The morning sun, usually a welcome guest at the Finch estate, felt accusatory. It streamed through the dining room’s mullioned windows, illuminating the fine dust motes dancing over the polished mahogany table and throwing the tense silence between Alistair and Chloe into sharp relief.
Last night, in the moon-drenched garden, the world had shrunk to the space between them. Now, it had expanded into a vast, uncrossable chasm, right between the salt cellar and the butter dish.
Alistair focused on his toast with the intensity of a surgeon dissecting a rare specimen. He buttered it with meticulous, geometric precision, the scrape of the silver knife against the crisp surface sounding like a scream in the quiet room.
His mind, his greatest asset and most reliable fortress, was in full-scale mutiny. The kiss had not been a data point to be cataloged; it had been a system crash.
An illogical, overwhelming surge of… something. He refused to name it.
To name it was to give it power.
It was a predictable psychophysiological response, he reasoned, trimming the crust from his toast with obsessive care. The propinquity effect, exacerbated by a high-stakes environment and elevated cortisol levels. We are two individuals in prolonged proximity, engaged in a mutually beneficial simulation of intimacy.
A certain degree of transference was statistically probable.
He dared a glance at Chloe. She was staring into her teacup as if it held the secrets of the universe, her posture rigid.
The easy grace she’d worn like a second skin all weekend had vanished, replaced by a brittle stillness. Had she felt it too?
The terrifying, unscripted authenticity of the moment? Or was she merely an exceptional actress, capable of producing a performance so convincing it had fooled even him, her co-star?
The thought was both a comfort and an insult.
Matilda, at the head of the table, observed them over the rim of her porcelain cup, her eyes missing nothing. Caleb, seated opposite, wore a faint, knowing smirk, clearly sensing the frost in the air and enjoying it immensely.
“You two are quiet this morning,” Matilda noted, her voice mild. “A late night, I presume?”
Chloe’s head snapped up, a practiced, pleasant smile locking into place. It didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Just enjoying the lovely morning, Matilda. It’s so peaceful here.”
The lie was smooth, professional. Alistair felt a sickening lurch in his stomach.
Was that all last night was? A performance piece for an audience of one?
His own chaotic feelings felt suddenly foolish, the embarrassing overreaction of an amateur. He needed to re-establish the parameters of their agreement.
He needed to put the walls back up before this… anomaly could breach his defenses entirely.
After the excruciating breakfast, he escaped to his sanctuary: the library. The familiar scent of aging paper and leather polish should have soothed him, but today it felt like a tomb.
He pulled a heavy tome on Carolingian manuscript traditions from a shelf, sank into a worn leather armchair, and opened it to a random page. The intricate script swam before his eyes.
He couldn’t focus. The memory of Chloe’s soft gasp against his lips, the scent of night-blooming jasmine in her hair, the astonishing rightness of her in his arms—it was all superimposed over the ninth-century text.
He slammed the book shut.
This was untenable. The project—saving the Blackwood Library—was his sole objective.
This emotional complication was a dangerous variable, a contaminant that threatened the integrity of the entire experiment. He was a scholar.
He dealt in facts, in evidence, in logical conclusions. Feelings were messy, unreliable, and had no place in a well-ordered life.
They certainly had no place in a contractual arrangement.
His retreat into his academic shell was a conscious, deliberate act of self-preservation. He would analyze his response, categorize it, and file it away.
The kiss was a symptom of prolonged proximity. Nothing more.
He would treat it as such.
***
Chloe felt the shift in Alistair the moment she woke up. The warmth that had bloomed between them in the garden had been replaced by an arctic chill.
The man who had looked at her like she was the only person in the universe was gone, and in his place was Dr. Finch, the awkward, emotionally constipated academic she’d met in that sterile coffee shop.
It hurt more than she would ever admit.
She had replayed the kiss a hundred times in her mind. It hadn’t felt like a clause in a contract.
It had felt real.
The trembling in his hands, the raw vulnerability in his eyes just before he’d leaned in—you couldn’t fake that. Or could you?
She was a professional at manufacturing moments. Was he simply better at it?
The thought made her feel cheap, used. She had allowed herself a moment of weakness, a flicker of hope that this strange, brilliant, impossible man might be feeling something genuine.
And he had responded by treating her like a stranger at breakfast. The rejection was a cold, hard knot in her chest.
Back in the guest suite, she yanked her laptop from her bag with furious energy. If Alistair was going to retreat into his world of books and logic, she would retreat into hers: work.
Work was something she could control. It had clear objectives and measurable outcomes.
It wouldn’t kiss her like she was a revelation and then act like she didn’t exist the next morning.
Her inbox was a disaster zone. A chain of frantic emails from her business partner, Lindsay, confirmed the stripper-gate fiasco was escalating.
The high-profile client was threatening to go to the press.
Chloe’s phone buzzed. It was Lindsay.
“They’re calling it ‘Bachelorette-Gate’ on social media,” Lindsay wailed without preamble. “The client’s mother-in-law is the editor of a major lifestyle blog.
We’re going to be ruined!”
The familiar surge of adrenaline was almost a relief. This was a problem she knew how to solve.
“Okay, stop panicking,” Chloe said, her voice dropping into the calm, authoritative tone she used for crisis management. “First, draft an apology.
A real one. No corporate-speak.
Own the mistake—your mistake—and offer a full refund plus a donation in their name to a charity of their choice.
Something for women’s empowerment. It’ll flip the narrative.”
“But the money…”
“We’ll eat it, Lindsay,” Chloe snapped, pacing the room. “It’s cheaper than being publicly crucified.
I’ll handle the client directly. Get me her personal number.
I’ll call her and smooth this over. And for the love of God, cancel the other exotic dancer you booked for the Henderson wedding.
I’m not even going to ask.”
She spent the next hour on the phone, her voice a soothing balm of apologies, reassurances, and strategic solutions. She was in her element, the whirlwind of charm and competence Alistair had first witnessed.
But beneath the surface, the work was a distraction, a frantic effort to build a wall around the hollow space Alistair’s coldness had carved inside her. The financial stakes, the need to buy Lindsay out and save her business from this self-inflicted chaos, felt more urgent and real than ever.
Money was tangible. Contracts were clear. They didn’t leave you breathless in a garden and then shatter you with silence the next day.
Later, needing air, she headed downstairs, her phone pressed to her ear as she finalized a damage-control statement. As she rounded the corner at the bottom of the grand staircase, she almost collided with Alistair, who was emerging from the library.
They froze, two feet apart. The air crackled with unspoken words.
He looked at her, his expression unreadable, a blank slate of academic inquiry.
“Are you… occupied?” he asked, his tone so formal it was almost comical.
Chloe ended her call. “Just work,” she said, her voice clipped.
He nodded slowly, adjusting his glasses. “I see.” He cleared his throat.
“I believe it would be prudent for us to re-establish our professional parameters. The… event last night introduced an unforeseen variable into our arrangement.
For the sake of clarity and the successful completion of our objective, it is best if we maintain a professional distance outside of required public appearances.”
Each word was a carefully placed stone, building a wall between them.
Unforeseen variable. Our objective. Professional distance.
He was talking about the most breathtaking kiss of her life as if it were a lab experiment gone awry.
The hurt was so sharp, so sudden, it almost buckled her knees. But Chloe Jones was a professional.
She didn’t cry. She didn’t scream. She hardened.
“Got it,” she said, her voice devoid of all warmth. She met his gaze, and for a second, she thought she saw a flicker of panic in his eyes, a crack in his carefully constructed facade.
But it was gone as quickly as it appeared.
“The contract. Loud and clear, Dr. Finch.”
She walked past him without another word, leaving him standing alone in the grand hall. They were emotionally further apart than they had been on the first day they met.
The fake couple was broken. And the most terrifying part was, Chloe was no longer sure which part of them had been fake, and which part had been real.