I look up.
Meet his eyes.
"Thank you. For helping me pursue that. For bringing me here, for the costume, for... for all of it."
Kai is silent.
Watching.
Processing.
Then he speaks, and his voice is barely above a whisper.
"I'm supposed to hate you."
The words should hurt.
Shouldland like a blow.
But they don't.
Because I hear what's underneath them—the struggle, the confusion, the same impossible tangle of emotions I've been dealing with since this all started.
We're supposed to be enemies.
We're supposed to want each other dead.
And instead we're standing in a fitting room, sharing stories about our mothers, finding common ground in the wreckage of our families.
"But the true illusion," he continues, "is that I admire your perseverance."
Admire.
He admires me.
Kai Lawson—heir to the empire that destroyed my family—admires me.
He moves.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Giving me time to pull away, to refuse, to maintain whatever boundaries should exist between us.
I don't move.
His lips find my shoulder.
Soft.
Gentle.
A kiss that's more reverence than passion, more acknowledgment than claiming. His breath is warm against my skin, and shivers race down my spine—not from cold, not from fear, but from something else entirely.
"You will go on that stage," he whispers against my shoulder. "You will perform like your life depends on it."
His lips brush higher.
