Your Fiancée

Chapter 5: Your Fiancée?

Leah 

When I woke up, the other side of the bed was cold.

I stretched a hand across the ridiculously soft sheets and found nothing but empty space and the faint scent of whatever expensive cologne he’d been wearing. 

No warm body. No low morning voice. No evidence that last night had been anything more than a very vivid, very expensive hallucination.

Of course he was gone.

What had I expected? A goodbye kiss and a handwritten sonnet? He was a high-end escort. He probably had a whole calendar of lonely rich people to service. 

I was just Tuesday night’s charity case with a broken heart and a maxed-out savings account.

I sat up slowly. Every muscle in my body reminded me, in vivid detail, exactly how thoroughly he’d ruined me for ordinary men. The ache between my legs was especially vocal about it.

“Walk of shame without the shame part,” I muttered to the empty room. “Progress.”

I reached for my purse on the nightstand and froze halfway. There was a small black box sitting beside it. A folded note rested on top.

I picked up the note first.

For you. Something urgent came up and I had to leave. —

No name. Just a dash. Classic.

I crumpled the paper in my fist and glared at the box. Then curiosity won and I opened it.

A diamond bracelet winked up at me under the soft bedroom light. I knew that bracelet.

I knew it the way a jeweler’s assistant knows every piece that has ever made her heart race and her bank account weep. 

There were only two of them in the world. One sat in the secure display at the store I worked in. The other… apparently now sat in a velvet box in a penthouse that supposedly belonged to one of his “clients.”

My stomach did a weird flip.

How the hell did a gigolo afford a piece that cost more than most people’s houses?

I was still staring at it when my phone started screaming from inside my purse. Megan’s name flashed across the screen.

“Leah! Where the hell are you?”

Only then did the catastrophic realization hit. I had a job and I was late for that job.

“Shit.”

“You’re late,” Megan announced, voice sharp with the particular panic of someone who had just lied to management. “I told Louise you were at the hospital because you ate something bad and were violently rearranging your internal organs. She expects you in ninety minutes. Move.”

She hung up before I could thank her or confess my sins.

I was on my feet in seconds, snatching clothes off the floor like the building was on fire. Dress. Underwear. The bracelet stayed in the box. I shoved both into my purse and practically sprinted out of the penthouse that now held one of the best and most confusing nights of my life.

By the time I made it to the store—showered, changed, and looking only mildly like a woman who had been thoroughly railed by a mysteriously wealthy escort—Megan was already waiting with a look that said she wanted every single detail. 

“You’re lucky,” she whispered as I smoothed my uniform. “Louise was two seconds from rewriting the schedule without you. What were you doing all night?”

I felt heat crawl up my neck. “Things… escalated.”

Megan’s eyes went huge. “Escalated how? Like ‘we talked about our feelings’ escalated or ‘I can still feel him when I walk’ escalated?”

“Megan.”

“The second one. Got it.” She fanned herself. “Please tell me the mask came off and he was even hotter underneath.”

I ignored that particular landmine and focused on straightening a display that did not need straightening. “How bad is the internet situation?”

Her grin turned feral. “Bryce completely humiliated himself at his own wedding. There was actual news coverage. Someone leaked phone videos. Public opinion is currently dragging him and Greta through the digital streets. People are calling him ‘Trust Fund Leech’ and ‘Stepsister Specialist.’ It’s beautiful.”

I should have felt triumph.

Instead I felt exposed. The whole world now knew the details of my personal nightmare. Everything.

Megan noticed the shift in my face and softened. “Hey. The world sees him for what he is. A disgusting prick. You’re the one who walked out looking like a queen with a mysterious masked man on her arm. You’re winning.”

“Winning feels a lot like barely surviving,” I muttered.

The door chimed.

I straightened on pure muscle memory, a professional smile already locked in place, and stepped forward to greet the customer.

Then I stopped dead.

He stood just inside the entrance, looking unfairly perfect in a black suit. No mask this time. 

My brain short-circuited. “What are you doing here?” I blurted.

Megan’s head whipped between us so fast I was surprised she didn’t get whiplash. “Leah. Do you know him?”

He smiled, pleased. “You remember me.”

Of course I remembered him. My body still had the receipt. I cleared my throat and forced my voice into something resembling professional.

“What would you like to purchase today, sir?”

His eyes flicked over me in a way that made last night flash behind my eyelids in high definition. “I’m looking for a ring.”

My stomach dropped for reasons I refused to examine.

“What type of ring? A gift?” I asked, already moving toward the secured cases because I was a professional, damn it.

“Something like that.” He followed, hands in his pockets, completely at ease. “I was hoping you could help me choose.”

I unlocked the case with slightly unsteady fingers. “Of course. Do you have a preference for cut? Carat? Metal?”

“I want you to pick according to what you like.”

I looked up sharply. “Excuse me?”

“Show me the rings you personally think are beautiful,” he said, voice mild. “The ones you’d choose if someone was buying for you.”

Megan made a tiny choked sound behind the counter and suddenly became very interested in rearranging a tray of earrings.

I stared at him. “That’s… an unusual request.”

“I’m an unusual client.”

Understatement of the century.

Still, I was good at my job. I pulled out three trays and began the familiar dance of explaining clarity and color and why some diamonds were worth more than others. 

He listened like every word mattered. Every time I pointed out a detail I loved, he watched my face instead of the jewelry.

It was unnerving but it was also ridiculously flattering.

We narrowed it down to two. One was a classic solitaire with a stone so clean it almost hurt to look at. The other was slightly more unique—a halo setting with tiny diamonds that made the center stone look like it was glowing from the inside.

I kept coming back to the halo.

“This one,” I said finally, turning the ring under the light. “If someone was buying for me, this is the one I’d want. It’s not the biggest. It’s not the most expensive. But it’s the one that feels like it means something.”

He took it from me carefully, studying it the way he’d studied me last night—like he was memorizing every detail.

“Then this is the one,” he said.

I blinked. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

He set it down and looked at me directly. “I’ll take it.”

My professional brain kicked back in. I started the paperwork, trying not to notice how close he was standing or how my body still remembered the exact weight of him.

Curiosity finally won.

“Can I ask what it’s for?” I said, keeping my tone light. “Anniversary? Proposal? Extremely fancy apology?”

He slipped one hand into his pocket and answered like he was commenting on the weather.

“It’s for my fiancée.”

The pen in my hand stopped moving. The entire store seemed to tilt sideways. I lifted my head slowly. “Your… fiancée.”

“Yes.”

Last night flashed through my mind in brutal clarity. His mouth on my skin. The way he’d held me afterward. The careful way he’d wiped my tears in the parking lot. The diamond bracelet currently burning a hole in my purse.

All of it while he had a fiancée waiting somewhere. I felt sick to my stomach. 

“You’re engaged,” I said. My voice sounded strange to my own ears.

He watched me carefully. “I am.”

Did I just… sleep with someone else’s man?