Chapter Eleven Sunny
I don’t know what hurts more—the photo itself or knowing someone wanted the world to see it.
It spreads across the internet like wildfire—shared, reposted, dissected under fluorescent screens and cruel fingertips. A picture Trevor took of me when we were still together—when I didn’t know better, when I still believed he loved me.
Me in nothing but lace and hope, smiling like the world was soft.
There’s no softness now.
Just humiliation. And the echo of old shame I thought I buried.
I sit on the cold marble floor of Dylan’s bathroom; knees hugged to my chest. The tile is freezing, but that's good. It keeps me from floating away.
A knock on the door. Heavy. Controlled.
“Sunny.” His voice is low—dangerous only to everyone but me.
I wipe my cheeks, even though he can probably hear I’ve been crying. “One minute.”
The doorknob turns anyway. Of course it does.
He steps into the room—dark suit pants, rolled white sleeves, and fury clenched into every muscle. He looks like a man fashioned out of storm cloud and steel.
“Don’t hide from me,” he says.
I can’t look at him. Instead, I stare at the photo still glowing on my phone screen, even though it burns.
“I shouldn’t be here,” I whisper. “I shouldn’t be in your life. People get hurt because of me.”
His breath thickens. “No. People hurt you because they think they can. That ends now.”
I press my forehead against my knees. “You don’t have to fix me.”
He crouches in front of me. “I’m not trying to fix you. I’m trying to stand with you.”
That—that does it.
The tears I tried to hold back spill fast, hot, messy.
I try to curl inward again, but he stops me—hands gently pulling my knees away from my chest, just enough that I have to face him. That I have to be seen.
“What he did was criminal,” Dylan says, voice like embers. “And if you let this one moment define you, he wins twice.”
“I just wanted to be loved,” I whisper.
His breath shakes. It actually shakes.
“You deserve more than love.”
I look up.
He looks broken.
“You deserve devotion,” he says quietly.
Something inside me cracks open—not bleeding, but blooming.
We talk—actually talk—for the first time since everything exploded.
I tell him about nights I slept on my bathroom floor because Trevor made me afraid of my own bed. About messages I deleted before anyone could see because shame is a language abusers teach fluently. About being small, shrinking myself to stay safe.
He listens. He doesn’t interrupt. He doesn’t offer answers he can’t give.
When I finally stop, he sits beside me. Close—but not touching.
“Your brother always told me you were the brave one,” he says.
I laugh, wet and broken. “He lied.”
“No. He saw you.” His voice is soft now. “I didn’t. Not until now.”
The room feels too small for the things neither of us is saying.
Finally, Dylan stands. Extends a hand.
“Come with me.”
“To where?”
“A reset.”
My brows pull. “What does that mean?”
“It means we change the narrative before they destroy it.”
He offers no explanation—only his palm.
And maybe I should be terrified—but instead, I place my hand in his.
He pulls me to my feet like it’s the easiest thing on earth.
Hours later, there is a suitcase I don’t remember packing. There is a car waiting at the private elevator. There is a jet on the runway, nose pointed at a night sky full of possibility.
And there is me—still trembling, still hurting, still unsure—
but going.
Inside the jet, he sits next to me, knees brushing mine in the narrow aisle. He hands me a steaming cup of tea—not coffee. Not anything strong. Something gentle.
“You don’t have to talk,” he says. “You can just breathe.”
That kindness is worse than cruelty. Because kindness is where attachment begins.
As we lift off the runway, the city shrinks beneath us—a glittering beast that chewed me up and spat me out.
Up here, I can almost imagine I’m weightless.
Almost.
“Why Vegas?” I ask after a long silence.
He turns to look at me—expression unreadable.
“Because sometimes,” he says, “you have to take control by changing the script.”
“That sounds like PR.”
“It’s survival.”
I swallow. “And what script are we changing?”
He doesn’t hesitate.
“The one where he gets to have the last word.”
My heart kicks. “And what does that have to do with Vegas?”
His stare pins me to my seat.
“Because tomorrow,” he says, “we make this engagement look real enough that no one ever questions it again.”
My pulse stutters. “Dylan—what are you—”
“We get married,” he says simply. “Fast. Clean. Our story. Not theirs.”
My breath disappears.
He isn’t smiling. He isn’t teasing. He’s offering a weapon.
A shield. A crown. A choice.
“It’s fake,” he adds softly. “Only thirty days. Only until the world backs off.”
Then—
“If you say yes.”
The jet hums around us. My fingers curl into the armrest. My life tilts, tips, turns—
and for once, I feel like maybe I’m choosing the fall.
I stare at him—at the man who terrifies and steadies me—and I whisper one trembling word:
“Yes.”
Dylan exhales—slow—like he just won a war.
And the lights of Las Vegas blaze beneath us.