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Each day that passed, I felt the chains of our reality pull tighter, threatening to snap us back into the roles we played for everyone else. The elite expected their pound of flesh, and if you disappeared too long, they came hunting. Cynthia would be circling soon, her return as inevitable as the tides. The thought soured in my gut, but I pushed it down, hard.
I pocketed my phone, the tailor’s reminder still echoing in my skull. Shoes and suit ready—as if I gave a damn about that gala now. Five days lost in Darius’s orbit, and everything else turned to ash. The Ashbourne-Gallagher Annual Philanthropy Event might as well have been a fairy tale, for all it mattered.
The clink of glass on marble snapped me out of the haze. I came out of my closet and saw the bathroom door ajar, steam slipping out like secrets. He stood there, defiant in his vulnerability, with a fucking makeup sponge in hand.
“Is that makeup?” The words felt foreign.
“Yup.” His reply came casual, almost bored, as if he wasn’t smearing war paint under those eyes.
I watched, silent. A stroke here, a blend there. My gaze lingered on the smooth arc of his jaw, the way the foundation erased last week’s sins from his face. And for a moment, just one. I wished we could wipe clean what was coming next.
“Give me a second and I’ll fix you up too.”
I met his gaze in the glass. “I don’t need makeup.”
He held my eyes, silent for a beat. “Okay, but when someone asks what happened to your face, don’t look at me. I don’t know shit.” His voice had that edge, sharp enough to slice through the bullshit veneer of our existence.
His hand approached my face, that weird egg-shaped sponge ready to do its magic. “You’re pale,” he said, an observation laced with a hint of concern or mockery—I couldn’t tell which.
“Is that a compliment?” The words slipped out, hooked with sarcasm.
Darius chuckled, a low, throaty sound that did things to me. I stilled under his touch, the cool dampness of the sponge against my skin a stark contrast to the heat raging within me. His fingers worked deftly, blotting away the evidence. Bruises faded beneath an artful layer of foundation, perfectly concealed with every dab and blend.
“Perfect,” he said, his voice a low purr that resonated in the confined space of the bathroom. The sponge disappeared into a black pouch, lost amidst other tools of disguise.
My eyes met their reflection, searching for truth in the mirror. Surprised, I found none—no hint of purple flesh, no tell of the violence we had endured. Just me, or at least the version of me that the world demanded.
“Now all you need is your stick.” The words slipped from Darius’s lips, laced with a smirk I felt rather than saw.
A gut reaction, swift and without thought. My hand cracked against his ass—a sharp slap that left a satisfying sting lingering on my palm. “Hurry, get dressed, so we’re not late.” The very essence of control clung to me like a second skin, a mantle I wore with practiced ease. But Darius, he was chaos personified, a tempest wrapped in ink and steel who threatened to unravel me thread by thread. And goddamn if I didn’t crave the undoing.
The limo glided through the city, a silent serpent on asphalt. Darius sat next to me, thumb flicking nonchalantly over his phone screen. I watched the skyline blur past, each building another cage, another stage for the farce of my life. Fuck these events. The falseness, the games—it clawed at my insides like a caged beast yearning to break free. A single demand to the driver, and we could escape. Airport bound—freedom. Maybe?
Darius’s hand crept along my thigh, and my focus snapped to him; those hazel eyes didn’t lift, locked on pixels and posts. I wanted to remove it, to calm the hunger that gnawed at me from his touch, but I settled for a silent glance instead. The limo’s leather embraced us, and Darius’s fingers trailed higher, igniting fires beneath my tailored suit. My heart was a damned traitor, thudding against its rib cage, urging me on to do something I would regret in the back of this car. Loving him was a game of Russian roulette with my reputation, my legacy. I knew the risk, the goddamn stakes. The thought alone should have sent chills down my spine, but all I felt was heat when I looked at him. My heart was an inferno only he could fuel.
His smirk was sin itself when he leaned over, his breath a whisper against my cheek. “I thought you loved this shit?” The words were playful, but his eyes held the weight of knowing, seeing through the facade I presented to the world.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath as his lips pressed against mine. A jolt shot straight to my core, melting every ounce of resistance. My hand found his cheek, rough with the shadow of a shave, pulling him closer. His taste was rebellion, sweet and heady.
“I don’t. It’s the worst. I just hide it well.” The confession was raw, stripped bare of the lies I paraded before the crowd. His chuckle vibrated against my lips, a sound that damn near shattered my composure.
“You wanna turn this fucking car around, don’t you?” he teased.
The ache in my chest spread, claws digging into flesh. “Don’t you fucking know it,” I said, the words a growl of truth. The gala, the shit show waiting ahead—it was nothing compared to the chaos beside me, the man who made my blood rush like a goddamn raging river.
He pulled back, a devilish gleam in his eye. And in that moment, with the city lights streaking by, I knew I’d burn the world down to keep him. Fuck fear, fuck their whispers and pointing fingers. He was mine, and I’d walk through hellfire to make it so.
The car jerked to a halt, the engine’s purr dying like the last breath of an old secret. “Let the shit show begin,” I said as the driver swung my door open wide. Cool summer air kissed my skin, and I stepped out, the leather soles of my shoes grounding me against the reality I was about to face. I glanced back, the goddamn force of nature sliding out after me. I winked at him, our signal to don our masks: mine, the golden son; his, the black sheep. We moved in tandem towards the gaping maw of high society, where black cars spilled out their privileged cargo like offerings to gods of pretense.
The clink of glasses and the murmur of the well-heeled swelled into a symphony of hypocrisy. Crossing the threshold, I felt the familiar weight of expectation settle on my shoulders, the role of Weston Ashbourne locking into place. The grandeur of the gala always chafed at my skin like a too-tight collar—opulence on display. Each diamond and designer thread another shackle. My mother, the empress of our gilded empire, stood encircled by social climbers. Her necklace, a cascading river of ice, caught the light, throwing shards of brilliance across the room.
“Weston, darling!” She air-kissed my cheeks, her perfume a cloying cloud around us. I nodded, smiled, played the part. Colleagues reached out with clawed hands for greetings, their laughs hollow echoes. Cynthia, my wife, the perfect accessory, slid her arm through mine, her grip a vise.
Her lips moved, words spilled out—trivialities about someone’s new penthouse or another’s scandalous affair.
I nodded, a marionette to her strings. But my mind wasn’t there. It wandered, searched through the swarm of bodies for Darius.
“Have you seen Kent?” I finally sliced through the banter, my gaze still scanning for that lean frame.
