The silence that followed their fight was a physical entity, a thick, suffocating fog that filled the grand halls of the Finch estate. Alistair felt it pressing on his chest, a weight far heavier than any stack of decaying manuscripts.
He sat in an armchair in a forgotten parlor, the needlepoint upholstery pricking at the back of his neck, and listened to the slow, judgmental tick of a grandfather clock.
Each tick was a metronome marking his own cowardice. Coward. Hiding behind books and logic because you’re terrified of anything you can’t control.
Chloe’s words, thrown like daggers in the heat of their argument, had not simply wounded him; they had dissected him with the clean, cold precision of a scalpel. He had spent his life curating facts, organizing history into neat, chronological boxes.
He’d built walls of academic rigor around himself, believing them to be a fortress. Chloe had walked right through them and pointed out they were made of glass.
He had called her a fraud. The accusation felt like acid in his mouth now.
He, who had orchestrated this entire deception, had accused her of manufacturing feelings. The hypocrisy was staggering.
The truth was, her performance had been so flawless, so intoxicatingly real, that he had begun to fear there was no performance at all. And that possibility terrified him more than Caleb’s scheming or his grandmother’s scrutiny.
An unquantifiable variable had entered his carefully controlled experiment, and his first instinct had been to destroy it.
Guilt, a raw and unfamiliar emotion, clawed at him. It wasn’t the schematic guilt of failing to secure funding; it was the visceral, gut-wrenching guilt of having hurt someone he… cared for. The thought landed with the force of a physical blow.
He cared for her. It was no longer a simulation.
He pushed himself out of the chair, his movements stiff. He had to find her.
He had to apologize, not to salvage the contract, but to mend the fragile, beautiful thing he had so carelessly broken.
He found her in the conservatory. The setting sun bled through the glass panes, casting long, melancholic shadows across the tiled floor.
She stood with her back to him, staring out at the manicured gardens as they faded into twilight. Her shoulders were rigid, a stark contrast to the easy grace she usually carried.
In her hand, her phone glowed, a lifeline to the world outside this gilded cage.
He cleared his throat. The small sound was shockingly loud in the quiet space.
She didn’t turn, but he saw her shoulders tense further. “If you’ve come for another round, Alistair, I’m afraid I’m all out of scathing personal insights for the evening.”
Her voice was brittle.
He stepped closer, his footsteps echoing unnervingly. “No. I… I came to apologize.”
The words felt foreign and clumsy on his tongue. He was a man of eloquent lectures and meticulously footnoted arguments, yet a simple apology left him fumbling.
She finally turned, her expression guarded. The fading light caught the weariness in her eyes.
“For what, specifically? The accusation of professional duplicity, or the general implication that I’m some kind of emotional mercenary?”
He winced. “Both. And more.
What I said was… inexcusable. It was cruel, and it was untrue.”
He took a hesitant step forward. “And it was rooted entirely in fear.”
Her eyebrows lifted, a flicker of surprise cutting through her defensiveness. “Fear?”
“You were right,” he said, the admission tearing from him. “About all of it.
I hide. I categorize and I analyze because emotion on its own… it has no footnotes.
No index. It’s chaotic, and I cannot bear chaos.”
He gestured between them, a helpless, fluttering motion of his hands. “And this… us… has become chaotic.”
The raw honesty in his voice seemed to soften her posture. She lowered her phone, giving him her full attention.
“Your words… they hit a nerve, Alistair. My entire business is built on understanding people, on creating genuine moments of connection, even if the premise is commercial.
When you said I manufacture feelings for a living, you took the one thing I’m proud of and twisted it into something ugly.”
“I know,” he said, his voice quiet. “It was a desperate, lashing-out.
I was trying to put you back in the ‘contract’ box, because the alternative was… overwhelming.” He looked at her, at the way the dying light painted her in strokes of gold and shadow.
“The kiss wasn’t in the contract. The way you made me feel during that croquet match wasn’t in the contract.
The conversations we have in the library… none of it was in the contract.”
A fragile silence settled between them again, but this one was different. It was not an absence of sound, but a space filled with unspoken truths, waiting to be acknowledged.
Chloe’s voice was barely a whisper.
“It was just a job, Alistair. A means to an end.”
It sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as him.
“Was it?” he challenged gently, stepping closer until only a foot of cool, tiled floor separated them.
“Is that what it still is?”
She searched his face, her own expression a maelstrom of confusion and hurt and something else, something that looked terrifyingly like hope. “I don’t know what this is anymore,” she confessed.
“All I know is that when you yelled at me, it didn’t feel like a client breaching a contract. It felt… personal.”
“Because it is,” he breathed, the truth finally free. “Chloe, I am so far beyond the terms of our agreement that I can no longer even see them.
My feelings for you… they’re not a simulation. I don’t think they ever were.
I was just too much of a coward to admit it.”
A tear traced a silent path down her cheek. She didn’t wipe it away.
A tentative, brilliant smile began to form on her lips. “You know, for a coward, you’re being remarkably brave right now.”
He mirrored her smile, a genuine, unpracticed expression that made his face feel new. “I have a good teacher.”
He reached out, his hand hovering for a moment before he gently cupped her cheek, his thumb stroking away the tear. The connection was electric, a jolt of pure, terrifying reality.
This was it. This was the point of no return. They were no longer acting. The charade was over, but in its place stood something real and potent.
“Alistair…” she began, her voice thick with emotion.
“Enjoying the sunset, you two?”
The voice, slick with smug satisfaction, shattered the moment like a pane of glass.
They sprang apart as if scalded. Caleb stood in the doorway of the conservatory, leaning against the frame with a predatory stillness.
A cruel, triumphant smile played on his lips, and in his hand, he held his phone, its screen glowing in the encroaching darkness.
“I hate to interrupt such a touching scene,” he said, his voice dripping with mock sincerity as he pushed off the doorframe and sauntered toward them. “Or should I call it a rehearsal?
You’re both very convincing. I can see why your clients leave such glowing reviews, Chloe.”
Chloe’s blood ran cold. Alistair froze, his face a mask of dawning horror.
Caleb stopped before them, his eyes gleaming with victory. “It took me a while, I’ll admit.
You were good. ‘Met at a rare book auction.’
It was a nice touch. Very you, Alistair.
But your story had a few… narrative inconsistencies. And I’m a stickler for details.”
He turned the phone around.
There on the screen was the bright, cheerful landing page for Chloe’s business: “The Perfect Plus-One: Professional Companionship for Any Occasion.” Below the sunny stock photos of happy couples at weddings and galas was a scrolling list of testimonials.
“Chloe was a lifesaver! My family adored her, and she had my back all night. Worth every penny!”
“A flawless performance. She fit in so seamlessly, no one suspected a thing. Five stars!”
The words hung in the air, each a nail in the coffin of their hopes. The blood drained from Alistair’s face, leaving him chalk-white.
Chloe felt a wave of nausea so profound she swayed on her feet. It was all there.
The proof. The weapon.
Caleb savored their stunned silence for a long, agonizing moment before continuing. “Don’t look so glum.
It’s a brilliant business model, really. Preying on the lonely and desperate.” His gaze flickered to Alistair.
“I see you went for the premium fiancée package. How much is a fabricated soulmate going for these days, cousin?”
Alistair found his voice, a choked, ragged thing. “Caleb, don’t.”
“Don’t what?” Caleb’s smile widened into a grin.
“Don’t ruin your little play? It’s a bit late for that.
The final act is already written.” He tucked his phone back into his pocket with a decisive snap.
“There’s a formal family meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning. Ten a.m. sharp.
Grandmother wants to discuss the estate’s quarterly performance. I think I’ll bring a little presentation of my own.”
He looked from Alistair’s shattered expression to Chloe’s horrified one, his gaze lingering on her with undisguised contempt. “The show’s over.”
With a final, parting smirk, Caleb turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing on the tile like the tolling of a bell.
He left them standing in the ruins of their fragile confession, the twilight bleeding into darkness around them. The hope that had bloomed between them only moments before lay trampled and dead.
They were exposed. They were finished.
And tomorrow morning, the world they had built, both fake and real, would be brought crashing down.