29. CHAPTER 26 #2
“What do winners get?” I repeated, my voice steadying even as my pulse raced. I didn't back away. If I retreated now, he’d already won.
Reaching up, my fingers caught the silk of his tie, and tightened my grip, forcing him to maintain eye contact.
“If you think a successful outing would make me invite you into my bed, then you’re clearly mistaken,” I whispered, my breath ghosting over the shell of his ear, mimicking the intimate whispers he’d used on me all night.
“Don't confuse my cooperation with my surrender, Mr Kade.”
That was when I saw his eyes darken, the slight flare of his nostrils. He was captivated. His hand came up and caught the curve of my chin. The vulnerability in his eyes made my pulse stumble on itself.
His gaze dropped to my lips again as his thumb dragged slowly across my lower lip, the intention behind the touch so clear it made my skin tingle with the memory of that stormy night.
He was going to kiss me. He couldn’t help himself.
And that was my cue.
Just as his breath fanned over my mouth, I broke the spell. I stepped back, slipping out of his reach and taking two more steps back before he could try for me again.
“Goodnight, Orion,” I said, offering him a cryptic smile that promised nothing. “Rest up. I’m sure there’s another win waiting for you tomorrow.”
I didn’t wait for his response. I walked straight, my eyes focused on my room door, as I swayed my hips knowing his eyes were still on me.
The second the heavy oak door clicked shut behind me, I slumped against it, my lungs screaming as I finally let out the breath I’d been holding. My hands were shaking—vibrating with the sheer, brutal energy of the night.
I reached into my clutch and pulled out the gold-monogrammed pen, the metal felt cool and heavy in my trembling palm. Tomorrow morning, I’d add it to the growing collection hidden away in my studio.
I tucked the pen back into my clutch and placed it on the dresser.
I’d stolen from the Prime Minister and I’d walked away from the prying eyes of my husband. It was worth it, because tonight I didn't feel like I was in Kade jail. I felt alive.
I’d won this round.
In the weeks that followed, the game found its rhythm. I did what team players do: I showed up, and played my part.
I saw him more at breakfast now. He never missed dinner, as always.
At first, conversations were stiff and careful.
The weather, our schedules, bland comments about the news.
Then, little by little, small talk expanded into more.
A shared complaint about an insufferable ambassador we’d met at an event a few days ago.
A dry joke about his mother’s latest lecture.
The one time he nearly spat out his coffee when I told him about how my mother said I was too domesticated after she caught me baking in secret with the kitchen staff.
There were days when he worked in his home office while I worked in my studio down the hall. During those hours, I became strangely hyper-aware of his presence, noticing little things like the muffled thud of his footsteps and the faint rumble of his voice filtering underneath my studio door.
I’d step out for a glass of water and find him in the hallway.
He’d pause. I’d pause too. Sometimes he’d give me that crooked smile that disarmed me, as though we were sharing a private joke no one else could see, and I’d feel my own mouth answering before my brain could stop it.
My body was a traitor of itself when it came to Orion.
Out of my brothers, only Blaise visited the estate.
Debo blatantly refused. His hate for Orion, clearly outweighed his love for me. Laurent claimed he’d rather “rot in the desert without water in sight” than set foot in a Kade residence, and I believed him.
Blaise, however, adapted. He came by twice a week at first, then whenever business required it. I learned that he and Orion could get along just fine when there were numbers and logistics between them. They spent hours in Orion’s home office, and kept their voices mostly low and serious.
Oil fields, trust structures, shipping—topics I’d heard my whole life. They spoke the same fluent language of business even if they didn’t like each other much. Or so I believed.
He joined us for dinner twice.
Those evenings felt strange in the best way.
My brother at one end of the table, my husband at the other, the conversation sliding between business and everything else.
They’d talk business and pipelines until I got bored and interjected with some story about Blaise’s teenage idiocy—like the time he stole our father’s Aston Martin at seventeen and crashed it into a hedge.
Orion had laughed, head tipped back, his eyes lit with genuine amusement.
The air in the room immediately eased, as if the suffocating atmosphere of the estate had finally cracked open to let in sunlight. The sound of his laughter was rich and melodic, rippling through the table, slipping under my skin and straight into my veins.
Seeing him like that—unguarded, teeth bared in a smile that made him even more devastatingly handsome—felt impossibly private, more intimate than any touch we’d shared in the dark.
It made me feel seen, even though he wasn't currently looking at me with desire, only with delight. For one terrifying second, I wanted to reach across the table and catch the sound with my bare hands just to keep it from fading.
Then logic returned. The fear of giving into anything Orion followed.
I tucked that sound away somewhere deep inside me and pretended I didn’t. Wrenching my mind back into the room where my brother kept talking about something else that coaxed another laugh from Orion.
It helped that Orion didn’t seem to mind Blaise coming and going. Maybe it was trust, or his usual calculations. Probably the illusion of both. Either way, having one of my people from the Fernández household able to walk into my new home freely loosened a tight and ugly knot inside me.
It made this marriage feel less like exile.
On slower days, when my sketch deadlines were light and Céleste wasn’t dragging me to fittings or meetings, I found myself wandering to the east wing.
To his father.
Mrs Lewis had told me once, in a deep conversation over afternoon tea, that “Mr Kade Senior adored his history books. Before he took ill, you wouldn’t see him without one.” Her eyes had gone misty and sentimental when she said it.
So I started visiting him.
His section of the wing was a strange mix of hospital and home. One side was all glowing monitors and sterile equipment; the other was filled with his true life—leather chairs and a library of floor-to-ceiling books.
The smell of medicine, antiseptic and old wood welcomed me as I peered into the library and stepped further inside. There were so many books.
The first day, I chose one at random from his shelves.
A thick volume on early Mediterranean trade routes.
I sat in the leather armchair near his bed and read out loud, unsure if he understood.
His eyes were open but unfocused, his hands still.
Every now and then, when I paused to turn a page, I thought I saw a trace of something—a tiny reflex around his eyes, and the barest movement in his brows.
I decided to pretend it meant yes. Keep going.
It became a ritual.
Some days I read until my throat was dry, conscious of his calm breathing as I went on.
Other days, I fed him afterward: slow spoonfuls of soup and small sips of water. The chef mentioned that while he was restricted to soft foods, he always seemed most receptive to the classics, like a rich, velvety Consommé or a creamy Crème du Barry.
The staff knew his favorites from habit, but now favorites were told from minute reactions. From the way he savored the flavors, to his jaw relaxing to show a suggestion of whatever memory remained of what he usually enjoyed. It was the only way he could still vote on the life he had left.
I talked to him about nothing and everything. I told him about Isolde’s tour, Céleste’s demanding clients, the way Orion could be impossible sometimes and how he frowned when he concentrated, even at little things.
He never replied, obviously.
I liked how quiet it was here. I appreciated the feeling of being useful in a way that had nothing to do with obligations or photo ops or forced conversations.
One afternoon, I was halfway through a passage about a 16th-century shipping lane when the door opened behind me. The air suggested who had entered, but I kept reading. I finished the paragraph before I lifted my eyes, and found Orion standing in the room.
His tie was loosened, pulled free as if he’d been tugging at it on the way upstairs. His hair was slightly disheveled, as if he’d run his hand through it one too many times. His eyes flicked from me to his father, then back again. He looked… startled.
It wasn't because I was there; he would have known that—Mrs. Lewis reported everything back to him. But surveillance was how he tracked what happened when she wasn't around. There was a limit, after all, to Mrs. Lewis' superpowers.
No. His surprise was at the spoon in my hand, the plate on the tray, and the book open on my lap.
“I didn’t hear you come in,” I said, keeping my voice just above a breath, closing the book over my thumb to mark the page.
The only sound for a while was the rhythmic beep of the heart monitor.
He looked down at his father's face, his eyes searching every line and every shallow breath. I wasn't sure what he was looking for, but I could spot the tiredness in his eyes that made him look more…human.
I waited for him to say something, to ask why I was here or tell me to leave, but he just kept staring at his father.
“What were you reading?” he asked, his voice softer than I’d ever heard it.
I looked down at the heavy spine in my lap. “Trade routes,” I replied, my own voice a low hush. “He seemed to relax when I switched from politics.”
His gaze cut to mine.
“You think he reacts differently?” he asked.