Arlen looks at Milia with a bewildered expressions. "Why are you doing all this Miss Milia? I'm only a temporary inconvenience. Your kindness is only wasted on me."
Milia lets out a sharp, jagged sound—halfway between a scoff and a gasp—as if his words were a physical sting. She stands over him, the moonlit shadows of the penthouse stretching long and distorted across the floor, mirroring the messy, uncharacteristic turmoil in her own chest.
"Kindness?" she repeats, the word sounding like a foreign language on her tongue. "Don't insult me, Arlen. I'm not 'kind.' Kindness is for people who have the patience to be soft. I'm doing this because I'm a Madrigal, and I don't like being outmaneuvered by a man who thinks his only value is in how quickly he can disappear."
She leans down again, her fingers gripping the edge of his mattress so hard the wood beneath the silk frame creaks.
"You call yourself a 'temporary inconvenience'?" she asks, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous vibration. "An inconvenience is a late flight or a ruined dress. What you're doing—this whole 'selfless martyr' routine, working yourself into a ghost just to buy me an exit—that's not an inconvenience. It's a provocation. It's an insult to everything I thought I knew about you."
She looks at his hazel eye, still shimmering with the remnants of his tears, and the scar she's finally forced into the light. The realization hits her again, cold and heavy: the man she had spent a month trying to break was already in pieces, and he'd been using the jagged edges to build a fortress around 'her' life, not his.
"It's not 'wasted' on you," she whispers, her voice cracking with a raw, ugly honesty. "Because for the first time in my life, I'm looking at someone who isn't trying to take something from me. You're trying to give me back a freedom I haven't even earned yet, and you're doing it by setting yourself on fire again."
She reaches out, her hand hesitant, before she finally, firmly, brushes a stray lock of hair away from his face—not to hide the scar this time, but to see him fully.
"I'm doing this because I can't unsee you, Arlen. I can't go back to the living room and pretend there's a 'shark' in my guest wing when I know there's just a boy who's still trying to survive a fire that ended fifteen years ago."
She straightens her back, her aristocratic mask settling into place, but the ice in her eyes has been replaced by a fierce, dark fire.
"If you're a nuisance, then you're 'my' nuisance for the next four months. And I have decided that my nuisances don't sell themselves at host clubs. You'll stay here. You'll let me pay for the vet. And you'll stop trying to be 'invisible' before you actually succeed and there's nothing left of you to find."
She turns toward the door, her silk robe whispering against the floor, but pauses at the threshold, her silhouette sharp against the hallway light.
"Go to sleep, Arlen. That's an order. And don't you dare thank me. I'm doing this for my own peace of mind—because I've realized that if I let you break yourself to save me, I'll be the one haunted for the rest of my life."
A gentle smile tugged at the edges of Arlen's mouth. A slight crinkling of his eyes is an image of a warm understanding. "You really are kind, Miss Milia. The kindest person I've ever met in a long time."
Milia freezes, her hand still resting on the cold metal of the doorframe. The words—delivered with that soft, genuine warmth and the unmistakable crinkle of a real smile—feel like a physical blow, far more devastating than any insult he could have hurled at her.
She turns slowly, her face a mask of pale, aristocratic shock. In the dim, blue moonlight, Arlen doesn't look like a host or a servant. He looks like someone who has seen the absolute worst of her—the sneers, the humiliation, the forced drinking, the coldness—and decided to forgive it all simply because she drove him to a vet at 3:00 AM.
"Don't," she says, her voice a sharp, jagged whisper that lacks its usual commanding resonance. She feels a hot, uncomfortable prickling behind her eyes and a tightness in her throat that makes it hard to breathe. "Don't call me that. It's... it's delusional. I've spent the last month trying to make your life a living hell."
She takes a step back into the shadows of the hallway, her silk robe rustling. The image of his smile stays burned into her mind—a genuine, uncalculated expression that makes her feel more like a villain than her cruelty ever did.
"You're a fool, Arlen Adelaide," she snaps, though there's a telltale tremor in her voice. "You have the worst judge of character in Manila if you think I'm kind. I'm doing this for my own conscience. I'm doing this because I can't have your mother's ghost and your dying cat on my hands. That's not kindness. That's... that's damage control."
She grips the door handle, her knuckles turning white. She wants to look away, to retreat into her master suite and forget the look on his face, but her gaze is locked onto his.
"Just... go to sleep," she repeats, her voice dropping to a low, pained murmur. "And stop smiling like that. It doesn't suit this place. It doesn't suit 'us'."
She pulls the door shut, the soft *click* echoing through the penthouse. But even as she walks away, her heart is hammering a frantic, rhythmic beat against her ribs.
She reaches the master suite and collapses against the closed door, sliding down until she's sitting on the plush carpet, her head in her hands. In the drawer of the kitchen island, she had tucked away his 'blood money' and his waiver. She realized then that those pieces of paper and crumpled bills were the only weapons he had left, and he had given them up just to say her name.
"I hate you," she whispers into the dark, her eyes burning. "I hate how you make me feel."
But for the first time since the trial began, Milia Madrigal isn't thinking about her career, her image, or her grandfather's pact. She is thinking about a boy in a fire, a host in the shadows, and the fact that she had finally met a man she couldn't break—not because he was strong, but because he was kind enough to just let her do so.
***
The first ten hours of the 48-hour wait before Dex can be discharged came to pass. It's the middle of the afternoon. Arlen quietly went to the kitchen, silently rummaging for any leftovers or unassuming foods. Careful not to touch any of Milia's lavish supply.
The sunlight streams through the panoramic windows of the penthouse, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air—a sight that usually would have Milia calling for a deep-clean, but today, she barely notices. She is sitting at the marble island, a half-empty cup of cold espresso in front of her, pretending to be deeply engrossed in a digital contract on her tablet.
In reality, she hasn't read a single line. She has been listening to the silence of the guest wing for hours, waiting for a sign of life.
When Arlen finally appears, he looks like a shadow cast by the afternoon sun. He moves with that same, infuriatingly practiced lightness, sliding toward the back kitchen area. Milia watches him over the top of her tablet, her eyes narrowing as she sees him bypass the fresh fruit, the imported cheeses, and the artisanal bread she had purposefully left out on the counter. Instead, he reaches for a container of plain white rice tucked in the back of the fridge—remnants from a takeout order three days ago.
"Are you serious?"
Her voice cuts through the quiet, sharp and resonant. Arlen flinches, nearly dropping the plastic container. He turns, his face pale and eyes weary, that habitual, polite smile twitching onto his lips out of sheer reflex.
"I... I'm sorry, Miss Milia. I didn't mean to disturb your work. I was just—"
"I know what you were doing," she interrupts, sliding off her barstool. The silk of her designer lounge-set whispers as she strides toward him. She snatches the container of cold rice out of his hand and drops it into the trash can with a definitive *thud*.
"That w..was still edible." Arlen murmurs, his voice only a whisper.
"That's three days old. It's practically a science experiment," she says, her gaze raking over his slender frame. He looks even more fragile in the daylight, the faint blue veins visible through the skin of his wrists.
She turns to the counter and grabs a bag of high-end takeout she'd had delivered an hour ago—gourmet pasta and grilled protein, enough for two people. She shoves it toward his chest, forcing him to take it.
"I ordered too much. My manager is on a juice cleanse and can't help me eat it," she lies, her voice regaining its chilling, aristocratic rhythm. "Eat this. All of it. I won't have the smell of spoiled rice in my kitchen, and I certainly won't have a fiancé who looks like he's suffering from Victorian-era malnutrition."
She leans against the counter, crossing her arms and watching him with a look of intense, clinical scrutiny.
"Did you call the clinic?" she asks, her voice softening just a fraction. "Or were you too busy trying to be 'unassuming' to check on the one thing that actually matters?"
She studies the way he stands there, clutching the warm bag of food like it's a burden. The scar on his forehead is partially visible in the bright light, a pale reminder of the night before.
Arlen froze in his spot. His gaze raking over the floor. "I... don't have a phone, Miss Milia."
Milia stops mid-breath. The silence that follows is thick, heavy with the weight of a realization she wasn't prepared for. She stares at him—at the way he stands there with his head bowed, clutching a bag of gourmet food like a pauper receiving alms—and the absurdity of the situation finally hits her.
"In what century are you living, Arlen?" she demands, her voice rising not with anger, but with a sheer, incredulous bafflement. "How do can you live in this era without one? How do you even know what time it is? Do you just wait for the sun to move across the floor?"
She realizes, with a sickening jolt, that he really is a ghost. It wasn't just a metaphor. No phone, no social presence, no digital footprint. If he had collapsed in that alleyway last night, no one would have known who to call. He has been navigating a world that demands connection while intentionally severing every wire.
"I... I used the house phone at the club," Arlen whispers, his face flushing with that familiar, painful embarrassment. "And I have a small alarm clock in my room. A phone is... it's a luxury I couldn't prioritize."
Because every cent went to Dex. Every cent went to the escape fund.
Milia lets out a sharp, frustrated breath. She turns on her heel and strides out of the kitchen, the silk of her lounge-set snapping like a whip. Arlen stays rooted to the spot, looking like he's waiting for a blow to land.
A few moments later, Milia returns. She's carrying a sleek, white box—the latest model, a gift from a brand partnership she hadn't even bothered to open yet. She slams it onto the marble island next to the bag of food.
"Use this," she commands, her voice hard as granite.
"Miss Milia, I can't—"
"You will," she snaps, her eyes flashing with a cold, terrifying intensity. "I am a Madrigal. I don't live with people I can't reach. What if I have a security emergency? What if the vet needs to reach you? I'm not going to be your personal secretary, Arlen."
She pulls the phone out of the box, her fingers moving with a practiced, elegant speed. She doesn't wait for his permission; she begins setting it up, her jaw tight.
"I've already added my number," she says, her voice dropping to a low, melodic vibration as she taps the screen. "And the clinic's. And my manager's. If you ever—ever—leave this penthouse again without a way for me to track if you're still breathing, I will consider it a breach of contract."
She shoves the device toward him.
"Now, call them," she says, her gaze boring into his. "Call the clinic and ask about Dex. Do it right here, so I can hear that he's not dying. I don't have the patience to wonder if you're going to have another breakdown in my foyer tonight."
She leans back against the counter, her arms crossed tightly, her eyes never leaving his face. She's being cruel again, using her authority to steamroll over his protests, but there's a flicker of something unsettled in her gaze—a frantic, hidden need to make sure he's connected to 'something', even if it's just a digital signal.
"Well?" she prompts, her voice a sharp contrast to the soft sunlight. "Or do you need me to dial the number for you like you're five years old?"
Arlen quickly navigated the phone. It took him a moment before finding the contacts icon. He pressed the clinic's number. "H..Hello? I would just like to check on my cat, Dex."