(10) A Transactional Proposal

In another room, champagne glass paused mid-sip, Violet stared at the bidding screen with the intensity of a hawk spotting prey.

The Krupp diamond ring sat there, so close she could almost feel its weight on her finger.

She could already picture how it would look against her skin, the way the enormous stone would catch the light, casting rainbow prisms across her manicured hand.

She could already imagine the headlines: Violet Collins Shines in Historic Krupp Diamond.

Then the price doubled.

"No." The word escaped her like a wounded animal, her champagne glass hitting the table with a sharp crack that sent golden liquid sloshing over the rim.

She turned to Samuel, her eyes wide with panic. "Sammy, someone else is bidding."

"Let's raise it," Samuel said reluctantly, his expression souring. The amount was climbing faster than he'd anticipated.

He had hoped that no one else would bid more than a million for the ring.

In the private room across the auction house, Lucas narrowed his gaze at the screen, something dark and brooding rolling off him in waves that Charity could feel even without touching him.

The temperature in the room seemed to drop, the air growing thick with unspoken frustration.

He doesn't like being outbid.

She made a decision then, swift and decisive. Her fingers flew across the screen, and the price jumped to five million dollars.

"Honey, I... I want that ring." Violet's voice cracked with desperation, all pretense of composure abandoned.

She didn't care about the price anymore.

She didn't care about practicalities or budgets or the cold reality of financial planning.

She wanted to win.

She wanted to walk out of this auction with the prize that would secure her place in the upper echelons of society, that would make everyone including that insufferable Vivianne see her for what she truly was.

"Alright." Samuel gritted his teeth and made the bid.

Ten million dollars.

The number was obscene.

It was the kind of money that could fund entire productions, that could keep a talent agency afloat for years. But Samuel had done his calculations.

The Filmwood project was worth a billion dollars at least, and with Advance partnering for the equipment, their returns would be astronomical. Violet's involvement in the cast would only increase their visibility, their prestige.

The ring was an investment, he told himself. A symbol of their status.

But in the private room, something snapped.

Fury raged in Lucas's abyss gaze, a storm barely contained behind his carefully neutral expression. His jaw tightened, the muscle in his cheek twitching with barely suppressed anger.

He reached for the desk next to the couch. A black card snuck into his fingers, its surface unmarked but radiating the kind of wealth that didn't need to be advertised. Without hesitation, he slapped it against the scanning machine in front of the screen.

"Krupp Diamond Ring secured for the VIP," the screen announced in its robotic female tone, the words appearing in elegant script across the display.

The ring vanished from the selections as if it had never existed.

"WHAT?!" The scream echoed in the Collins' private room.

Violet lunged for the monitor as if she could physically claw the ring back from wherever it had gone. "Where did it go?! What happened?!"

Samuel was already on his feet, phone pressed to his ear, his face pale beneath his carefully maintained tan.

"Yes, hello," he said into the receiver, his voice strained with barely suppressed fury. "Where did the Krupp Diamond Ring go? We were the highest bidder. Ten million dollars."

He listened, his expression shifting from anger to confusion to something that looked almost like defeat. The phone lowered slowly, his hand trembling just slightly.

"What did they say?" Violet demanded, her voice shrill with panic.

"A VIP purchased it." Samuel's voice was hollow, emptied of its usual confidence. "There was an instant bid for a hundred million dollars. The rest of the VIPs refused to bid any higher."

One hundred million dollars.

The number hung between them, a reminder of just how small their world truly was.

Samuel could feel it in his bones.

That cold, creeping realization that for all his success, for all his carefully cultivated status, there were still people who could crush him with pocket change.

"Vi, honey, I know it's frustrating, but maybe we can buy you something else." He reached for the screen, trying to salvage the evening. "There's more to the collection that belonged to that ring. We could find something just as beautiful, just as meaningful..."

But Violet was already scrolling through the remaining items, her movements frantic, her eyes wild. She was going to find something else, something that would prove she still mattered, that this humiliating defeat meant nothing--

The jewelry set vanished.

She blinked, certain she had imagined it. She tapped the screen again, trying to find the item, but it was gone. Replaced by a gray placeholder that seemed to mock her.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" The words tore from her throat, a primal scream of rage that echoed off the walls.

She grabbed the monitor, shaking it as if she could physically dislodge the items she'd been denied. "This is rigged! This is fucking rigged!"

Item after item vanished from the selections, each gown, each accessory, each piece of jewelry that might have salvaged her dignity, all disappearing.

Every piece she touched, every item that caught her eye, gone. Consumed by the same unseen hand that had stolen the Krupp diamond.

"There. I bought every dress and accessories." Lucas's voice was calm now, the storm in his eyes having subsided into something colder, more smug. "Not one of them costs just ten million."

The words were deliberately barbed, a subtle reminder of the insult that had started this entire debacle.

Ten million dollars, cheap, huh.

Charity had only been thinking about it, but Lucas had heard it anyway, had read her frustration and turned it into ammunition.

But one thing he couldn't understand, Charity's face still looked unhappy.

He had just bought everything expensive for her. Everything that could possibly compare to that dress that lousy Paige had picked.

What was keeping her this moody?

"I want you to wear that ring. Always." He suddenly raised the demand, hoping to start a conversation with her, to break through whatever wall she was building between them.

"Its... too big to be worn every day, don't you think?" Charity slightly flinched, her fingers tracing the edge of the velvet couch as if it might bite her.

"Uno." He said out of context.

"Uno?" Charity blinked, then recalled the person who had called Lucas this morning.

The name had been thrown around so casually, so dismissively, that she'd almost forgotten it.

"My brother." Lucas met her curious gaze, something unreadable flickering in his dark eyes.

He pulled her closer to him, his grip firm and insistent, but Charity seemed to refuse as she instinctively placed her hands on his chest, a futile barrier between them.

"C-cant we talk with me just uhm... down here? On the couch?" She proposed nervously, not wanting him to know her heartbeat pumping loudly against her ribcage.

The last thing she needed was for him to realize how much he affected her.

Lucas studied her face, his gaze so intense that Charity felt stripped bare beneath it.

The woman just felt his gaze was too intense, like he was looking through her, past her defenses, into something she kept carefully hidden. Still, he didn't move for her protest.

"Continue." Charity cleared her throat, forcing herself to meet his eyes.

She felt like she would get bitten if she interrupted him this way. Like a predator deciding whether to play with his prey or simply devour it.

"My brothers will be visiting soon. My parents are next." He casually explained in a minimal way that Charity did her best to piece together herself. "And I want you to act as my fiancée."

"Huh?" Her head snapped to face him. Did she hear that right?

"That ring will be a sign I proposed."

"Wait, you proposed?" Charity was stumped, her mind reeling.

This man is so dense that not even the Earth's mantle could compare!

How could he just casually drop something like that, a fake engagement, a pretend proposal; as if he were discussing the weather?

"Since we are allies, I trust you will be perfect for that role." Lucas's tone was clinical, detached. "It's just until we're done benefitting with each other."

Allies.

The word felt cold, transactional.

Charity was just a means to an end, a convenient prop for whatever family drama Lucas was trying to navigate.

But why her? Why not some actress, some socialite who would jump at the chance to play pretend with a Cassian?

He noticed her chest heaving, the same way on that night at the cruise. The heat from her palm affected him, parched him, and he couldn't hide the effect on him.

"Mr. Cassian..." Charity cleared her throat, noticing a questionable bulge pressing against her thigh.