Chapter Nine Sunny
The rooftop is colder than I expected. Wind skims across my skin like a warning, threading goosebumps down my arms. Dylan stands beside me, impossibly still, staring out over a glittering Manhattan skyline like he’s daring it to blink first.
Below us, the city is alive. Above us, the sky threatens rain. Somehow, I’m suspended between both—too small for one, too breakable for the other.
I wrap my arms around myself and inhale slowly, trying to make my thoughts behave. Spoiler: they won’t.
Dylan’s jaw works, sharp as a blade. “They shouldn’t have gotten those angles,” he mutters. “Security failed.”
He’s still talking about the photos. The article. The headline I keep seeing in my mind no matter how hard I push it away.
BAD BOY BILLIONAIRE TAMES WILD CHILD SUNNY
“Wild child,” I whisper. The words feel like splinters.
He glances at me. “It’s garbage.”
“Is it?” I ask before I can stop the words. “Because… what do I look like to the world? A girl living in your penthouse, wearing clothes I could never afford, being chauffeured around like—”
“Stop.” His voice slices it clean. “That’s not who you are.”
“And what about you?” I turn toward him fully. “What does the world say about you? Ruthless. Untouchable. Heartless. And yet you never deny it.”
He’s quiet for a beat.
Then he says, “Because I don’t care what the world thinks.”
“But I do,” I say. The admission leaves me raw.
His eyes soften—barely—but it’s enough to undo me.
We stand there a moment—two strangers pretending to be something real.
Finally, he speaks. “Ask whatever you want. I won’t lie.”
The invitation stuns me. My questions flood forward like they’ve been waiting this whole time.
“What happened between you and Olivia?” I ask quietly. “Why did you end? Why does she think… she can still claim you?”
Dylan’s shoulders stiffen—not at the question, but at the memory.
“She needed control,” he says.
“And you don’t give it.”
His lips twitch. “I don’t give myself. Not easily.”
I swallow. “Why?”
He doesn’t answer right away. His gaze shifts to the glass wall at my right—the reflection of himself, maybe. Or the version he hates.
“When you learn early that the people you trust will leave,” he says, “you build a life where no one gets that power again.”
The truth is a quiet earthquake inside him. I feel it in the air.
But I’m still not satisfied. “Then why did you let me in?”
He looks at me then. Fully.
“You barged in,” he says. “You didn’t ask permission.”
My stomach flips. “If I had asked—would you have let me stay?”
“No.”
The honesty stings and comforts all at once.
He steps closer—just enough that the air between us becomes electric. “But now you’re here.”
The unspoken and I don’t want you to leave echoes whether he intended it to or not.
A flash erupts from below. Another. Three more.
“Oh God…” I whisper, stepping back.
Across the street, on the roof of a neighboring building—paparazzi crouch, lenses pointed straight at us.
Dylan’s arm goes around my waist before I even register him moving. “Inside,” he orders.
“But—”
“Now.”
His grip is firm—not cruel—like a barrier the world can’t cross.
The second the glass doors shut behind us, I pull away just enough to breathe.
“You can’t always save me,” I whisper.
He exhales, slow and lethal. “Watch me.”
Inside, I pace. There’s pressure behind my ribs like something is trying to escape—panic or truth or maybe both.
I gather courage and ask the question that scares me most:
“Why do you care this much, Dylan?”
His expression flickers—barely—and that hesitation is my answer.
Because he can’t say it. Because saying it makes it real.
So he says something else instead—something safer, colder.
“Because if this deal fails,” he says, “we both lose everything.”
The words hit like ice water. Of course. It’s still just a deal.
Right?
My vision blurs. I nod, turning away so he won’t see.
Behind me, his breath falters—like maybe that wasn’t what he meant to say. Like maybe it tasted wrong coming out.
He doesn’t fix it.
He lets it sit between us like a wall.
I need air. I grab my phone from the counter—ache shooting through my chest.
Except—it's not my phone.
It’s his old phone. Mine is still locked in a drawer somewhere. I stare at my reflection in the black screen, and I don’t recognize the girl looking back.
A girl afraid of being replaceable. Of being used. Of being another story someone else gets to write.
I set the phone down.
“Goodnight,” I say, stepping toward the hallway.
“It’s barely five,” he answers.
“I can’t… do any more of this right now.”
He watches me go.
He doesn’t follow.
I close the bedroom door behind me—and let my breath break free. My chest shakes. My pulse is too loud.
I think I want him. I think I hate that I want him. I think I want him to choose me for reasons that aren’t survival or appearances or business.
I sink to the floor, back against the wood, knees pulled to my chest.
And my eyes blur again.
What breaks me most isn’t the articles or the photos or the shame.
It’s the thought…that maybe I’m falling—and he isn’t.
Outside the door—I hear footsteps pause. A hand hovers against the wood.
He doesn’t knock. He doesn’t speak.
He just stands there.
Breathing me in from the other side.
Like maybe he’s breaking too.
As I wipe my tears—my phone buzzes from inside Dylan’s jacket in the other room.
A new text lights the screen:
Unknown: Do you think he’d still protect you if he knew the truth?