The Valentine Estate at night was a palace of silence. No footsteps, no whispers. Just the occasional sigh of the wind slipping between marble columns and moonlight spilling through tall windows.
Kara stood at the threshold of her bedroom, heart thudding, eyes on the man leaning against the far wall like a storm waiting to be unleashed.
Xavier.
He wasn't supposed to be here. Not in this wing. Not tonight.
She had followed every rule.
But he was watching her like he knew. Like he felt it.
"We had an agreement," she said quietly.
"We did." His voice was low, rough. "But something changed."
She crossed her arms, a weak shield against the heat in his stare. "Then change it back."
He didn't move.
"You think I'm proud of this?" Xavier asked. "Of dragging you into this twisted arrangement?"
Kara didn't answer. The truth sat heavy between them.
"I stayed away," he murmured. "I tried. But you keep getting under my skin."
Kara's breath caught. "That wasn't part of the contract."
He stepped closer, slowly, deliberately. "Neither was this."
He kissed her.
Soft at first. Testing. Like he expected her to push him away.
She didn't.
She couldn't.
Because in that moment, the hatred blurred. The contract blurred. The cold rules, the staged smiles, the separate bedrooms—all of it burned under the heat of that kiss.
And when she kissed him back, Xavier groaned like something inside him cracked open. Like the mask he always wore finally slipped.
His hands tangled in her hair. Hers slid under his shirt.
She had never felt anything like it.
They didn't make it to the bed. The wall caught them, urgent, breathless. It was heat and fury and something dangerously close to longing.
They broke the only rule that night.
And in the morning, he was gone.
Not a note. Not a word.
Only the memory of his body against hers and the ache in her chest that no amount of money could ever fix.
---
Three weeks passed. Kara threw herself into silence, into forgetting.
But the nausea came first.
Then the fatigue.
Then the truth.
She sat in the clinic bathroom, a stick in her shaking hand.
Two pink lines.
Her knees gave out.
She didn't cry.
She couldn't.
Because crying would mean this was real. And real meant danger.
She couldn't stay. Not now. Not with this growing life inside her.
Xavier had said one thing from the start: No pregnancy. No feelings.
She had broken both.
Now, she would run.
But first, she had to disappear without a trace.
---
She went to her best friend's house in the city, claimed she needed a break. A month later, with forged documents and an untraceable burner phone, she slipped out of the country. Not even a goodbye.
Not even a warning.
Because if Xavier knew, he wouldn't let her go.
And if he didn't know...
He wouldn't remember her anyway.
Kara took a deep breath and stared at the sonogram in her hand.
"I'll protect you," she whispered. "Even if it breaks me."
She didn't know then that fate wasn't done with them.
Or that five years later, her past would come crashing back into her arms with the same haunted eyes and crooked smile.
But he wouldn't remember the night they broke the rule.
He wouldn't remember the vow he made in the dark.
Only their child would.