Chapter 3

Elara

The moment the plane’s wheels touched the tarmac, I turned my phone back on.

Big mistake.

It lit up like the Fourth of July fireworks. Seventeen missed calls from Elliot. Twelve from Vivienne. A string of texts from Clara ranging from sympathetic to worried to hysterical.

I shot the women a quick text: ‘Went to Greece. Be back later.’

‘GREECE?!’

‘YOU WENT RIGHT BACK TO WORK?!’

I silenced the strings of frenzied texts and slipped the device into my bag. The drive from the airport to the hotel was short and suffocatingly tense.

I kept my gaze fixed on the view outside the window, watching whitewashed villas stacked against the volcanic cliffs of Santorini; the Sea stretched out behind them, forming a hard, brilliant backdrop that could easily have taken my breath away.

Yet, I didn’t have a drop of excitement to spare. My first time in Greece, and none of its beauty registered.

My mind was trapped in an agonizing loop—circling back to the video, the mountain of unread messages waiting in my inbox, and the horrifying reality of the life I’d run away from.

I stole a sideways glance at Lucien. He was typing fast on his tablet and hadn't said a word since we left the airport. I’d learned early on that Lucien Beaumont didn’t waste words when he saw no need for them. His silences were as precise and intimidating as he was.

I found myself quietly grateful for the quiet. If he had asked me how I was holding up, or offered a single token of pity, I knew the fragile mask I was wearing would’ve shattered instantly.

The hotel suite was larger than I expected, with two bedrooms joined by a wide living area that opened onto a private terrace. Our luggage had already been delivered by the concierge.

Lucien claimed the room on the left without a word. I took the right, closing the heavy wooden door behind me and shedding my clothes.

The shower was scalding as I stepped under it, letting it wash away the traces of airport air and lingering heartbreak.

When I finished, I pulled on dark trousers, a loose silk shirt, and swept my damp hair back into a sleek, neat bun.

Elliot used to call it my professional armor. After all, I was Elara Whitmore, the hyper-organized, perpetually punctual Lead Art Acquisitor who never made a mistake and never lost her cool.

Now, standing in front of the mirror, the outfit felt more like paper wrapping around a hollow corpse.

I took a deep breath, picked up my laptop and notes, and stepped into the living area.

Lucien was already seated at the long table, several neat stacks of documents laid out before him. The sheer presence of him filled the room along with the sharp scent of his cologne.

As I approached, his dark eyes lifted from the page. He gave me a slow, assessing look before turning his gaze back to his papers.

"The collector’s name is Nikolas Apostolou," Lucien said in a deep, smooth voice as I slid into the chair across from him. "Seventy-eight. Widowed. The collection was assembled over forty-three years with his late wife, who painted everything herself. From what I’ve read, he refuses corporate buyers on principle. He wants the pieces to stay with people who understand what it meant to them."

I opened my laptop, forcing my hands to remain steady as I clicked on the first recorded interview of Apostolou.

"He sounds deeply sentimental," I said after a few minutes. "Perhaps we approach it from a personal angle.”

“Clarify.”

“What if we tell him we’re a married couple? And—”

"No." The word was flat, and absolute.

I paused, my fingers hovering over the keyboard. "It’s merely a strategy—"

"I’m not in the habit of building multi-million-dollar acquisitions on deceit, Miss Whitmore," Lucien said, not even bothering to look up. "And you would do well not to suggest it again."

A sharp prickle of shame burned at the back of my neck. “Understood, sir. Well, our Milan client is assembling the exhibition for his daughter. We can emphasize that it’s an act of love and honors the legacy Apostolou built with his wife.”

“That…” he paused. “Is an acceptable angle.”

A quiet rush of validation washed through me, but before I could process it, the marble tabletop began to vibrate. My phone lit up as Elliot’s name filled the screen.

My hand darted out to silence it, but in my haste, my fingers slipped against the glass, accidentally accepting the call for a split second before I frantically slammed the decline button. The screen went dark, only to immediately start buzzing again.

Lucien fixed me with an unreadable stare that made my chest tighten. “Do you want to take that, or turn it off?”

"Sorry, I thought—" I whispered.

“Learn to compartmentalize, Miss Whitmore,” Lucien cut in, his voice razor-sharp and devoid of sympathy. “Or you will be entirely useless to me on this trip.”

I froze, my spine snapping straight, my cheeks burning with cold humiliation. “My apologies, Mr. Beaumont.”

"Is it my nephew?" he asked.

"Yes," I forced out.

Lucien signed another document, his brows pulling into a slight line. “Why was the wedding called off?”

The question was so direct, so lacking in delicate diplomacy, that it gave me a pause.

“I caught him cheating.” My voice didn’t waver despite the crack in my composure.

With trembling hands, I unlocked my phone, opened the muted video and slid the device across the table. Lucien watched it expressionlessly.

When it ended, he pushed the phone back toward me. “How unfortunate. Better not to waste your time dwelling on my idiot nephew.”

I stared at him, my breath catching in my throat as I waited for him to minimize it, to tell me Elliot was young, or drunk, or that I was making a scandal out of a lapse in judgment.

All I got was silence.

"You're... you're not defending him?"

"There is nothing to defend."

"But he’s your blood, Mr. Beaumont."

"I am fully aware of the genealogy," Lucien said coldly, returning to the papers. "It’s not an excuse for an abysmal lack of character. If he valued you, he wouldn’t have acted like an undisciplined child. He made a foolish choice, and must suffer the consequences.”

Consequences.

The words should have offered me some sort of relief. Instead, the sheer, detached clinicality of his response left me feeling strangely unbalanced. My entire world just collapsed, my heart was shredded, and Lucien Beaumont was analyzing my destroyed life as if it were a bad trade deal on a Tuesday afternoon.

Like I could just get over it.

I looked down at my hands. My nails digging deep into the flesh of my palms.

“Do you think I’m weak?” I asked softly, the question slipping out before I could stop it.

Lucien’s hand stilled. The paper he was flipping stopped mid-turn.

He regarded me with a heavy intensity. “Do you?”

“I don't know!” The crack in my composure widened, a ragged, miserable spill of truth escaping me. "Maybe I am! I keep asking myself what’s wrong with me. Was I too rigid? Too focused on my work? Was being with me so boring that he had to—"

“Miss Whitmore.” Lucien’s voice cut through my spiraling panic like a steel blade. I clamped my mouth shut, tears of frustration hot behind my eyes.

“You’re engaging in irrational self-punishment.” His tone was icy and unyielding. "You’re not responsible for the weak moral framework of my nephew. He’s an adult and can own up to his mistakes. Stop burning energy on a man who isn’t worth the effort it takes to block his number."

“And what if I can’t?!” I cried out, abandoning all pretenses of being professional. I stood up from the table, my chair scraping harshly against the floor. “What if I’m not cold and unfeeling like you? I just called off my wedding! Blew up four years of my life!”

Lucien didn't flinch. He simply tracked me with penetrating eyes as I began pacing the length of the suite.

I walked over to the mini-bar, my hands shaking so violently as I pulled out a bottle of brandy, broke the seal with a desperate twist, and poured it directly into a glass.

I downed half of it in one burning gulp. The alcohol hit my empty stomach like liquid fire.

“You shouldn't be here, Miss Whitmore,” he said, his voice so low it barely carried over the roar of blood in my ears.

I let out a harsh, self-deprecating laugh, my voice thick with bitter realization. “Yet here I am.”

I took another heavy swallow of the brandy, feeling the warm liquid spark heat in my belly. “I always had a plan for everything. But I don't have a plan for this, Mr. Beaumont.”

My voice trembled as I turned to face him. “I'm empty. I feel like a ghost."

Lucien continued to watch me like a predator observing a creature caught in a trap of its own making. I felt a sudden, thrumming pulse of fear—a visceral awareness of how easily this man could crush me, professionally, socially, emotionally.

“You’re simply allowing your emotions to dictate your cognitive faculties."

"Then fix it.” I stepped out from behind the bar, closing the distance between us until I was standing directly in his space. The scent of sandalwood, expensive wool, and pure authority rolled off him in waves. “You're the great Lucien Beaumont. You fix everything. Tell me how to stop feeling so shitty.”

“Work,” he said flatly. “Focus on the acquisition. Discard the rest.”

“And apart from work? How do I remind myself that I'm still… alive?”

The air between us turned thick, heavy, and crackling with a forbidden static. He was my boss. He was my ex-fiancé's uncle. Every rule of morality, society, and self-preservation screamed at me to step back, to apologize, to put my armor back on.

Instead, I looked into the face of the most dangerous man I knew, grabbed the lapels of his suit jacket with my trembling hands, and leaned in until my lips were inches from his face.

“I need a favor, Mr. Beaumont,” I whispered recklessly.

His body was a wall of tense, rigid muscle beneath my hands. But he didn’t pull away.

“What?”

It was preposterous in theory. It might even get me fired, but the certainty fueled me, the terrifying bravado of a woman who had nothing to lose filled my veins.

And to hell with the consequences.

“I want you to fuck me.”