Chapter 14 （Noah） #2
He circles, not touching, orbiting. His gaze inventories what he owns. A micro-adjustment to the strap of my dress. A smoothing of the leather that doesn’t need smoothing. He plucks a stray glint of glitter from my collarbone and holds it up to the light.
“You know what happens if you improvise.” He flicks the glitter into the bin. “You ramble. You get sincere.” The smile is back, TV-ready again. “Sincerity is cheap. We don’t do cheap.”
My nails bite crescents into my palms where no one will look. I open my hands and let the half-moons disappear.
He angles toward the door, then stops. “One more thing.” The pause ripples the room.
I freeze inside it. “When they ask who you want beside you for the photo, you won’t stumble.
” A tiny beat. “You won’t look around like you’re lost.” His eyes sharpen.
“You won’t look for anyone who isn’t me.
” The words land in my stomach and curdle.
He extends his arm like a gentleman in old movies.
The posture is freedom; the reality is leash.
I put my hand in the crook of his elbow because this is a world where I have to.
His muscles are loose steel under the fabric, his skin warm, his pulse steady.
Mine hammers, a small animal trying to break out of bone.
We take a step, and I obey, rotating around Bradley’s axis. At the threshold, he pauses, turns us back a fraction so we face the mirror for one more appraisal. We look like a success story, and his lips curve with satisfaction. “Good girl.”
My insides shudder at his unwanted praise, but I choke down the ick and respond with what he wants to hear. “I’m ready.”
He laughs once, low, brief, and delighted with my lack of defiance. His knuckles skim the inside of my wrist where my pulse reveals how unsettled he makes me. “Lock it away, Noah.”
He pivots toward the corridor. Light slams into us—bright and blinding, the kind that flattens everyone into printable versions of themselves.
People populate the hallway in flashes: stagehands with headsets, a makeup artist carrying a brush belt, a producer checking a list, two presenters gossiping in sequins.
Heads lift. Smiles bloom toward him first, then me.
We are a brand gliding past. We are proof that fairy tales can be real.
Only what they don’t know is that ours is managed by money and fear.
His stride is effortless. Mine is one fraction shorter, calibrated to his pace, my boot heels catching rhythm on the polished floor.
His arm cages my hand. It may look romantic, but it’s anything but.
He leans without turning his head, a whisper born inside the smile he’s presenting to the corridor.
“One breath every eight steps. You’re doing six. Fix it.”
I adjust. I don’t think about how long he’s been counting my breaths, because the reality of that truth would scare me more than I let on.
We pass a cluster of cameras. He loosens his elbow just enough to slide his hand down my forearm, fingers closing over my wrist in a hold that reads proprietary and photographs as protective.
The pressure tightens for a single beat—just enough to make my bones remember the order of themselves—then releases to a more elegant grip.
He laughs at something a producer says. I don’t get the joke.
My hearing has gone narrow, tuned to the frequency of him.
“You look stunning,” a woman with a headset and clipboard gushes. “So excited for your performance, Noah.”
I give her the practiced smile and a thank you that sounds airy and alive. Bradley watches it land like a director satisfied with a take. His thumb strokes the inside of my wrist once in a move that could read as soothing.
We reach the last turn before the wings.
The crowd swells louder, a storm beyond a thin wall.
The air here is colder, conditioned to keep a thousand bodies from sweating through silk.
I’m suddenly aware of how the choker presses when I swallow.
I think about home. I think about leaving. I think about Rhett.
Bradley steers me into the shadows beside a velvet curtain. The announcer’s voice booms the name of a presenter, and the applause sticks to my skin like static.
“Look at me.” His eyes cut through the lights, all silver and calculation.
“You’re going to walk out there when you’re called.
You’re going to shine exactly how I taught you to.
You’re going to prove I was right about you.
” His breath grazes my cheek, a parody of intimacy.
“And you’re going to stop thinking about some dead little life in a dead little town. You understand?”
The word dead buckles my knees inside my boots. Ironic that that’s exactly how I currently feel.
He inches closer until there’s no room for air between us.
His smile widens for the benefit of a camera operator crossing behind my shoulder.
His voice is a thread only I can hear. “If your mask slips, you’ll regret it.
If you defy me, I will leak your infidelity to the press. If you embarrass me, I will ruin you.”
I blink, slowly, because if I don’t, I’ll cry. My mouth finds the shape it needs.
“You’re up, Miss Lane.” My cue arrives, bright and professional, an arrow of sound.
Bradley takes my hand like he’s a magician and I’m an object he needs for his next trick. Our fingers thread together. To anyone watching, we are in love. He stops at the wing of the stage, dropping his hand to my lower back. “Don’t fuck this up.”
The crowd’s cheer beyond the curtain intensifies, then distorts and turns aquatic. The lights at the mouth of the stage flare too white to be real. I hear my name being called by the presenter.
Bradley’s grip loosens, and I walk forward alone. From behind, he plays the part of my loving fiancé. “Atta girl. Knock them dead.”
I walk into the light like it’s a path to the gallows, smiling the way he taught me to, my heart pounding to the applause of the crowd.
I chance a quick look over my shoulder and spot Bradley’s assistant sidling up to him, her manicured fingers trailing down the breast of his suit jacket.
Something inside me snaps and anger breathes life back into the dormant showpiece he molded me into.
It’s not jealousy but defiance. Fuck this prick.
I am sick of being a prized pony he parades around. I draw in a deep breath, shoulders straightening with every step. He thinks he can lay claim to Noah Lane? Well, he’s about to realize his mistake. Bradley may have given me the stage, but these fans, this award, my talent—it’s mine.
Showtime.