Chapter Eleven

Ethan 

Ethan sat across from Victoria Lang at Le Bernardin, the soft lighting casting a warm, intimate glow over the crisp white tablecloth and the elegant stemware between them. Victoria looked stunning in the deep red dress she had promised, the fabric hugging her figure with effortless elegance. 

Her laughter was light and practiced as she recounted a recent charity gala story, the kind of tale  that had the surrounding tables smiling in their direction. The cameras outside had already done their job, flashes capturing the perfect image of the powerful CEO on a refined evening with a beautiful socialite. It was exactly the narrative he needed after the Velvet leak.

“You’re quieter than usual tonight, darling,” Victoria said, reaching across the table to touch his hand with the effortless affection of someone who understood their arrangement perfectly. Her fingers were warm, her smile genuine in the way only a true friend could manage. “Let me guess a certain new writer is still occupying that brilliant mind of yours?”

Ethan offered the smooth, charming smile he had perfected over years of galas and board meetings. 

He squeezed her hand gently, the gesture for the cameras more than anything else, but he allowed a touch of real warmth into his voice. “Nonsense, the  manuscript is progressing well. The distributors are enthusiastic. Nothing I can’t manage.”

Victoria studied him for a moment, her eyes knowing but kind. She had always been good at reading between the lines without pushing too hard. “You know I’m here if you need to talk. Off the record, of course. No judgment.”

Ethan squeezed her hand once more, the contact familiar and safe. “I appreciate it. Truly. The project is demanding, but it’s under control.”

The dinner continued with light, engaging conversation, upcoming events, mutual acquaintances, the latest theater openings, and a few shared laughs about the absurdity of New York society in general. 

Victoria played her role beautifully, laughing at his dry remarks and leaning in at the right moments. To anyone watching, they were the picture of a sophisticated, powerful couple enjoying each other’s company.

 To Ethan, this has always felt like armor. A heavy, familiar armor that kept the world at a safe distance. But tonight, the armor felt heavier than usual.

Perhaps it was because, for the first time in years, he had become painfully aware of the weight of it all.

For most of his life, he had an image and he delivered it. 

A successful man with a beautiful woman was a story nobody questioned. He knew how to play that role. It was easier to maintain.

He had perfected that performance long ago with his ex-wife. One that required so little effort now that it had become a second nature.

Yet as Victoria spoke, her voice fading softly into the background, Ethan found himself distracted by an uncomfortable realization. 

The role no longer fit like it once did. 

Only a month ago he would have sat happily, without a second thought and appreciated Victoria’s company returning home with quiet satisfaction that everything remained exactly where it belonged.

Now, however, there was a crack in that certainty. A small one, usually impossible to ignore.

His gaze drifted absently toward the city lights beyond the restaurant windows. The reflection staring back at him looked unchanged. He had the  same tailored suit and the same  composed expression as always.  The same man everyone believed they knew.

And yet he no longer felt like that man.

Not entirely.

The problem wasn’t that anything had happened. At least, that was what he kept telling himself.

One night should have been insignificant.

One impulsive decision should not have had the power to follow him into boardrooms, meetings, and quiet dinners weeks later.

And yet it did.

What unsettled him most wasn’t the memory itself but the way it had refused to fade. He had expected it to become distant, blurred by time and routine. Instead, it lingered with irritating persistence, appearing in the quiet moments both physically in human form between conversations, in the silence of his office after everyone had gone home, in the brief seconds before sleep claimed him each night.

It had forced him to confront questions he had spent years avoiding.

Questions he had never needed to answer before.

Questions he wasn’t sure he wanted answers to now.

Victoria laughed at something she’d just said, and Ethan realized he hadn’t heard a single word.

He offered a polite smile anyway.

She didn’t seem to notice.

Or perhaps she did and chose not to comment on it.

The guilt that followed surprised him.

Sitting  across from her now felt strangely dishonest.

Not because he was hiding a secret from her.

Because he was hiding it from himself.

None of this had ever provided the reassurance he was searching for but he still did it. Instead, each show only highlighted the absence of something forbidden he couldn’t name.

Something he wasn’t ready to examine.

Something he found himself thinking about far more often than he should.

Victoria reached across the table and lightly touched his hand.

A simple gesture. It brought him back to his reality. 

 As the evening wore on, his mind kept drifting back to Connecticut. To the hotel hallway. To the way Julian had sat so close, steady and composed, while Ethan had nearly closed the distance, almost kissing him. Kissing Julian, kissing would be magnificent— destroy a life long lesson of control.

Victoria noticed his distraction again as dessert arrived , a delicate chocolate creation that looked almost too beautiful to eat. “Ethan, if this is about the rumors, they’re dying down. The statement worked. People are moving on.”

“They are,” Ethan replied, taking a sip of wine. The rich flavor did little to ease the knot in his chest. “For now.”

The dinner ended on a high note. As they stepped out of the restaurant, the cameras flashed again. Victoria turned to him with a soft smile, her hand resting on his chest. Ethan leaned in and kissed her gently on the lips, a perfect, camera-ready moment that would make headlines tomorrow. The kiss was pleasant, familiar, and entirely without spark. Victoria pulled back with a knowing look, her eyes twinkling with understanding.

“You’re a good man, Ethan Cross,” she whispered as they walked to the car. “Whatever is weighing on you, remember you don’t have to carry it alone.”

Ethan nodded, the words landing with more weight than she probably intended. The car ride back to his penthouse after dropping Victoria off was quiet. 

Ethan stared out the window at the glittering Manhattan night, the city lights reflecting off the glass like stars. When he finally stepped into the empty luxury of his home, the silence was deafening than any boardroom argument he had ever had.

He poured himself a generous amount of whiskey, standing by his window, his thoughts betrayed him, wandering back to that night. 

Julian pinned against the wall, clothes scattered, Ethan’s mouth on his neck, sucking hard enough to leave marks. The desperate way Julian had pushed back against him, taking every brutal inch with broken moans. The wet slap of skin, the tight, slick heat gripping him as Ethan drove deep relentlessly. Julian’s voice hoarse as he gasped “fuck me like you need it,” the way his body had trembled when he came, clenching around Ethan so perfectly that Ethan had followed with a guttural groan, burying himself to his hole as pleasure ripped through him like salvation.

Ethan’s hand tightened around the whiskey glass. His cock stirred, thickening against his trousers at the vivid recollection. The memory was too real. He set the glass down with a shaky hand and leaned forward, one palm pressed against the cool glass of the window. 

His breathing grew heavier. The need was sudden and overwhelming. He could almost feel Julian’s skin under his fingers, the way he had moaned, the way he had taken everything Ethan gave him without hesitation.

His hand drifted down, hovering near the front of his trousers. Just one touch, just to take the edge off. Just to quiet the storm that Julian had unleashed in him.

The phone buzzed sharply on the table behind him.

Ethan froze, hand stilling. He exhaled harshly and turned, picking up the device. A message from Lena. It read:

Lena: Thought you should see this. A contact mentioned Julian was seen having dinner with Richard Harrington tonight in the city. Looked friendly. They stayed quite late at a quiet spot downtown. The contact said they seemed to get along very well,there was lots of laughter, close conversation. Nothing too explicit but a bit suspicious since they  left together.

The jealousy hit him like a physical blow, sharp and hot, cutting through the haze of arousal. He paced the living room, his whiskey forgotten. The sheer thought of Julian with another man,  even casually twisted something deep inside him. Not just possessiveness. Something much more  complicated. The knowledge that Richard could offer Julian the freedom Ethan never could. The freedom to simply be.

Ethan stopped pacing and leaned against the window, forehead pressed to the cool glass.Julian was out there, living his life, possibly moving on from the tension that had been building between them since that first night at Velvet. 

His jealousy burned hotter. Ethan wanted to call Julian demanding answers. He wanted  to pull him back into the office and remind him exactly who he belonged to professionally. But he couldn’t. That would break every rule he had set.

He picked up the phone and stared at Lena’s message for a long moment before putting it down again.  He still had control. The manuscript was progressing. The rumors were dying down. The image was intact.. this is good.

A ping from his phone alerted him. He thought it was a message from Lena, so he rushed to open it.

“How long do you think you can keep pretending?, 

I know what you did Ethan Cross” it read. 

For a long moment he simply stared at the screen convinced his mind was playing tricks with him, rearranging the words into something they didn’t mean. 

 It has to be a prank. Someone fishing for a reaction.

Yet his pulse betrayed him.

A slow, heavy thud echoed in his ears before accelerating into something uneven.

His fingers tightened instinctively around the phone.

“What…?” The word escaped him as little more than a breath.

He looked up sharply. His eyes swept across the hallway, the dining area and the kitchen. 

Nothing moved.

He walked toward the windows almost without realizing it, scanning the street several floors below. Cars drifted through the night, headlights streaking a perfect hue on the sidewalks. A couple laughed outside a  building entrance. A taxi pulling away. 

Everything looked painfully normal.

Another ping

Ethan flinched. 

It was another message from a different number. 

“Don’t bother looking outside”

The clot drained from his face, a wave of nausea hit him hard, settling somewhere deep that breathing suddenly felt uncomfortable.

Someone was watching him

His gaze darted back toward the windows.

Slowly.

His mind raced through different possibilities. 

Who could this be? 

His thumb hovered over the keypad, but no response came.

Every reply forming in his mind sounded like an admission.

Another vibration.

This time he couldn’t bring himself to open it.

He simply stood there in the middle of his immaculate home, phone clutched tightly in his hand, listening to the sound of his own heartbeat.

The night stretched long ahead, filled with the kind of silence that forced a man to face his own truth.

And Ethan wasn’t sure he was ready for what those truths revealed.