Chapter 6: Forty Eight Hours

The front door clicked shut behind me and for one second, just one, I let my shoulders drop.

My feet were killing me. Twelve hours in heels that cost more than gem, and my face ached from smiling at a man I wanted to strangle. I set my clutch on the counter and my hand brushed the edge of it, feeling the hard shape of the phone inside.

I didn't check the timer. Not yet. I needed five minutes where I wasn't Veronica and wasn't Vivian either. Just a woman standing alone in a marble kitchen, breathing.

I peeled the gown off piece by piece as I walked to the bathroom, leaving it in a trail behind me like shedding skin. The shower water hit hot and hard, and I stood under it with my forehead against the tile, letting it run down my back until my skin turned pink. I scrubbed the makeup off my face, watching the gray blue tint of my contacts swirl down the drain along with everything else the night had put on me.

When I finally shut the water off, the silence felt loud.

I wrapped a towel around myself, tucked the corner in at my chest, and pushed the bathroom door open, already reaching up to twist my wet hair off my neck.

He was sitting on my bed.

My whole body locked up. "God—"

"Relax." Silas didn't even look up. He had a tablet balanced on his knee, his tie loosened, his sleeves rolled to the forearm, like he'd been there for a while and didn't think it was worth mentioning. "You made it back in time."

I gripped the towel tighter at my chest, my knuckles going white against the fabric. My heart was still hammering from the fright of finding someone in my room, but underneath that was something else, something that made my face go hot. I stood there, dripping onto the floor, feeling exposed in a way that had nothing to do with the towel.

He glanced up then. Just once. His eyes moved over me the way they'd move over a spreadsheet, quick and flat, and then went right back to the screen.

That was worse than if he'd stared.

I didn't know why it stung. I told myself it shouldn't matter. I told myself I didn't want him looking at me like anything other than an asset he'd bought and dressed and pointed at Julian. But my face burned anyway, and I hated that it did.

"You could have knocked," I said, my voice coming out sharper than I meant it.

"I did. Twice." He tapped the tablet screen. "Get dressed. You'll want to see this."

I wanted to argue. I wanted to tell him to get out of my bedroom, that I'd just spent the whole night performing for a man who destroyed my life and I was tired, that I deserved ten minutes alone in my own skin. But the words stuck in my throat. I thought about the red numbers ticking on that phone, about what happened to people who slowed him down, and I swallowed everything I wanted to say.

I grabbed the silk robe off the hook and pulled it on in the bathroom doorway, cinching the belt hard enough to hurt.

"Fine," I said. "Show me."

I crossed the room and stood beside him at the small desk near the window, where he'd set up a second monitor I didn't even know I owned. Rows of numbers filled the screen, columns of green sliding into red as I watched.

"What am I looking at?"

"Vance Shipping's operating account." He scrolled, and more red bled up the screen. "Julian moved twelve million out for that jade dragon this morning. His accountant tried to cover it by pulling from a reserve fund meant for dock insurance. That fund had already been drained forty percent by payroll last week."

"So he's bleeding."

"He's about to hemorrhage." Silas leaned back in the chair, arms crossed, watching the numbers like they were a fire he'd started and wanted to see spread. "In forty eight hours, the bank's automated system flags the account for review. Once that happens, every vendor with access to his credit terms gets a notification. Suppliers get nervous. Nervous suppliers demand payment up front. It compounds fast."

I stared at the screen, at the neat little rows destroying a man's empire without him even knowing it yet. Somewhere in the back of my mind I could still hear him, laughing at that gala, calling me darling, patting my hand like I was a prize he'd already won.

"Good," I muttered, mostly to myself.

Silas didn't look away from the monitor, but something in the set of his shoulders changed. "What was that?"

"Nothing."

"Vivian."

I turned my head and he was already standing, closer than I expected, close enough that I had to tip my chin up to hold his eyes. My back nearly touched the desk. I could smell rain still clinging to his shirt from wherever he'd come from before he let himself into my room.

"What did you say," he asked again, quieter this time, and it wasn't really a question.

"I said good," I told him, lifting my chin higher, refusing to shrink. "Is that a problem?"

"Your job is to play a part, not to enjoy it out loud where anyone with ears could hear you." His voice had an edge now, low and controlled, the kind of controlled that told me he was working hard to keep it that way. "One slip. One wrong word in front of the wrong person. That's all it takes to undo everything."

"I know what's at stake, Silas. Better than you do." My voice cracked on his name, just slightly, and I hated that too. "I'm the one whose name is on that contract. I'm the one who bleeds if the clock hits zero, not you."

"You think I don't know that?"

"I think it's hard," I said, and once I started the words wouldn't stop coming, "to stand in a room full of people and smile at the man who ruined my life, and then watch numbers on a screen and feel nothing. It's hard to turn it off. I'm not a machine. I don't get to just switch it on and off like you do."

For a second neither of us said anything. The only sound was the soft hum of the monitor and my own breathing, still too fast.

He was close enough now that I could see the tension in his jaw, the way his eyes had dropped to search my face like he was looking for something specific and hadn't found it yet. I didn't step back. I don't know why. Every instinct I had told me to put distance between us, and I stood there instead, towel damp against my collarbone, robe barely tied, letting him look.

"Vivian," he said again, softer.

He lifted his hand, like he meant to touch my face, or my hair, or maybe just to prove to himself he could.

His watch beeped.

Sharp, insistent, twice in a row. He froze, hand still half raised, and looked down at it. Whatever had been building in the room between us snapped clean in half. His expression shut down so fast it was like watching a light go out.

"What is it," I asked, my pulse jumping into my throat for a different reason now.

Silas turned the watch face toward himself, read whatever was on it, and his jaw tightened.

"Julian," he said.

I felt the blood drain straight out of my face. "Is he here?"