EPISODE 14- An Unapproved Asset
(Author's POV)
The screen glows in the dark dorm room, illuminating a face twisted not with malice but with a desperate, focused hunger. The video plays on a loop—a shaky, zoomed-in clip of a kiss outside a club, all tangled limbs and possessive hands. A finger traces the pixelated curve of a girl's cheek on the monitor. She doesn't see him. No one sees him. But he sees everything. The upload was just the beginning. A way to make the private public, to shatter the perfect glass cage someone else lives in. The intention isn't clear, even to him. It's a feeling—a hot, sharp need to connect, to be part of the heat, even from the shadows. He leans closer, the blue light reflecting in his eyes. The story isn't over. He's just waiting for the next chapter to write itself.
*
Ethan's POV
The silence in the car after I leave the library is absolute, and it screams.
Her hand is still in mine, a small, warm anchor in the storm of my head. I can still taste her—philosophy textbooks and that stubborn, sweet defiance. I drove us away from campus, from the eyes, but I can't drive us away from the command hanging over me like a blade.
My father's words, delivered over seared scallops and mineral water, are etched into my skull. You will escort Veronica Thorne. It will be photographed.
I glance at Layla. She's staring out the passenger window, her profile soft in the dying light. She's quiet. Too quiet. The fury of our kiss in the library has cooled into something tense and brittle.
"He knows," I say, the words cutting the silence. I don't specify. She knows.
She turns her head slowly. "Knows what, exactly? That you kissed me? Or that you want me?"
Her voice is steady, but there's a tremor underneath it. A fear she's mastering. It guts me.
"Both." I tighten my grip on the steering wheel. "To him, it's the same thing. A deviation from the plan. An unapproved asset."
"An asset." She repeats the word flatly, turning it over like a stone. "Is that what I am, Ethan? Another thing for Marcus to manage?"
"No." The denial is instant, violent. "You are the only thing he can't manage. That's the problem."
I pull the car onto a scenic overlook, killing the engine. The view of Avalon below is a sprawl of twinkling lights, a kingdom my father built. From here, it looks peaceful. Controlled. A lie.
"He wants me to take Veronica Thorne to the Arts Centre Gala next Friday," I say, staring straight ahead. "A public appearance. Photographs. A… correction."
The air in the car becomes too thick to breathe. I feel her stare, a physical weight on the side of my face.
"And will you?" Her question is a whisper, barely there.
I finally look at her. The vulnerability in her eyes is a raw, open wound. She's waiting for me to confirm every ugly rumour, every whispered prediction that she's just a fling. A spark meant to burn out.
A cold, clean resolve solidifies in my veins. This is the line. The rebellion isn't a thought anymore. It's an action.
"No," I say, and the word feels like the first true thing I've ever spoken.
Her breath hitches.
"But he'll—" she starts.
"I don't care what he'll do," I cut her off, my voice low and final. "Let him try. He thinks this is about image. About headlines." I reach across the console, my fingers finding her chin, tilting her face to mine. Her skin is so soft. "This has nothing to do with any of that. This is about the fact that when I'm with you, the fucking noise in my head stops. The performance ends. For a few minutes, I'm just… me. And you look at that guy, the one behind the smile, and you don't run."
Her eyes shimmer. "Ethan…"
"He gave me an order." My thumb strokes her lower lip, remembering its fullness, its taste. "So I'm giving myself one."
I lean closer, our foreheads almost touching. The world outside the car ceases to exist. There is only her scent, her warmth, the electric current that always arcs between us.
"My order," I whisper, my voice rough with a possessiveness that comes from a place deeper than arrogance, deeper than legacy, "is that you come with me. Not to a gala. Not to be seen. But to be with me. Somewhere he can't reach. Somewhere no one is watching."
The conflict plays out on her face—the practical fear, the memory of her mother's warning, the social cost she's already paying. It wars with the pulse I can see pounding in her throat, the way her lips part, the darkening of her eyes.
"Where?" she breathes, and the word is a surrender.
I allow myself a small, real smile. The one she pulls from me. "A place I own. Not my father. Me. A cabin. Up north. It's on no Marshall ledger. He doesn't know it exists."
It's my one true secret. A purchase made with money I siphoned through a shell company I built at sixteen. My emergency exit. My panic room. And now, I want to make it ours.
"When?" she asks.
"Now." The urgency is a drumbeat in my blood. "We drive. Tonight. We miss classes tomorrow. We disappear."
It's insane. Reckless. It will set off every alarm in my father's world. Marcus will be tasked to find me. The narrative will spiral out of Gregory Marshall's control.
The thought is a thrill.
Layla searches my face, looking for the lie, the trap. She finds only a desperate, determined truth. Slowly, the fear in her eyes melts, replaced by a spark of the same wildness I feel. A rebellion of her own.
"Okay," she says. Simple. Quiet. Earth-shattering.
Okay.
The word unlocks something feral in my chest. I don't kiss her. Not yet. The promise of what's to come is a sweeter torture. Instead, I bring her hand to my mouth and press my lips to her…
—