CHAPTER 5: THE FIRST SECRET

Elias was already moving before Maya could ask why, his hand landing at the small of her back — firm, careful, guiding rather than grabbing — as he steered her out of the office and down a narrow hallway she hadn't noticed before.

"What's happening?" she demanded, half-jogging to keep pace with his longer stride.

"In a moment."

"That's not an answer."

"I'm aware." His jaw was tight, eyes fixed straight ahead. "Just walk, Maya."

He stopped at an unmarked door near the end of the corridor, pressed his palm to a keypad, and pulled her inside the second it clicked open. The door shut behind them with a heavy, final sound, and he threw the lock manually — an old-fashioned bolt that looked out of place in a building otherwise run entirely on glass and code.

The room was smaller than his office. A desk, two chairs, a wall of bookshelves. Private in a way that felt deliberate, like a space built for conversations that weren't meant to have witnesses.

"Someone leaked your meeting location," Elias said, without preamble. "There are reporters outside the building right now, asking questions about 'Elias Carter's mystery woman.'"

Maya's stomach dropped. "I haven't agreed to anything. I've been in this building for ten minutes."

"I know."

"So how does the press already have a headline?"

"Because someone wanted them to." His voice was tight, controlled fury simmering just beneath it. "Someone who knew you were coming before you walked through the door."

Maya opened her mouth to demand who, but her gaze snagged on something across the room — a framed photograph, small, unassuming, sitting on a side table she was clearly not meant to notice. She crossed to it before she could stop herself, some instinct pulling her forward.

Her own face looked back at her.

Younger. Maybe twenty-two, twenty-three, her hair longer than she wore it now, standing at the edge of a crowd at some charity gala she barely remembered attending — a work event, early in her career, years before she'd ever laid eyes on Damien Carter. She'd been a nobody then. A name on a guest list, invisible in a room full of people who mattered.

She was not invisible in this photograph. Someone had framed it. Someone had kept it.

"Why do you have a picture of me," she said slowly, turning to face him, "from before I ever met your family?"

Elias's expression did something she hadn't seen from him yet — it cracked. Just slightly. Just enough.

"That's a conversation for another time," he said, and his voice had gone quiet in a way that sounded almost like retreat.

"No." Maya set the frame down hard enough that it rattled against the table. "It's a conversation for right now. You said you know things about me. You said that's why I'm here. This—" she jabbed a finger at the photo "—this isn't knowing things about me, Elias. This is keeping things about me. There's a difference, and I want you to explain it before I walk out of this room."

For a moment, he looked almost caught — a man weighing how much truth he could afford to hand over, and losing the calculation in real time.

His phone rang before he could answer.

He glanced at the screen, and whatever composure remained drained visibly from his face. He answered without a greeting. "What."

Maya couldn't hear the other end, only the low murmur of a voice, urgent and fast. Elias's knuckles went white around the phone.

"How fast is it spreading?" A pause. "No — don't confirm anything. Not yet." Another pause, longer this time, his eyes flicking briefly to Maya and away again, like he couldn't quite look at her while he listened. "Understood. Keep me updated."

He ended the call and set the phone face-down on the desk with the deliberate care of a man trying not to slam it.

"The press has connected your name to the family," he said. "Officially, now. It's not a rumor anymore — it's a story, and stories like this don't stay contained. By tonight, every outlet in the city will have your photo next to mine."

"I haven't done anything," Maya said, her voice rising with disbelief. "I haven't agreed to a single thing, Elias. How is this already—"

"I know." He dragged a hand down his face, and for the first time since she'd met him, he looked less like a man in total control and more like one watching the ground shift beneath him faster than he could plan for it. "I know, and I'm sorry, and I don't have time to explain it the way you deserve. I need an answer to something I haven't even properly asked you yet. Tonight."

"An answer to what?"

His phone rang again. He looked at the screen this time before answering — and whatever name appeared there made his jaw tighten visibly, a muscle jumping beneath the skin.

He answered with one clipped word. "When?"

Maya watched him listen, watched the last of his composure drain out of him like water through a cracked glass. When he finally lowered the phone, his eyes found hers, and for the first time all evening, she saw something in them that looked almost like fear.

"They know you're here," he said, voice dropping low. "We're out of time."

"Who? Elias, who knows I'm here?"

He crossed the room in two strides, close enough now that she could see the exhaustion carved into the lines around his eyes, the toll of holding something together that was already coming apart.

"Marry me," he said, "or Richard Carter is going to bury us both."