Chapter 11:

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I must have watched that video thirty times.

Dagny stood in the parking lot with one hand on her hip and the other pointing at Lewin’s chest, and she looked like the woman her parents had spent her entire life trying to prevent her from becoming: loud, public, and completely free.

“Lewin Shorn, don’t think you’re such a big deal just because you have a couple of fans. I’ve spent years keeping you afloat, managing your social media, taking care of every single detail behind the scenes! If we split our capital when we break up, your fans should give me eighty percent.”

“Do you really think I put up with that face of yours for pleasure? You can’t even memorize your lines, and I have to help you phrase by phrase, like you’re some foolish rookie! And when are you planning to pay me back half of what I spent on those expensive acting courses that didn’t even help you? That would be the least you could do!”

“Always saying we can’t make our relationship public so we don’t disappoint your fans, and then you go on those shows to lament about the ‘special person’ who never was. For God’s sake! And I thought I had some impact on your life. You don’t even have the six-foot-two you claim to be!”

ѕ𝗵а𝗿𝗲 у𝘰u𝗿 𝘵𝘩о𝘶𝗀h𝗍𝘀 o𝘯 𝗴𝗮𝗹𝘯о𝗏е𝗅s.сo𝘮

The height comment. That was the part that went viral. Every clip, every meme, every headline led with the height comment. Dagny Briar had dismantled Lewin Shorn’s career with a tape measure and no fear.

I laughed every time. Loud, reckless laughter that made my ribs ache and my stitches pull.

But after the thirtieth replay, when the screen went dark and the room went quiet, the laughter left a residue that wasn’t laughter at all.

Dagny had wanted this world. Years ago, before her parents decided her dreams were unsuitable, she’d imagined herself under those lights, in front of those cameras. When they introduced her to Lewin, she’d seen in him the defiance she’d been forced to bury. He was doing the thing she’d been told she couldn’t do, and she loved him for it before she even loved him for himself.

She’d given that love teeth and claws. She’d worked for his career harder than he had, stayed up later, fought dirtier, believed more fiercely. And all of it, every sleepless night and managed crisis and swallowed insult, had registered in Lewin’s mind as one thing: desperation.

We’d both fallen for men who mistook devotion for weakness. The only difference was the wallpaper.

“What has you so absorbed?”

Stellan’s hand plucked the iPad from my grip before I could react. He held it behind his back, out of reach, with the practiced ease of a man confiscating a toy from a child.

“You’re a patient now and you need to rest. You shouldn’t be in front of screens for so long.”

He stood with his back to me, placing the iPad on the bedside table. It slid off the edge a moment later and hit the floor with a dull crack, but neither of us reached for it. Even now, even after everything, his first instinct was to control.

“Stellan Graves, we need to talk.”

He didn’t turn around. Instead, he reached for the blanket that had slipped off my legs and began to tuck it around my feet.

“You need to cover yourself well so you don’t catch a cold.”

I grabbed the blanket and threw it on the floor.

“Playing deaf won’t do any good. We need to talk.”

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