POV Audrey
I pull back from Shane's embrace the moment my lungs remember how to function properly.
The airport terminal swirls around us—travelers dragging luggage, announcements echoing overhead—but all I can focus on is the heat still lingering where his arms held me.
The casual intimacy of it. The dangerous comfort I almost let myself feel.
"Is this how you intend to conduct yourself for the entire trip?" I step back another foot, creating distance that suddenly feels insufficient. "Invading my personal space without so much as a warning? Because if so, we need to establish boundaries immediately."
Shane's expression shifts through something I can't quite read—surprise, maybe, or calculation.
"We're engaged, Audrey. Physical contact between engaged couples is generally considered acceptable, even expected. The investors we're meeting tomorrow will find it suspicious if we flinch every time we accidentally brush hands."
"There's a difference between performing for an audience and manhandling me in the terminal because you felt like it. I didn't agree to be touched whenever you decide proximity is convenient."
He studies my face with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. Whatever retort he's preparing dies on his lips. The teasing warmth evaporates, replaced by something closer to genuine concern.
"You're right. I apologize." The words come out stripped of performance, raw in a way I haven't heard from him before. "That was presumptuous. I should have asked. It won't happen again without your permission."
I don't know what to do with sincerity from Shane Reed. It's easier when he's calculating, when I can dismiss his gestures as strategy. This version—contrite, almost vulnerable—unsettles me more than the turbulence did.
"Thank you," I manage, and the tension between us shifts into something less hostile, more uncertain.
* * *
The penthouse suite sprawls across the hotel's top floor like an architectural love letter to excess. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the San Francisco skyline, and the sitting room alone could swallow my entire apartment twice over.
But the detail that makes me exhale with genuine relief: separate bedrooms. Two doors on opposite ends of the suite, each promising privacy I wasn't sure I'd get.
Shane disappears into his room to make calls, and I retreat into mine. The moment the door closes, I'm dialing Kara.
"Tell me you've already destroyed something expensive," she answers. "I need vicarious chaos to get through this merger paperwork."
"He hugged me." The words tumble out before I can organize them into something coherent. "At the airport, after the turbulence, he just—held me. And then he apologized when I pulled away, and it sounded real, Kara. Like he actually meant it."
"The bastard. How dare he offer comfort and then respect your boundaries when you rejected it. Truly monstrous behavior."
"You're not taking this seriously. He's being warm. Attentive. Almost likeable, and I cannot survive days of this. When he's cruel, I know where I stand. When he's kind, I start forgetting all the reasons this marriage is a prison sentence."
Kara's laugh carries through the phone with infuriating fondness.
"Audrey, sweetheart, I say this with love—you are the problem here. Shane has clearly accepted your arrangement and decided to make the best of a complicated situation. Meanwhile, you're treating every pleasant interaction like a trap you need to escape. Maybe he's not performing. Maybe he's just trying to build something tolerable with the woman he's going to marry."
"Tolerable." I sink onto the bed, pressing my palm against my forehead. "Is that supposed to be encouraging? Because it sounds like settling, and I refuse to be someone's acceptable compromise."
"You'd rather be his enemy? His adversary? Someone he dreads coming home to?" Her voice softens, turning serious. "I've seen Shane Reed, Audrey. The man is devastatingly attractive—those eyes alone should be illegal—and he's clearly intelligent, successful, and now apparently capable of genuine apology. Most women would consider that a win."
"Most women don't have the complications I have."
"Which is exactly why you need to stop fighting everything and let yourself breathe for five minutes. Enjoy yourself. Enjoy him. You've been alone for nine years, building walls so high you can't even see over them anymore. Maybe this trip could be something other than torture if you'd just—"
"I have to go." I cut her off before she can finish that sentence, before the dangerous direction of her logic can plant roots I'll spend weeks trying to dig out. "I'll call you later."
"Audrey, I'm not saying fall in love with him. I'm saying stop treating survival like it requires suffering. You're allowed to enjoy things."
"Goodbye, Kara."
I end the call and stare at the ceiling, her words echoing in my head.
After showering and dressing in something appropriately professional, I emerge to find Shane waiting in the sitting room. He's changed into a charcoal suit that fits him like a second skin, his dark curls still slightly damp from his own shower.
"There's a restaurant I'd like to show you," he says, rising from the couch with fluid grace. "Excellent French cuisine, private dining room already reserved. We should discuss tomorrow's presentation over lunch, and I find negotiations go better on a full stomach."
The private car winds through San Francisco streets with the leisurely pace. Shane sits beside me in the intimate space, close enough that I catch his smell with every breath—something warm and masculine.
I feel seventeen again. Hyperaware of his proximity, his presence. My heart does something inconvenient against my ribs, and I stare determinedly out the window until we get to the restaurant.
The restaurant drips with elegance I should have expected—crystal chandeliers, white tablecloths, waiters who move like ghosts and speak in murmurs. Our private dining room offers views of the bay and absolute discretion.
"The investor presentation," Shane begins, unfolding his napkin with practiced precision. "We should align on key talking points—"
"The Q3 projections need adjustment." I grasp the professional topic like a lifeline. "If we're presenting to serious investors, we should temper expectations in the—"
"Shane."
The voice cuts through our conversation. Shane's entire demeanor transforms instantly—warmth freezing to ice, his shoulders going rigid with a tension I haven't seen before.
A man stands at our table. Tall, polished, wearing a smile that doesn't reach his calculating eyes. The family resemblance is unmistakable—similar jaw, similar build—but where Shane carries himself with controlled authority, this man radiates something slicker. More predatory.
"What a coincidence, finding you here." The man's gaze slides to me with open assessment. "And this must be the famous Audrey Lennox. I've heard so much about your arrangement. I'm Stellan Reed—Shane's cousin. The one he never mentions at family gatherings."
"I don't recall inviting you to this lunch," Shane says, his voice carrying the particular coldness of deep, personal hatred. "Or to San Francisco. Or into any conversation involving my business or my fiancée."
"Family doesn't need invitations, cousin. We simply appear when needed." Stellan's smile widens. "And I have a feeling you'll be needing me quite a lot in the coming months."
The warmth I'd glimpsed in Shane vanishes completely. Whatever complicated man had held me at the airport, had apologized with sincerity in his voice—that man is gone.
In his place sits someone I recognize all too well: the golden prince of Hilmond Academy, wearing his crown like armor against everyone who might try to take it.