Chapter Seventeen: Cracks in the Contract
The house was silent, but Amara could feel the storm inside it—the tension, the grief, the unspoken words. After Ethan's confession, she hadn't slept. She kept replaying the image of him in that study, clutching a faded photograph as if it were the only thing anchoring him.
By morning, she found him again—this time outside on the balcony, the city stretching far below. He stood in a simple T-shirt, hair tousled, looking less like the flawless movie star and more like a man who had been broken too many times.
"You don't sleep, do you?" she asked softly.
He didn't turn, but she saw the corner of his mouth twitch. "Sleep doesn't change the past."
Amara hesitated, then stepped beside him. "Neither does guilt."
That made him glance at her. His eyes were tired, but there was something else there—an ache that went deeper than words. "You speak as if it's easy to let go."
"No," she whispered, holding his gaze. "I speak as someone who knows what it's like to carry weight that isn't mine. The longer you hold it, the more it steals from you."
For a long moment, they just stood there, the air charged between them. Ethan finally sighed, looking out over the skyline. "You weren't supposed to matter in this. You were supposed to be a solution, nothing more. But somehow, you've become… dangerous."
Amara's heart stumbled. "Dangerous?"
He turned fully to her then, and the intensity of his stare nearly knocked the breath from her lungs. "Because you make me want things I swore I'd never want again."
The world seemed to narrow, just the two of them in that space. She saw it—the fracture in his walls, the man beneath the headlines and the pain. And for the first time, she allowed herself to stop thinking of him as Ethan Knight, the untouchable star. Right now, he was just Ethan. A man who needed someone to see him, not save him.
She reached out without thinking, her fingers brushing his hand where it rested on the balcony rail. The touch was small, tentative—but he didn't pull away.
Instead, he covered her hand with his, his grip steady, grounding. "Amara," he murmured, her name rough in his throat, as if he wasn't used to saying it.
She swallowed hard. "What?"
His eyes softened, something raw flickering there. "Tell me I'm not making a mistake letting you in."
Her chest ached at the vulnerability in his voice. She squeezed his hand, her voice firm even though her heart raced. "You're not."
For a heartbeat, nothing else mattered. Then, almost reluctantly, he let her hand go, stepping back as if reminding himself of the boundaries between them. "This wasn't part of the deal," he said, voice rough.
"No," Amara agreed quietly, though a small, defiant smile tugged at her lips. "But maybe the deal isn't the whole story."
His gaze lingered on her, unreadable. And then he walked away, leaving her alone on the balcony with her pulse racing and a truth she could no longer deny.
The contract was crumbling.
Later that evening, when she caught her reflection in the mirror, Amara saw the change in herself too. She wasn't just the girl who had signed papers for a paycheck anymore. She was someone standing at the edge of something real, something terrifying.
And as much as she wanted to protect her heart, she knew it was already too late.