Her laugh is hollow. "You're insane."
"Possibly," I admit, "but I'm also right."
I close the door behind me. The click of the latch sounds final; the room exhales around us.
There is a logic to everything I do, even this.
The world outside would call it obsession; I call it damage control.
"Raina, you and I both know what happens if this leaks," I say, tone even. "A billionaire enters a psychiatrist's clinic, leaves with the doctor, spends nights in Beverly Hills. The story writes itself. Every camera will follow. Every outlet will pry."
She folds her arms, defensive. "Then stop giving them a story."
"I'm not the one who built a clinic under my real name after surviving a murder scene," I remind her. The words land sharp, maybe cruel, but truth has always been our roughest language. "You're news waiting to happen. And when it does, they won't stop at you. They'll dig until they find December."
Her chin tilts upward; pride always precedes panic with her. "So your solution is what—hide me in your mansion?"
"Not hide," I correct. "Reclaim. You'll live with me because that's the only way to protect both of us when the story breaks. My wife lives with me. That is all anyone needs to know."
Her mouth opens, closes. For a heartbeat she can't form a word. "Wife?"
"Yes."
"That's not even remotely true."
"It is now."
I watch comprehension crawl across her face, the horror, the disbelief, the dawning recognition that I am not bluffing.
Marriage.
The word doesn't frighten me; it terrifies everyone else.
The Hale name on a headline beside hers will ignite a week of scandal and six months of speculation. The board will rage, investors will sniff blood. But none of it matters.
What matters is containment.
She is the equation that unbalances everything when left unsupervised.
Better to bring her inside the system than leave her outside where predators circle.
"I won't do this," she says finally, voice cracking through the thin calm she's been holding. "You can't decide my life for me."
"I already did," I reply. "You just weren't informed."
Her eyes flash; anger suits her. "You think you can drag me into your house and call me your wife? What then—press releases, photo shoots?"
"No," I say quietly. "Privacy. Security. A place where no one can touch you again."
"I don't need saving."
"You need control," I counter. "And you keep pretending control and safety are the same thing. They're not."
She looks away, toward the window. City light spills across her face,half glow, half shadow. The same duality that made me watch her the first time: strength built from fear, elegance born out of survival.
I step closer. Close enough that I can see the faint tremor along her jaw, the tiny pulse in her throat.
"You know what happens if you refuse?" I ask.
Her head snaps back toward me. "Is that a threat?"
"No. A probability."
I walk past her to the small console near the wall, pick up the morning's newspaper she left there. My own face stares back from the business section—headlines about the AI mergers, the valuation figures that make men bow or burn. I tap the page.
"This is power, Raina. It's also a trap. Every move I make is cataloged. If they discover the connection between us, the therapy sessions, the past, do you think they'll see you as the doctor who helped or the woman who destroyed?"
She says nothing. Silence can be resistance; it can also be realization.
"I won't let them dissect you," I continue. "So we change the story. You don't become my scandal. You become my wife."
Her lips part. "You're insane," she repeats, softer this time, less certainty in it.
"Maybe. But the paperwork is already done."
Her eyes widen. "You, what?"
"I had it drafted months ago. A legal cover. All that's left are signatures. It protects you, and it protects me."
Raina steps backward until her shoulders hit the wall. "You can't forge a life out of paperwork."
"You forged one out of denial," I say. "It worked for two years."
The words hang there, cruel and tender at once. I don't enjoy hurting her, but truth is a surgical tool; it cuts to save.
For a long time she doesn't speak. The city hum fills the space instead, the distant siren, the faint rattle of wind against glass. When she finally does, her voice is smaller.
"What if I don't sign?"
I meet her gaze. "Then you'll make the world curious."
Her brow furrows.
"They'll ask questions," I explain.
"Reporters, police, the board. Someone will reopen the December case. Someone will find the video file you tried to bury. And when they do, they won't just find me. They'll find him."
Her face drains of color. "Don't."
"Then don't make me."
The sentence tastes bitter even as I say it. I don't like coercion. But sometimes truth requires leverage, and leverage wears many faces—money, law, memory.
I soften my tone. "Raina, this isn't about trapping you. It's about keeping everything from collapsing. You think you're protecting yourself by staying separate, but separation is the illusion that almost killed you."
Her eyes glisten, defiant tears refusing to fall. "Why do you care so much?"
I look at her, really look. The woman who once argued that love is a symptom of chemical delusion, now standing there trembling from something far less measurable.
"Because," I say, "you were never supposed to be collateral damage. You were supposed to be the reason I stopped creating ghosts."
She doesn't understand that line yet. She will.
I take a step nearer, lowering my voice.
"In Bel-Air, you'll have your own wing. Your clinic can operate from there. Betty can commute. Mike will handle logistics. It's not a prison. It's a perimeter."
She shakes her head. "You talk like a man designing software, not a life."
"That's exactly what a life is," I answer. "Code and choice. You write until it functions."
Her eyes narrow. "And if I crash?"
"Then I rebuild you."
The words leave me before I can censor them.
They hang there intimate, blasphemous, honest.
Raina stares at me, horror and something else flickering in her gaze. "You think you own me."
"No," I whisper. "I think I lost you once and refuse to repeat the algorithm."
A long pause follows. She looks at the floor, at her own hands, at anything that isn't me.
When she finally meets my eyes again, something inside her has shifted, not surrender, not acceptance, but awareness that this conversation is a point of no return.
"Say I agree," she murmurs. "Say I go with you. Then what?"
"Then you stop being a target," I say. "You become a story the world can't touch. Mrs. Ethan Hale,unreachable, unexplainable. And in that distance, we find quiet."
Her laugh is small, brittle. "You think the world forgets that easily?"
"The world forgets everything when fed the right distraction."
"And what distraction is that?"
I allow a small smile. "Us."
The answer lands between us like a secret detonating slowly.
For a while, neither of us moves. The night outside deepens; the city hum fades to a low pulse. Her breathing steadies. Mine matches it without intention.
"Raina," I say finally, voice low, "I didn't come here to steal your freedom. I came here to buy you time. There are people who will use December to end you. Living with me keeps them away. Everything else we'll negotiate later."
She looks exhausted.
Beautiful.
Angry.
Alive.
I can see the exact second her resolve bends, not breaks, bends like metal under heat.
"I can't promise anything tonight," she whispers.
"You don't need to," I tell her. "Just pack what matters. Mike will be here in the morning."
Her eyes flare. "You're unbelievable."
"So I've been told."
I move toward the door; her scent follows, faint rose and antiseptic and memory. I pause with my hand on the knob, turn back once more.
"You have until sunrise," I say. "After that, every camera in Los Angeles will know you're my wife. Choose how you want the headline written."
Her lips part but no sound emerges.
I open the door; cool night air rushes in. The city below gleams indifferent and endless.
Before stepping out, I meet her gaze one final time.
She's standing there, barefoot, haloed in yellow light, looking like the choice she doesn't want to make.
"Rai," I murmur. The word is almost gentle. "It's time to come home."
And then I close the door behind me, leaving silence to answer for us both.