Chapter 6 #2
“An assessment of what?”
“Of my viability as an asset.”
He turned back to me, and for the first time, I saw something behind the ice-blue eyes that terrified me. It wasn't anger. It wasn't lust.
It was fear.
“My father doesn't care about happiness,” Ezra said quietly. “He cares about ROI. Return on Investment. I am an investment. You are the new variable in the portfolio. If he thinks you’re a liability… if he thinks you’re making me weak… he will liquidate the asset.”
“Liquidate?” I frowned. “You mean cut you off?”
“I mean he will destroy everything I’ve built,” Ezra said. “The hockey career. The company prospects. He’ll make sure I never work in this industry again. And he’ll come for you, too. Just to be thorough.”
He took a step closer, his voice dropping to a desperate whisper.
“I need you to be perfect tomorrow, Amara. I need you to be flawless. Can you do that?”
I looked at him. I saw the cracks in the armor. I saw the little boy who had been raised as a stock option rather than a son.
My heart ached. A sharp, physical pain in the center of my chest.
I reached out. I didn't think about the people watching. I didn't think about the rules.
I placed my hand on his cheek.
His skin was rough with stubble. He froze at the contact, his eyes widening. He looked like he expected me to slap him, or mock him.
“I’m a Vane,” I whispered fiercely. “We do flawless better than anyone. I’ve been wearing a mask since I was six years old, Ezra. I can wear one for you.”
He leaned into my touch. Just an inch. He closed his eyes, exhaling a breath he seemed to have been holding for years.
“Thank you,” he breathed.
For a moment, in the quiet corner of the library, we weren't enemies. We weren't fake dating. We were two broken children hiding from the monsters that shared our last names.
“Come home,” I said softly. “You look exhausted. Let’s go home.”
He opened his eyes. The ice was melting.
“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s go home.”
The penthouse was quiet, but the tension had shifted. It wasn't the frantic sexual tension of the last few days. It was heavier. Somber.
Ezra didn't order me to study. He didn't check my schedule.
He paced.
He walked the length of the living room, back and forth, like a caged tiger. He straightened a stack of magazines that were already perfectly aligned. He wiped a microscopic smudge off the glass table.
I watched him from the kitchen island, nursing a glass of wine. I was wearing leggings and a sweatshirt now, having finally shed the jersey, but I felt exposed in a different way.
I was seeing the mechanism of his trauma.
“Ezra,” I said finally. “Stop.”
He froze mid-stride, his back to me. “Stop what?”
“Stop cleaning things that aren't dirty. You’re going to wear a hole in the floor.”
He turned around. His shoulders were up to his ears.
“I need to make sure everything is ready. He notices details. Dust. Fingerprints. Imperfections.”
“The apartment is sterile,” I said. “It looks like a Kubrick film. It’s fine.”
I walked over to him. I took the microfiber cloth out of his hand and tossed it onto the sofa.
“Sit down,” I commanded.
He looked at me, surprised by the tone. It was my turn to give the orders.
“Amara…”
“Sit.”
He sat. He sank onto the leather sofa, his elbows resting on his knees, his head hanging low.
“Tell me about him,” I said, sitting next to him. Not touching, but close enough to offer warmth. “Tell me why a man who runs a billion-dollar empire is afraid of a dinner conversation.”
Ezra was silent for a long time. He stared at his hands—the hands that could catch a puck moving at ninety miles an hour, the hands that had brought me to ecstasy.
“He keeps a ledger,” Ezra said. His voice was devoid of emotion, which made it infinitely worse.
“A ledger?”
“A literal book. Since I was seven. It tracks my ‘value.’ Good grades, goals scored, social connections made—credits. Mistakes, emotional outbursts, failures—debits.”
I stared at him, horrified. “You’re joking.”
“He showed it to me when I was twelve,” Ezra continued. “I had cried because my mother missed my birthday. He opened the book and showed me the red ink. He told me that crying was a debit. That emotions were a depreciation of the asset.”
He looked at me. His eyes were dry, but they were haunted.
“I’ve spent my entire life trying to stay in the black, Amara. Trying to prove that I am worth the investment he made in me. Hockey isn't a passion for him; it’s a metric. If I make the NHL, my stock goes up. If I get distracted… I crash.”
I felt sick. I wanted to find Cyrus Sterling and set him on fire.
This was why Ezra was a control freak. This was why he needed protocols and rules. Because in his world, a lack of control didn't just mean chaos; it mean he was worthless.
And I—Amara the Brat, Amara the Chaos—was the biggest risk he had ever taken.
“Why me?” I asked. My voice was barely a whisper. “If he wants stability, why pick me? Why pick a Vane? Why pick a girl who’s failing two classes and spends too much money on shoes?”
Ezra turned his body toward me. He reached out and took my hand. His grip was tight, desperate.
“Because you’re the only thing that feels real,” he said.
The confession hung in the air between us.
“Every woman I’ve ever dated has been a calculation,” he said. “Safe. Boring. Compatible on paper. But with you… you challenge me. You fight back. You make a mess.”
He squeezed my hand.
“And when I’m with you, I don’t think about the ledger. I don’t think about the red ink. I just think about you.”
Tears pricked my eyes. I didn't try to stop them.
“That’s dangerous, Ezra,” I whispered. “If I’m the distraction… I’m the debit.”
“No,” he said fiercely. He moved closer, sliding his hand up my arm to cup my shoulder. “You’re not a debit. You’re the prize. If I can have you—if I can handle you—then I win. I prove that I can have the chaos and the control.”
He leaned his forehead against mine.
“Help me prove him wrong, Amara. Help me show him that I can have it all.”
I closed my eyes, breathing in his scent. I was terrified. I was walking into a lion’s den tomorrow night with nothing but a silk dress and a fake smile.
But looking at the cracks in Ezra’s mask, I knew I would burn the world down before I let his father add another line of red ink to that book.
“I’m with you,” I promised. “We’ll crush him. We’ll be so perfect he won’t know what hit him.”
Ezra let out a ragged breath. He turned his head, his lips brushing against my cheek. It wasn't sexual. It was tender. It was a gesture of profound gratitude.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“But Ezra?”
He pulled back slightly to look at me. “Yeah?”
“If he pulls out a ledger at the dinner table,” I said, a small, fierce smile touching my lips. “I’m going to stab him with a steak knife.”
Ezra laughed.
It was a rusty, unused sound, but it was real. It transformed his face, softening the hard angles, lighting up his eyes.
“Deal,” he said.
We sat there in the silence, holding hands, watching the city lights below.
I knew, with a terrifying certainty, that I was falling in love with him.
And I knew, just as certainly, that tomorrow night was going to test us in ways neither of us was prepared for.
But for tonight, we were safe. For tonight, the ledger was closed.