CHAPTER SIX

Diane's POV (Real Time)

The chant reached me before the kiss did.

Kiss. Kiss.

It rippled through the room light, playful, careless. I barely registered it at first. My attention was fixed on the stage, on the way Eddie stood beside Shine, on the tension locked into his shoulders. It wasn't nerves. It was control coiled and deliberate, like something waiting to be unleashed.

Then he moved.

Not hesitantly.

Not reluctantly.

He pulled her in.

Time didn't slow.

It fractured.

My breath hitched painfully. For one humiliating second, I forgot how to look away. My eyes refused to blink as his hand settled at her waist firm, possessive drawing her closer until her body fit against his with practiced ease.

And then he kissed her.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

The room erupted cheers, whistles, applause but the sound collapsed inward, muffled and distant, as though I'd been dragged underwater. My ears rang. My chest tightened until breathing became something I had to consciously remember to do.

This shouldn't matter, I told myself.

This shouldn't hurt.

But it did.

Something sharp and irrational stabbed beneath my ribs, sudden and invasive. My fingers curled at my sides, nails biting into skin as if pain might anchor me to the present. Heat rushed to my face, followed immediately by something colder exposure. Shame.

Why does it feel like that kiss isn't for her?

My throat tightened.

And then

His eyes lifted.

Not to the crowd.

Not to the cameras.

To me.

The connection was immediate. Violent in its quiet.

My pulse slammed so hard my vision blurred. His gaze didn't soften. Didn't waver. It held mine with dark, deliberate intent, as though he were pinning me in place while the rest of the world continued to celebrate.

The kiss didn't stop.

And something inside me fractured.

This wasn't affection.

It wasn't celebration.

It was a display.

A warning dressed as romance.

My stomach twisted as thoughts collided anger, disbelief, and something far more dangerous: recognition.

Why is he looking at me?

Why does it feel like I'm the one being claimed?

I forced my lungs to work.

Forced my shoulders to lower.

Forced my face into stillness.

I would not give him the satisfaction.

Beside me, Johnathan shifted. His hand brushed my arm familiar, grounding. I clung to it like proof that I still existed outside whatever Eddie was doing.

But my body didn't forget.

When the kiss finally ended, the applause surged louder. Shine glowed radiant, triumphant. Eddie stepped back into composure as if nothing of consequence had occurred.

As if he hadn't just reached across a crowded room and touched something fragile inside me.

I broke eye contact first.

"To the future," someone said.

I drank.

The champagne tasted bitter.

Across the room, I felt his gaze lingering,unrushed. Certain.

And a truth settled deep in my bones:

This wasn't over.

It had just begun.

Johnathan drove me home in silence the kind that presses against your ears and makes your thoughts louder instead of quieter.

"Thank you," I said finally. "For tonight."

"You're family," he replied gently. "I'm always here."

The word family lodged in my chest like something unfinished.

When I got home, I collapsed onto my bed without changing and slept like I'd been sedated.

I told myself it was finished.

The spectacle was over.

The damage contained.

I was wrong.

The days that followed blurred together. Routine carried me when thought became too heavy. Eddie's presence returned in fragments never loud, never dramatic. Just there.

Susan's call came like a crack in the fog.

A job.

An interview.

Something separate.

Hope, cautious and fragile, took root.

The waiting room stripped that hope quickly.

Everyone looked sharper. More certain. Built for rooms like this.

"I heard the CEO is interviewing personally," someone whispered.

One by one, candidates returned hollow eyed.

I checked my phone.

Nothing.

I stood.

Go home, Diane.

Mercy disguised as retreat.

I took one step

"Diane Jacobs."

My body locked.

"It's time for your interview."

Time.

I moved before fear could decide for me.

Inside the room, I bowed my head. "Good morning."

"Introduce yourself," someone said.

I lifted my head.

And the air vanished from my lungs.

It was him.

"You" escaped before I could stop it.

"Excuse me?" the man snapped.

"S sorry. Diane Jacobs."

Then Eddie spoke.

"I'll take it from here."

The room shifted. Authority bent toward him.

"Sit down, Diane."

The chair felt like judgment.

Why does it have to be him?

He studied me in silence, slow and invasive.

"Tell me," he said calmly, "why I should hire someone who already looks like she wants to escape."

The question landed hard.

My chest tightened. Every instinct urged me to shrink, to apologize for taking up space in his world. I felt the pull to disappear.

But I didn't.

I swallowed. My hands trembled in my lap, but I kept my voice low and steady.

"I don't want to escape," I said. "I just wasn't expecting... this."

His gaze sharpened.

"Meaning?"

"I wasn't expecting to be judged before I spoke," I said carefully. "But I'm still here."

Silence stretched, deliberate.

"You come from privilege," he said. "Connections. Comfort. So why apply for a Personal Assistant role instead of running something that was handed to you?"

The words struck deeper than I wanted them to.

I looked down briefly just long enough to steady myself then met his eyes again.

"Because what's handed to you doesn't always belong to you," I said. "And it can be taken just as easily."

My voice wavered, but I didn't stop.

"I want something I earn. Even if it's small."

The room went still.

Eddie watched me closely, as if he were searching for a flaw beneath the restraint.

"You're underqualified on paper," he said at last.

My stomach dropped.

"But overqualified in restraint."

I froze.

"You start Monday."

The words didn't feel real.

Then, quieter only for me:

"Don't confuse this with kindness."

I met his gaze, my pulse loud in my ears.

"I won't."

As I walked out, one certainty followed me like a shadow:

This wasn't a job.

It was the beginning of something I didn't yet have a name for and already feared I couldn't escape.

The hallway felt narrower as I walked out, the air heavier, as though the building itself had shifted around me. Relief tried to surface, but it dissolved too quickly, replaced by a slow, creeping unease. Getting the job should have felt like victory. Instead, it felt like consent silent, unspoken, and irreversible.

I didn’t look back. I was afraid that if I did, I’d find him watching, already certain of his reach. Whatever line I’d crossed inside that room couldn’t be uncrossed now. This wasn’t just employment. It was entanglement, and I could already feel it tightening.

By the time I stepped outside, the sunlight felt intrusive, almost cruel in its normalcy. Cars moved. People laughed into their phones. Life continued as if nothing had shifted. But something had. I carried it with me, lodged beneath my ribs a quiet awareness that whatever waited ahead was not accidental, and that I had just agreed to step directly into it.