The flashbulbs were a physical assault.
As the sliding glass doors of the hospice opened, the wall of sound hit us. It wasn't just questions anymore; it was an execution.
"Reid! Twitter has the contract! Five million for a year?"
"Maya! Did you sign the 'No Feelings' clause? How much is a kiss worth in the Sterling budget?"
I felt my knees buckle. The cold, clinical black-and-white image of my own signature on that hateful document was flashing on a hundred smartphone screens held up like mirrors. My secret was a hashtag. My mother's dignity was a talking point for daytime talk shows.
Reid's grip on my hand was the only thing keeping me upright. He didn't pull me toward the car. He stopped. Right there on the concrete steps, in front of the microphones and the shouting faces.
"Quiet!" he roared.
The silence that followed was unnatural. It was the silence of a crowd waiting for a car crash.
Reid turned to me. He didn't look at the cameras. He didn't look at his PR head, who was frantically signaling for him to get in the SUV. He looked at me, and his gray eyes were no longer flint or ice. They were terrified.
"Maya," he said, his voice carrying over the silent street. "The paper they're talking about... it's real. I drafted it. I offered it. I was a man who thought everything in this world had a price because I'd never met anything I couldn't buy."
A collective gasp went up from the reporters. He was admitting it. He was handing them his head on a silver platter.
"Reid, stop," I whispered, my heart hammering against my ribs. "You're destroying yourself."
"I destroyed myself the moment I put a price tag on you," he said, stepping closer. He reached into his pocket. He didn't pull out a phone or a checkbook. He pulled out a small, velvet box.
The world seemed to stop spinning.
"That contract is a year old in spirit, even if it's only months old in ink," Reid said, dropping to one knee on the dirty pavement of a Queens sidewalk. "It was a business arrangement made by two desperate people. But I'm not desperate for my father's shares anymore, Maya. I'm desperate for the girl who rips up ten million dollars because she'd rather have her soul than a kingdom."
He flipped the box open. The diamond inside didn't look like "Sterling money." It looked like a star.
"Maya Gable," he said, his voice shaking—actually shaking. "I'm voiding the contract. Right here. Right now. I don't want a year. I don't want a 'No Feelings' clause. I want the messy, complicated, loud-mouthed architect from Queens for the rest of my life. I want to build something that isn't made of glass and steel."
My vision blurred. The cameras, the shouting, the scandal—it all faded into a dull hum. There was just the man on his knee, the smell of rain on the asphalt, and the terrifying realization that the "Ice King" had just committed social suicide for a girl who used to scrub his father's table.
"You're a liability, Reid," I breathed, the tears finally spilling over.
"I know," he whispered, a small, genuine smile breaking through his fear. "Will you marry me anyway? For real? No checks. No clauses. Just us."
I looked at the crowd, then back at him. I saw Cassandra in the distance, standing by her car, her face a mask of horrified defeat. She had leaked the contract to destroy us, and instead, she had forced Reid to be honest.
I reached out, my fingers trembling as I touched his cheek. "You realize if I say yes, the board is still going to come for us? The papers will still call me a gold-digger?"
"Let them," Reid said. "I'll buy the papers and fire the editors. Just say yes, Maya."
I laughed—a wet, hysterical sound—and pulled him up. I didn't wait for him to put the ring on. I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him.
The cameras went into a frenzy, but for the first time, I didn't feel like an actress. I felt like Maya.
"Yes," I whispered against his lips. "Yes, you arrogant, beautiful idiot. Yes."
As he slid the ring onto my finger, the crowd erupted. It wasn't the cynical noise of a scandal anymore. It was the roar of a story that had transcended the budget.
But as Reid pulled me toward the car, shielding me from the press, he leaned in and whispered something only I could hear.
"We have forty-eight hours before the SEC freezes my accounts, Maya. We need to get to the lawyers. The real war starts now."
I gripped his hand, the weight of the diamond a new kind of anchor. "Then let's go win it."