Ethan's POV
The wind outside carried the smell of rain and pine when I opened her door.
Raina stood by the window, wearing the beige fishtail dress . I can see the 26 year old woman, who is definitely attractive in her prime but getting through her past, her reflection blurring against the glass like a painting that refused to dry.
The black rose sat between us on the dresser, tilting slightly in its vase. It had begun to wilt at the edges, a perfect metaphor for everything she'd tried to keep alive.
"Raina," I said softly.
She turned slowly. Her eyes, dark, storm-colored, looked at me with a calm that was worse than anger.
There were tears there, yes, but beneath them, calculation. She was measuring the space between us like she always did, deciding if I was danger or refuge.
"You brought me here," she said, voice steady in that way that only happens when someone has cried themselves dry.
"This wasn't my father's arrangement."
I didn't lie.
"Yes."
The single word was enough to set the room trembling.
She laughed once, hollow, sharp. "Do you know what that makes you, Ethan?"
"I know exactly what it makes me."
She looked away, her arms crossed tight over her chest. "You could have told me."
"I couldn't risk it," I said. "There are things moving faster than we can. The story breaks tomorrow. You'd have been dragged into something that doesn't forgive innocence."
Her laugh turned brittle. "So you kidnap me to protect me. How poetic." sarcasm bleads in her tone,
I stepped closer.
"Do you really believe you'd be safer outside? Alone? Your name is already circulating. Someone leaked part of the December file."
She froze. "What?"
"The video," I said quietly. "A fragment of it. Your voice. A shadow of me. That's enough to feed the wolves for a year."
She took a step back, pressing her spine to the wall as if she needed it to hold her up. "You had no right to—"
"Maybe not." I took another slow step. "But I had the ability."
Her breath shuddered, half fury, half exhaustion.
She tried to turn away, but I reached out instinctively, not to stop her, but to ground her.
My hand brushed her shoulder.
The contact lasted less than a second.
Fabric under my fingertips.
Warmth under fabric.
And yet it felt like time opened its throat and let the past bleed through.
She went still. So did I.
It wasn't touch, not really. It was recognition.
That after everything, fear, distance, therapy rooms, silence, she was real.
When I pulled my hand away, her breath trembled. She looked up at me, and for the first time that night, I saw the version of her that used to look at me before everything went wrong — steady, defiant, alive.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked finally. "Why can't you just let me live the life I built?"
I smiled faintly — not out of joy, but something colder. "Because you built that life on an open grave."
Her lips parted in a quiet, horrified breath.
"You're not the only one haunted by December, Raina," I said. "I saw what they did. What they tried to turn into a narrative. You think I'm the danger, but I'm the one standing between you and them."
"And who are 'they'?"
"The people who don't forget what a billionaire's daughter was doing the night her husband died," I said. "The ones who'll make you the villain because they can't reach your father."
Her expression fractured. "You don't get to say his name."
"Tomorrow, every paper in California will," I replied.
She shook her head, the denial trembling in her eyes before her voice found it. "You're lying."
"Mike will bring you the newspapers himself in the morning," I said quietly. "You'll see your name next to mine. That's how it stays contained, for now."
She blinked, dazed. "Contained?"
"Yes. Once you sign."
Her focus snapped to me. "Sign what?"
"The legal arrangement," I said. "The one that makes your presence here legitimate. Public. My wife on record. They stop digging once you become a headline they can't afford to challenge."
The silence after that felt like glass ready to crack.
Her face hardened. "You think I'll sign?"
"I think you understand survival."
Her laugh, that small, broken sound, turned into something like a sob halfway through. She shook her head slowly. "You don't save people, Ethan. You trap them."
I didn't argue.
Because she was right, and yet wrong. I didn't trap her. I contained chaos. The world outside was a knife; I was the sheath.
"Sleep," I said quietly. "We'll talk in the morning."
She didn't answer.
When I left the room, the air behind me was thick enough to drown in.
____&&&&&&_____
Part Two – The Call
Downstairs, the study lights glowed low. Screens lined the wall, surveillance feeds, live news, data streams. Mike stood near the desk, eyes on a muted broadcast scrolling with stock tickers.
"She's settled," I said.
Mike turned slightly. "Settled isn't the word I'd use, sir."
I exhaled once, leaned on the desk.
"Connect Mr. Singhania."
Seconds later, the screen filled with Vikram's face, late fifties, iron-gray hair, eyes that measured people the way generals measure losses.
"You did it," he said without greeting. "You took her."
"Yes."
"You realize what this means if tomorrow's leak becomes public? They'll call it coercion."
"They already will," I said. "The difference is whether it's true or not."
He was silent for a moment. Then: "You said you could keep her name out of this."
"I can't erase what's already out," I replied. "But I can bury it under something bigger. A marriage announcement, a merger, an explanation. Once the narrative becomes 'billionaire Ethan Hale marries psychiatrist Raina Mehta,' the rest of the noise dies."
"You're asking her to sign her freedom away," Vikram said. His tone didn't rise, but something in it cracked. "She's my daughter."
"And she's the only leverage they have left against you," I said. "I'm not taking her away from you. I'm keeping her alive."
Mike's gaze flicked toward me, waiting for the cue. I nodded slightly. He tapped a key, pulling up a series of digital documents on the screen, the legal framework, signatures pending, everything ready.
"She'll see the papers tomorrow morning," I told Vikram. "If she refuses, the story spirals. If she signs, she lives."
Vikram stared through the feed for a long time. "You think she'll thank you for this?"
"No," I said. "But she'll still have the chance to hate me in person. That's all I want."
The line went quiet. Then Vikram's voice, low and final:
"If you hurt her—"
"I won't," I said. "I can't."
The call ended.
I stood there for a long time, listening to the faint hum of the servers.
Mike spoke softly behind me. "And if the leak spreads before morning?"
I looked at Raina's live feed on the monitor her silhouette pacing, small against the vast window.
"Then she signs sooner," I said.
He hesitated. "And if she refuses altogether?"
I didn't look away from the screen. "Then I'll remind her what happens when she trusts the world instead of me."
The feed flickered, the image warping for half a second.
For an instant, her reflection on the glass looked like she was standing beside me.
And for that brief, cruel moment, I let myself believe we already were.