Chapter 7
ELOWEN
The world outside our suite ceases. Adam hits pause, cancels everything, calling his harried assistant, Oliver, while he traces idle patterns on my bare back.
He clears his schedule, and we exist in a self-contained bubble of each other’s bodies, showers, luxurious baths, and the occasional room service delivery.
It’s a delicious, hedonistic haze. We talk for hours, about everything and nothing. He tells me about his childhood, about the lonely, driven boy who inherited his father’s empire. I tell him about my love of languages.
Adam fucks me in every imaginable position, lets me learn what I like.
What makes me scream in ecstasy, what fascinates me, and what makes me wince and pull back from.
He learns to read my facial expressions so well I don’t even need to say much.
I see it as an extension of my translator skillset, I joke.
And he laughs. And he allows me to explore his body for as long as I want so I can learn the same about him.
His cock fascinates me. I explore it from every angle.
It's a bubble I never want to leave…but bubbles are made to be popped.
On the morning of the second day, Adam's phone buzzes on the nightstand. He glances at it, a small, genuine smile touching his lips.
"She's here," he says, and reality instantly slaps me in the face.
My stomach tightens. I know exactly who it is because of the itinerary I was given–it’s Camille, his daughter.
In the whirlwind of the accident and the bath, the bed, the sex and the bubble, I pushed the knowledge of his daughter’s arrival out of my mind.
Now it crashes down on me with the force of an avalanche.
"Right," I say, hoping he doesn’t pick up on how anxious I’m suddenly feeling.
"Okay." I hear myself saying, but my mind searches for excuses. Anything to avoid meeting her. I don’t feel ready. Too soon. Those two words repeat inside my skull. Like my chorus for the past few days. I love what I have found, however unexpectedly, here with Adam. And I don’t want it to end.
But it is dizzyingly fast, and I need space and time to process.
Thankfully, he doesn't notice the shift. He’s already up, pulling on a pair of jeans, a new energy animating his movements. "Come on. I want you to meet her."
Of course, he’s super eager. That’s Adam. A force of nature, in human form.
Sometime during the past two days, some new outfits have been delivered to the suite, and I dress on autopilot.
They fit perfectly. I make a note to thank Oliver for that.
We take the private elevator down, Adam’s hand on my back feeling out of place even though his hands have been all over me for days now.
When we reach the lobby, it’s early enough that everything is still pretty quiet… and she’s quite easy to spot.
Camille. She’s a few years younger than me, tall, and looks so much different than she did when I saw her last at the funeral. Like her father, she looks like she’s healed enough to smile again, and that smile broadens when she sees Adam.
"Dad!" She launches herself into his arms, and although she’s a grown woman, he catches her easily.
When they pull apart, Adam’s arm comes around my shoulders, pulling me forward. "Cam, this is Elowen. My…translator."
It's been so long since I've been introduced as anything but his fiancé, but of course, he wouldn't keep up the lie with his daughter of all people. Camille grins slyly.
"Is that so? I've heard from a bunch of people on Insta that Elowen is your betrothed. Care to explain?" she says. “I’m all ears, Father.” Her tone, though, is light and teasing, not accusatory. "It's nice to meet you, Elowen. I'm so glad someone's finally managed to drag him out of his shell."
Her kindness throws me through a loop. I shake her outstretched hand, forcing a smile that feels brittle on my face.
What has Adam told her about us? The change in our relationship has been so sudden, I think she’s still under the impression that we’re in a fake relationship.
Adam and I definitely aren’t engaged, but we definitely aren’t just employer and employee anymore either?
Why didn’t I ask him before we came down?
"It's lovely to meet you, too."
"Come on," Adam nods towards the restaurant, "I'll explain my little deception along the way."
The three of us walk toward the restaurant for brunch, Adam and Camille falling into an easy rhythm.
They’re close, that much is obvious, and they’re talking about so many things in their lives that I’m totally unaware of.
When Camille mentions something about how much her mother disliked skiing and Adam laughs, the reality I've been hiding from crashes over me.
In our little bubble, I was able to truly believe there was a place for me in Adam’s life.
But seeing him with Camille, hearing the name of her mother, his late wife, and seeing the mix of sadness and affection on his face, it’s all too clear that I’m just a blip.
And an intruder. I suddenly feel so temporary.
There is no space for me here, not when Adam’s life is already a fully formed world.
Friends, businesses, employees, assistants, family, homes everywhere.
A daughter, for god’s sake. He’s so established. How or where can I fit into that?
It hits so hard, so devastatingly, that I feel like I’m going to be sick. I need to breathe. I can’t truly be with a billionaire. I’m just…Elowen. Temporary translator. Not even a full-time employee.
I need some way to just think this through.
It’s impossible here in what now feels like a pressure cooker.
I am pissed at myself for how I feel and how I am reacting.
On the one hand, I feel childish, but at the same time I think I have this in perfect perspective.
Surprisingly, I feel like I’m being mature.
Pulling myself away responsibly from a two-day hot fling with a billionaire in a high-class Swiss ski resort.
From this viewpoint, it looks too good to be true.
And I’m well aware of the saying: if it looks too good to be true, yep, I’m not going there.
That can only end in tears, recriminations, and, yup, heartbreak all round.
I need to thank Camille, or her presence at least, for revealing this clarity for me.
I don’t want this ridiculous, money-soaked life. All I want is Adam. How is it possible to feel attached yet detached at the same time?
But I can’t have him. He’s not mine. He never was.
I slow, falling back a step, and I can feel Adam’s gaze on me. Maybe he can sense that something is wrong, but there’s no way for him to know I’m drowning.
Brunch is the most agonizing experience of my life. With each mention of a history I have no knowledge of, of a life I’m a stranger to, another piece of my armor clicks back into place.
When we return to the suite, Adam turns on me instantly. "What's wrong?”
"I'm just tired," I lie. I’m itching to run away. Each moment with Adam now just shatters my heart more.
Adam doesn’t believe me, and he tells me as such when I insist on going back to my own suite to rest, but he still lets me go. Little does he know I’m never coming back to his suite…or his arms.
Ever.
For the remaining days of the summit, I become a ghost. I am the perfect translator, efficient, professional, but detached. I stand beside him in meetings, I attend the dinners, and I play the part of the fake fiancée with a stiff smile on my face.
Adam tries. God, he tries. He looks at me with raw adoration, and I meet it with a polite, blank stare.
He whispers private jokes meant only for me, and I respond with a faint, impersonal smile.
He tries to pull me back into the bubble we created, but I've already popped it from the inside.
The distance devastates me, but it's the only way I know how to survive this.
I take frequent trips to the restroom, lock myself away, and sob.
Then fix my face and return to fulfill my fake fiancée, robotic translator role.
It crosses my mind that my plight fits perfectly for the time I live in, where even my translation skills are under threat from new AI models.
On our final night, he corners me on a freezing balcony where I’ve escaped to catch my breath, the lights of the valley glittering below us.
"Elowen, talk to me," he demands. "What happened? What did I do wrong?"
"Nothing, Adam. It’s just…done. We're leaving tomorrow. We're going back to the real world."
"This can be the real world," he insists, his hands gripping my arms, "Us. This can be our real world."
Tears burn behind my eyes as I extricate myself from his grasp.
“Let's just stick to the plan. Break up amicably and go back to our lives.”
Adam laughs in cruel disbelief, but he finally lets me go.
“You created this fiction, Adam. You are more than smart enough to explain the ending.”
As I rush away, I see him trying to piece together the Elowen he rescued off the mountain with the Elowen running away from him now, but he can't.
I've locked that heartsick woman up and thrown away the key.