Scarlett wakes to sunlight.
Real sunlight. Streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows. The bed beneath her is soft enough to feel like a cloud. The sheets are Egyptian cotton. The room smells like nothing and everything—clean air, possibility, a future.
For three weeks, she'd forgotten what it felt like to wake up safe.
She lies there for a long moment, afraid to move. Afraid this is a dream. Afraid she'll open her eyes and find herself back in the car.
But the softness is real. The light is real. The apartment Cameron's team delivered her to is real.
She reaches for her phone. It's buzzing. Dozens of notifications. Hundreds. The news has broken.
"Cameron Ashford Engaged to Scandal Girl: Billionaire's New Love Interest Shocks London"
"From Broken Heiress to Billionaire's Bride: Who is Scarlett Mitchell?"
"Leaked Photos Girl Lands Richest Man in Britain: How Did She Do It?"
The headlines make her skin crawl. She clicks on the images. Photos of her and Cameron at his office building yesterday. Security cameras must have caught them leaving. In the photos, she's looking at him like he hung the moon. Her hand is on his arm. Her expression is open and desperate.
Cameron is looking away.
In every single photo, he's professionally polite. Distant. Like she's a business associate he's being kind to. The contrast is brutal. She looks like she's falling. He looks like he's tolerating her.
The internet has already started dissecting it.
"Notice how he doesn't look at her?" one commenter writes.
"He seems uncomfortable with her," another says.
"This looks like a transaction, not a relationship."
Scarlett turns her phone off.
She spends the rest of the day in the apartment pretending to be okay. She explores the rooms. She sits in the Italian kitchen she'll never cook in. She stands in the walk-in closet filled with clothes that are perfect and expensive and don't feel like hers. Everything is beautiful. Everything is suffocating.
At 7 PM, her doorbell rings.
Cameron stands in her doorway looking like he belongs in a magazine shoot. Dark suit. Pristine. Cold.
"The gala is in four days," he says without greeting. "We need to practice."
He steps into her apartment like he owns it. Maybe he does. Scarlett doesn't actually know what she owns versus what's just temporary.
"Practice what," she asks, though she knows.
"Convincing people we're in love," he says flatly.
He hands her a coffee cup. She didn't ask for coffee. She never told him how she takes it. But when she opens the lid, it's exactly right. Almond milk. One sugar. A splash of vanilla.
How does he know that?
"I'm observant," Cameron says, reading her face. "It's useful for business."
Scarlett holds the coffee like it's evidence. Like it proves something. Like he cares enough to notice.
But his tone is clinical. Observant is just strategy. Noticing her preferences is just gathering data.
"Show me," he says.
"Show you what," Scarlett asks.
"How you look at someone when you're in love with them. I need to understand the performance."
The word "performance" lands like a punch.
Scarlett sets down the coffee. She walks toward him. Close enough that she can see the tiny scar above his left eyebrow. Close enough to notice he doesn't move away. Close enough to feel the space between them like a living thing.
She looks at him the way she's been looking at him since his phone buzzed with Victoria's name. Like she's drowning and he's the only shore. Like he broke something in her that she might never fix.
His jaw tightens.
"Like that," he says, his voice different. Rougher. "People will believe that."
"It's a lie," Scarlett says quietly.
"Good," Cameron replies. "Lies are easier to control."
He steps back. Creates distance. The spell breaks.
"At the gala, stay close to me. Don't let anyone separate us. When I touch you, respond like you want me to. When I look at you, look back like I'm the only person in the room."
"So I fake being in love with you while you're in love with Victoria," Scarlett says. She doesn't know where the words come from.
Cameron's expression hardens. "That's not your concern."
"It is," Scarlett says. "If I have to perform being in love, the least you owe me is honesty about why you're keeping me at a distance."
"I'm not keeping you at a distance," he says coldly.
"You're here," Scarlett says. "In my apartment. You know how I take my coffee. You're telling me how to behave like I'm yours. But you won't look at me like I'm a person. You look at me like I'm a problem you're solving. And every time I get close, you pull away."
Cameron doesn't answer. He walks to her window and looks out at London.
"I'm protecting the arrangement," he says finally. His voice is quiet. Almost like he's talking to himself. "If we get too close, people will see through it. They'll sense the lie. I need you to understand that my distance is strategic."
But Scarlett doesn't believe that. She watches him standing at her window looking like he's drowning in something she can't see. She watches his hands clench and unclench. She watches a man who's so good at lying that he's convinced even himself.
"The distance is working," Scarlett says. "I can feel it destroying me exactly like you planned."
Cameron turns to face her. Something raw flickers across his features.
"Don't," he says.
"Don't what," Scarlett asks.
"Don't make this real. Don't make me care about you. This is temporary, Scarlett. In six months, we separate. You move on. I move on. No one gets hurt if you remember that this is just business."
His words are supposed to be a boundary. Instead, they're a confession. He's afraid. He's keeping her at a distance because he's already starting to fall, and he thinks the distance will protect them both.
It won't. They both know it won't.
"What if I can't remember that," Scarlett says.
"Then you're going to have a very difficult six months," Cameron says. He moves toward the door. "I'll pick you up Saturday at eight. Wear the dress they sent. Smile like you mean it."
As he reaches for the door handle, Scarlett calls out.
"Cameron."
He pauses. Doesn't turn around.
"When you look at her," Scarlett says, "when you look at Victoria on the phone, you look alive. When you look at me, you look trapped. How do you expect me to believe this is just performance when you can't even hide how you actually feel?"
He leaves without answering.
But as the elevator doors close behind him, Scarlett realizes something terrifying. She just fell in love with a man who's made it clear he doesn't want her love. A man who's keeping her at a distance specifically to protect his own heart. A man who looks at someone else the way he'll never look at her.
This isn't a fake engagement anymore.
This is a slow beautiful destruction.
And she's already too far gone to stop it.