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“I’d wear a ring listed in a property schedule, insured by the estate, and returned when this ends.”

“You could try saying yes before you write the receipt.”

“I just proposed marriage before breakfast. Let me keep some dignity.”

His mouth moves at one corner. “Counsel first.”

Our lawyers take ninety minutes and reduce the most intimate lie of my life to four pages. The cover ends the day after the breeder sale, or sooner if either of us says so. It gives him no say over my work, my movements, or my findings. Protection doesn’t depend on performance. Private intimacy is nobody’s obligation.

“And no public touch beyond what Tessa approves,” my attorney says, looking directly at Garrett through the screen.

He looks at me instead. “She decides where the performance stops.”

I ask her to put that sentence in, word for word.

I take the unsigned agreement to my suite because I want to read it without two attorneys and a McCall watching my face. Garrett follows with a black velvet box he hasn’t opened.

“That’s an ominous object,” I say.

“It was my grandmother’s.”

“Then it’s an estate asset, and you shouldn’t carry it loose in a hallway.”

He shuts the exterior door behind him but doesn’t lock it. I read the pages again at the counter. Every exit is open. I can end it, leave, keep my work, and refuse him without losing the locked room around me.

“We need to establish what public touch looks like,” I say.

“You wrote hand at the waist. Hand at the lower back. One photographed kiss.”

“The words aren’t the blocking.” I set the pages down and face him. “Show me the kiss you intend to use tonight.”

He puts the ring box on the counter. He comes close enough that his boots bracket mine, then stops with his hands at his sides. Waiting doesn’t make him less commanding. It makes every inch left between us feel deliberate.

I take his right hand and put it on my waist. “Here. Not lower, in public.”

His palm spans the curve above my hip. I feel the heat of it through my blouse.

“You don’t pull me back if I step away.”

“Understood.”

I lay my hand on his chest. His heart is steady under the cotton. Mine isn’t. “Keep it brief.”

He bends and touches his mouth to mine.

It’s closed and controlled, entirely believable for a camera. It should end there. His fingers stay loose at my waist, and he keeps the door clear behind me. I want the kiss to keep going.

I step back. He lets me go instantly.

“Too much?” he asks.

“Too convincing.”

I reach behind me and turn the dead bolt.

His eyes follow my hand and come back to my face. He doesn’t move.

“This isn’t rehearsal,” I say. “I want your hands on me.”