CHAPTER 7

Cameron, I have a boyfriend."

"I know. Leo." He nodded. "And if you love him, really love him, then I'll back off. But Maeve, does he see you? The way you calculate angles while you're cooking, the way you turn problems into solutions, the fire in you that won't quit even when you should?" His voice dropped. "Or does he just see someone who needs protecting?"

The question cut too deep.

Leo did see her as fragile. As someone to shelter. It was sweet, sure, but it also made her feel small. Like she was something easily broken instead of something being forged.

"This isn't fair," she whispered.

"Nothing about this is fair." Cameron stood, pulling out his wallet and tossing cash on the table. "Come on. I'll take you home."

The drive back was quiet, charged with words neither of them spoke.

When he pulled up outside her apartment, tiny, paint peeling, nothing like the world she'd just left, Cameron turned to her.

"Whatever you decide," he said, "about the Challenge, about Carter, about any of this, I'm on your side. Not the company's side. Yours."

Then he did something that stopped her heart.

He leaned over and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. Gentle. Protective. Utterly devastating.

"Be careful, Maeve. There are more players in this game than you know."

He drove away, leaving her standing on the cracked sidewalk, her world tilting on its axis.

Inside her apartment, the lights were on.

Maeve's heart jumped. She'd left them off.

"Leo?" she called, pushing the door open slowly.

He sat on her worn couch, still in his jacket, his expression carved from stone.

"Where were you?" His voice was flat. Controlled. The kind of control that meant he was barely holding it together.

"The gala ran late. I told you…"

"Until three in the morning?" He stood, and she saw her phone in his hand. Her phone that she'd left on the counter. His thumb moved across the screen, and she realized with growing horror what he was looking at.

Carter's text. You looked beautiful tonight.

"Leo, it's not…"

"Not what?" His voice cracked. "Not what it looks like? Because it looks like you're getting cozy with a billionaire who wants to own you. It looks like you're lying to me. It looks like…" He stopped, rubbing his face. "I tracked your phone, Maeve. You weren't at the gala at 2 AM. You were at some diner. With someone."

"You tracked my phone?" Anger sparked, hot and defensive.

"Because you're shutting me out!" Leo shouted, then seemed to catch himself, lowering his voice. "Ever since this challenge started, you've been different. Distant. And I get it, you need the money, your family needs it, but Jesus, Maeve, at what cost? Your integrity? Us?"

Guilt and fury warred in her chest. "I'm doing this for my family. That's it."

"Are you?" He stepped closer, eyes searching hers. "Or are you doing it because for the first time, someone's making you feel special? Important? Someone's making you feel like you're more than a street vendor?"

The words hit like a slap.

"How dare you," she breathed.

"Tell me I'm wrong." Leo's voice broke. "Tell me you're not falling for it. For him. For them."

Maeve opened her mouth. Closed it.

Because she couldn't.

Not honestly.

The silence stretched, awful and telling.

Leo nodded slowly, something dying in his eyes. "Yeah. That's what I thought." He grabbed his jacket, headed for the door. "Call me when you figure out who you actually are, Maeve. The girl I fell for, or whoever Carter Langston's turning you into."

The door slammed.

Maeve stood in her tiny apartment, surrounded by the evidence of her real life, ramen packets on the counter, unpaid bills on the table, her mother's photo on the shelf, and felt something crack inside her chest.

She'd lost Leo.

Jade was in the hospital.

Cameron had kissed her forehead like a promise.

And Carter, Carter was still a mystery wrapped in threats and temptation.

Her phone buzzed. Another unknown number.

Final round tomorrow. 10 AM. Langston Tower. Come alone. 

Then, seconds later, another message. Same number.

P.S. I know about the business card. Use it, and you'll regret it. Don't test me.

Maeve's blood turned to ice.

He was watching. Somehow, he knew about her conversation with the Takahashi executive.

Which meant he probably knew about Jade's bathroom confession too.

Which meant Jade's "accident" maybe wasn't an accident at all.

Maeve sank onto her couch, head in her hands, and tried to remember when her life had stopped being about tamales and survival and turned into something dark and dangerous.

Tomorrow. Final round.

She could walk away. Protect what was left of her normal life.

But normal didn't pay for chemo. Normal didn't keep Tommy in school or save Rita's diner.

And somewhere beneath the fear, beneath the exhaustion, a tiny flame of defiance still burned.

Carter Langston thought he could control her with threats and money?

He had no idea who he was dealing with.

The morning came too fast and wrong, like waking up with a hangover minus the fun of the night before. Maeve's alarm screamed at 7 AM, and she slapped it silent with more force than necessary.

Her apartment felt smaller than usual, the walls pressing in. Leo's absence was a wound, raw and open. She'd checked her phone seventeen times overnight, no messages from him, just the silent accusation of his last words echoing in her skull.

Call me when you figure out who you actually are.

Maeve stood under the weak spray of her shower, letting lukewarm water wash over her, and tried to think clearly.

Carter Langston was either a ruthless manipulator covering up corporate crimes, or a man trying to fix his father's mistakes. Possibly both.

Jade Kensington had damning evidence and was now hospitalized under suspicious circumstances.

 Cameron Langston was either genuinely kind or playing the longest con of all.

The Takahashi executive had given her a business card, an invitation to betray Carter.

And Carter knew about it. Which meant he was watching her every move.

The final round was in three hours.

After that, one woman would become Mrs. Carter Langston. A two-year contract marriage. Fifty million dollars in compensation, according to the fine print she'd finally forced herself to read last night.

Fifty million.

The number was obscene. Life-changing. The kind of money that could save her mother, send Tommy to any college he wanted, rebuild Rita's diner into something sustainable, and still leave enough to never worry again.

All she had to do was sell two years of her life to a man she didn't trust.

Maeve dried off, staring at her reflection in the foggy mirror. The girl looking back seemed like a stranger, harder around the eyes, thinner in the face, like the last few weeks had carved away everything soft.

Her phone buzzed. She grabbed it, hoping stupidly for Leo.

Instead: A car will pick you up at 9:15. Don't be late. And Maeve? Dress like you belong. 

The presumption of it made her teeth grind.