9. Chapter 9
Claire
The briefing takes eleven minutes.
I walk Darius through the ring-shopping plan at the Training Complex conference table with my notebook open and my voice level: we enter the boutique on Westheimer together, we browse long enough for the street-level cameras to work, we let the photo surface organically.
The ring does not have to be purchased today. This is optics architecture. We control the image, and the image writes the story.
Darius listens with his arms crossed and his eyes on me.
When I finish, he says, "It won't work."
I look up from my notes. "Excuse me?"
"The photo." He leans back in his chair. "Two people standing side by side in a jewelry boutique. That's not a love story. That's a press release."
I set my pen down. "The visual speaks for itself."
"The visual says we showed up." He shakes his head.
"People have been watching me perform for ten years.
They know what it looks like when I'm going through the motions.
You want them to believe this is real, I have to act like it's real.
Which means I hold your hand. I look at you like you matter to me. "
He pauses.
"Like I'm a man who finally chose someone special."
I keep my expression neutral. "That isn't necessary."
"It absolutely is."
The silence between us is pointed.
"I know how to manage optics," I tell him.
"And I know how people read a couple," he says. "You're the one who told me authenticity is the whole game. So let's be authentic."
He's not wrong. That's the aggravating part.
I pick up my pen. "Fine. You can hold my hand."
His mouth twitches.
"Don't enjoy this."
"Too late."
"And you follow my lead inside. No improvising."
***
He picks me up at noon in a car I have never seen in person but have definitely seen on the internet.
A metallic red Lamborghini sits at the curb outside my building, low to the ground and aggressively expensive. The kind of car that doesn't just arrive somewhere. It announces itself.
As I step outside, bass rattles through the open driver's window. Jay-Z. Specifically, "Money Ain't a Thang."
I bite back a laugh. Of course that's what he's listening to.
The music is loud enough to vibrate the glass, and for one ridiculous second I picture the music video. Fur coats. Money flying everywhere. Peak early-2000s excess.
It's painfully on brand.
Then Darius spots me. The volume drops immediately. Not off, just low enough that the block no longer needs to participate.
I stop on the sidewalk for a full second.
Darius leans across the center console and pushes the passenger door open.
I don't move.
He looks at me. I look at him. The Lamborghini idles between us.
"You're joking," I say.
"What?"
"Your father didn't teach you to open the door for a lady?"
Something flickers across his face and disappears before I can identify it.
Then I remember. The words hit me the second they leave my mouth. No father. Foster care. I know this about him, and I said it anyway.
"Darius—"
He's already climbing out. A moment later he's rounding the hood with his hands in his pockets like this was the plan all along. He stops beside the passenger door, pulls it open, and gestures toward the seat.
"After you."
I wince. "Darius, I didn't mean—"
"I know." His voice is easy, completely free of accusation.
That somehow makes me feel worse.
For a second neither of us moves.
Then one corner of his mouth lifts. "Are you getting in, or are we standing here until someone takes a picture?"
Despite myself, I laugh. "You're impossible."
"So I've been told."
I slide into the passenger seat. The interior smells like leather and something expensive I can't name. The seat holds me like it was made for exactly this.
I set my notebook in my lap and keep my eyes forward, very professional, very composed.
We pull onto the street and heads turn before we even reach the first light. A woman on the corner looks up from her phone. Two guys outside a coffee shop nudge each other. Someone lifts their camera.
I have spent eight years making sure no one looks at me. I manage visibility for other people. I stay behind the clipboard, behind the briefing, behind the fame.
This is the opposite of that.
My cheeks go warm. I tuck my hair behind my ear and look out the window and say nothing.
Darius doesn't comment. But I catch the corner of his mouth lift, just slightly, like he already knows.
***
The boutique is on Westheimer, tucked between a wine bar and a florist, with a street-level window that catches the afternoon light perfectly. I chose it for that window. I mapped this shot three days ago.
We step inside and the jeweler appears almost immediately.
Darius's hand settles at the small of my back as we stop at the first display case. The touch catches me off guard.
Then he points. "That one."
The ring is enormous.
The jeweler brightens instantly. "Excellent choice, Mr. Webb. That's one of our most exceptional stones. D color, internally flawless—"
Darius nods once. "Let's see it."
The jeweler unlocks the case. "Of course. This particular diamond is rare because—"
"Yeah, yeah." Darius makes a small motion with his hand. "Just let me see the ring."
The words hit me like a cold splash of water.
The jeweler pauses. Only for a second. Then the professional smile slides right back into place.
"Of course, sir."
Something twists in my stomach. Maybe Darius doesn't hear it. Maybe he's too focused on the ring. I hear it, though — the impatience, the assumption that this man's job is to hurry up and get out of his way.
The jeweler places the ring on the velvet tray.
Darius picks it up immediately. "It's nice."
The jeweler starts explaining the stone again. Darius cuts him off.
"Claire?"
I look up. "What?"
"You like this one?"
The jeweler falls silent and waits.
I glance at him. Then back at Darius.
And suddenly I'm not thinking about the ring anymore.
I'm thinking about the version of Darius I've spent the last two weeks trying to rehabilitate.
The one who thinks charm counts as growth, who apologizes when someone points out a problem but rarely notices it on his own.
The one who still treats certain people like background noise.
"Darius."
He looks at me.
My irritation spikes so fast it surprises me. I shift closer and lower my voice. "If you want the world to believe you've changed, you have to actually try. You can’t bite everyone’s head off and then act surprised when they don’t like you."
He looks at me and I see the exact moment it lands — his jaw tightens, not in anger but in recognition, like he caught himself mid-habit and didn't like what he saw.
He's quiet for a moment.
Then he turns to the jeweler. "I'm sorry about that. Can we see the case on the far wall?"
His voice is easy. Genuine.
The jeweler nods and crosses the room.
I don't say anything. But I notice.
***
The ring Darius points to the second time is nothing like the first.
Oval stone. Delicate pavé band. Warm gold setting that sits low and close to the finger. The kind of ring that looks like it was chosen for a specific person, not a specific price point.
I don't say anything.
The jeweler places it on the velvet pad and I reach for it, but Darius gets there first. He picks it up with two fingers, turns to me, and slides it onto my left hand before I can react.
Something warm moves up my arm that has nothing to do with the ring.
I stare at my hand instead of at him, because looking at him right now feels like a very bad idea.
The stone catches the afternoon light through the front window. The band sits like it was sized for me specifically.
When I finally look up, his expression is unreadable. Not the camera-ready version he usually deploys. Something quieter underneath it.
Darius hands the jeweler a black card before I can say a word.
The ring stays to be sized.
***
We step outside and that's when I see them — two photographers on the far side of the street, lenses already up. Right on schedule.
We stand on the sidewalk while the last lens cap clicks shut somewhere down the block, and the silence between us is different from the one in the conference room this morning. That one had edges. This one doesn't.
"How did you know?" I ask.
He looks at me.
"The ring," I say. "How did you know that one."
He's quiet for a second. Then: "Your whole face changed when you saw it."
I don't have a response to that.
"If I'm going to convince anyone I'm in love with you," he says, quieter, "I have to act like it. They need to believe you're the woman who actually changed me. Not a woman I hired."
He pauses. "So I paid attention."
I look at him for a moment longer than I mean to.
He paid attention. Not to the cameras, not to the story we're supposed to be selling. To me.
This is the second time he's done that. Both times I thought he wasn't paying attention at all.
I'm not sure how I feel about that yet.
We walk back to the car without touching, and I don't say anything, and neither does he. It's the most comfortable silence we've had.
***
We're barely out of the parking lot before I let out a laugh I didn't know I was holding.
"Well," I say, buckling my seatbelt, cheeks still warm. "That was something."
Darius grins.
"You were good in there."
"Please. Mr. Halpern looked ready to forgive you for everything the second you apologized."
Darius winces.
"Yeah, well."
"That was surprisingly self-aware of you."
"I have my moments."
"Rare moments."
"He's known me since I got my first league check," he says, glancing over. "Probably thought I'd never settle down long enough to buy a ring for anyone."
"And the girl at the counter?" I shake my head, still smiling. "She recognized you before we even walked in. She was texting someone under the glass case. I'm ninety percent sure she already had a draft caption ready."
"Think she got a picture?"
"Oh, absolutely. She angled her phone like she was checking her reflection, but she was filming us the whole time."
We hit a stoplight. The car idles.
And for a second, neither of us says anything.
It's ridiculous, but there's a particular feeling that comes after a plan lands exactly the way it was supposed to — a little reckless, a little electric, like we just pulled off something outrageous and the world hasn't caught up yet. I'm still riding it when his phone buzzes in the cupholder.
Then mine.
I look down. A breaking news alert. Two sports media outlets. The ring-shopping photo — our photo — already picked up, already captioned, already everywhere.
DARIUS "HOLLYWOOD" WEBB IS OFF THE MARKET — STAR WR SPOTTED RING SHOPPING WITH MYSTERY WOMAN
I read it twice.
"Holy shit!" I say. "The plan is working perfectly."
Then, quieter, mostly to myself: "I forgot to tell my parents."