Chapter 3

Ella's POV

He was even more careful and guarded than I'd expected.

I put on my most innocent face.

"I don't know how it happened. I was supposed to board a different yacht—it was docked at the same port, there was a party on it too, and I just…" I let the words trail off.

"Maybe I've just had bad luck," I said, crying and choking on the words. "Ever since my father died, nothing has gone right for me. If I hadn't run into you tonight, I don't know what I would have done."

At the mention of my father, something in his eyes softened—a trace of longing, and something like guilt.

I seized the moment.

Before he could press me any further, I reached up and unfastened the cufflink from my wrist, cupped it in both hands, and held it out to him.

"You saved me. I don't know how I could ever repay you. And since this cufflink is a keepsake between you and my father—" my voice dropped soft, "—you should keep it. Just… something to remember him by."

He looked at the cufflink lying in my palm, silent for a moment.

"Keep it," he said, his voice low. "Your father's things are worth more than anything."

Something in me eased.

I knew that, for my father's sake, he wouldn't push any further.

When the cufflink settled back into my palm, it still carried a trace of the warmth where his gaze had rested.

It was almost too hot to hold.

"Thank you… Uncle… Cole." I ventured the name timidly, testing it.

Cole went still for a beat.

He didn't correct me. But he didn't answer either.

Still, that was enough.

At least from this moment on, I had a foothold with Cole Westmore, the most powerful man in Washington's political and business circles.

He had the driver take me back home.

The whole ride, neither of us spoke.

The car came to a stop in front of the Hartford estate.

I pushed the door open myself and got out.

My feet had barely touched the ground—I hadn't even found my footing—

Slap.

A hand cracked clean across my face.

The sting exploded across my cheek in an instant.

I looked up and saw who it was.

Her.

My fiancé's sister.

"Ella! Why weren't you on the yacht?" she shrieked, chin jutting up. "Don't you know it's wrong to turn down what my brother asks of you?"

The moment the slap landed, my hand had already come up on instinct, halfway into the air.

My knuckles were tight, all the force coiled in the crook of my elbow—another half inch forward, and Zoey Shaw's smug little face would've snapped sideways.

But out of the corner of my eye, I caught that black car parked not far off.

The window had just rolled shut, the glass dark as a slab of set ink.

Yet the engine never turned over.

I forced that hand back down.

Go on. Hit me harder. He's watching.

I dropped my head, and the tears came right on cue.

I kept the crying low, my shoulders shaking in little jerks, as if I were terrified of being overheard. I brushed the hair back off the side of my face on purpose, so the mark of the slap would fall right in the car's line of sight.

Zoey clicked over to me on her heels, each step landing harder than the last.

"All my brother wanted was for you to dance for those men on the yacht and put on a little show — and you didn't even show up. How dare you? Do you even understand what you did wrong?"

The daughter of the Hartford family—dancing like some hired girl to amuse a pack of spoiled brats?

It was a joke. An insult beyond bearing.

But the man in that car was watching.

So I swallowed the urge to put my fist straight through Zoey's skull. I bent lower, my voice gone soft as a thing with no bones in it. "I'm sorry… the crew took me to the wrong yacht. I got confused, and they pushed me up onstage before I knew what was happening. I really didn't mean to."

I'd said this exact line in Cole's car not an hour ago. Now I ran it again for a different audience—only this time three shades more timid.

I sniffled, then lifted my eyes, all meek and hesitant. "Zoey… how is Blake now?"

Zoey was delighted. In her eyes, I was probably a woman her brother had completely under his thumb—even now, the first person I thought of was him.

"Why don't you just call him yourself and ask?"

I did as she said. I pulled out my phone and dialed Blake's number.

I turned the volume up on purpose.

The call connected.

First a woman's laughter, the kind she couldn't hold back. Then a man's breathing, low and blurred and unmistakable.

My voice began to tremble. "…Blake? What's that sound on your end?"

No answer came back. Only the breathing, growing heavier, tangled now with the soft, suggestive moans of more than one woman. It kept going until a man's low groan of release cut through.

Only then did his voice come through the line.

"You're asking too many questions, Ella." He spoke as coldly as if he were talking to a stranger. "You're only my fiancée. What gives you the right to ask what I'm doing? And besides—if you'd boarded that yacht like you promised, none of this would've happened tonight. So whatever I did, when you get right down to it, it's all trouble you brought on yourself, isn't it?"

Beep—beep—beep.

He hung up.

I stood there frozen, phone in hand, tears swimming in my eyes but never falling.

The disgust was real.

The heartbreak was an act.

I raised my head and, as if I hadn't understood a word of it, turned to Zoey and asked in a small voice, "Zoey… your brother, lately—has he been getting close to some other girl?"

Zoey's face darkened.

"Are you out of your mind?" Her voice shot up an octave. "My brother is just entertaining clients! You're the one who blew off your word first—he had every right to enjoy himself. You're small-minded, jealous, and shameless on top of it. A woman who can't even keep her promise has no right to suspect him."

The louder she got, the more it thrilled me.

Halfway through her tirade, Zoey's gaze suddenly landed on that black car. Her eyes narrowed, and a sneer crept across her mouth.

"Wait. That's the car that brought you home?" She advanced on me, step by step, her voice going shrill. "Ella—are you keeping some man on the side? No wonder you didn't want to get on my brother's yacht. That poor man's been wearing horns for nothing!"

She bent down, slipped a heel off her foot, gripped it in her fist, and marched straight toward the car.

"Today I'm going to smash that window open and see who this back-alley man of yours is! I'll let the whole East Coast know what Ella Hartford gets up to behind everyone's back!"

I lunged forward to stop her. "It's not what you think—you've got it all wrong. It isn't like that."

But the angle I "blocked" her at steered her perfectly to the spot directly in front of the car window.

Closer. A little closer. Let him hear it with his own ears. Let him see it with his own eyes.

Zoey raised that heel high and charged at the window, all fury—

The window began to roll down.

What appeared first wasn't a face.

It was a wrist. Clean, defined knuckles, a ring sitting heavy between the fingers, those knuckles resting carelessly against the sill without moving an inch.

A cold voice drifted out from inside the car—slow, and without a trace of warmth.

"Whose car are you smashing?"

There in the shadows, those deep brown eyes settled on Zoey. He sat there, doing nothing at all, and just sitting there was enough to send a chill straight up your spine.

Zoey froze. Her hand, still clutching that heel, hung suspended in midair.

I watched the color drain from her face, inch by inch, until not a trace of it was left.