The picture was a death sentence.
A perfect man in a perfect tuxedo. A lie made of pixels and light.
Audrey’s world narrowed to the rectangle of her phone screen. The noise of the city, the screech of tires, the distant sirens—it all faded into a dull, flat hum.
This was Beatrice’s war. The bribe had failed. This was the artillery strike.
You have no idea who he is.
Rage, cold and pure, sliced through the shock. She wasn’t a victim. She wouldn’t be a casualty.
She stepped off the curb, her hand shooting into the air. A yellow cab swerved to a stop.
She got in, the leather cool against her skin.
“The Red Hook terminals,” she said, her voice a stranger’s.
The driver glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “You sure, lady? Not much down there.”
“I’m sure.”
The cab sped through the city, but Audrey saw nothing. Only the photo. Only the lie. The man she thought was her sanctuary was just a different kind of cage. A bigger, more gilded one.
She paid the driver and got out. The air smelled of salt and rust and truth.
His apartment building looked the same. Small. Unassuming. A perfect piece of camouflage.
She took the stairs two at a time, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs. She didn’t knock. She twisted the knob. He always left it unlocked for her. Another piece of fake intimacy. Another lie.
He was at the stove, his back to her, a worn t-shirt stretched across his shoulders. He was the man she knew. The man who didn’t exist.
“Kian,” she said.
He turned, a smile on his face. The smile died when he saw her expression.
“Audrey? What is it? What’s wrong?”
She didn’t answer. She walked toward him, holding up her phone. The screen glowed in the dim apartment.
He looked at the photo.
His body went rigid. The color drained from his face. He didn’t deny it. He couldn’t.
“Audrey, let me explain.”
“Explain what?” Her voice was dangerously quiet. “Explain the tuxedo? The limo? Or the fact that your mother just tried to buy my silence for a million dollars?”
His eyes widened, a flicker of shock turning to raw fury. “She did what?”
“Don’t,” Audrey snapped. “Don’t you dare act surprised. This is your world. Your game. I was just too stupid to see I was being played.”
“No. It’s not a game.” He took a step toward her, his hands raised in a gesture of peace. “Everything between us is real.”
“Everything?” she laughed, a bitter, broken sound. “Your name. Your job. Your life. What part of that is real, Kian? Or is that even your name?”
“It is,” he said, his voice raw. “Kian Sterling. My name is Kian Sterling.”
Sterling. Like his mother. Beatrice Sterling. It sounded like money. It sounded like power. It sounded like everything he pretended not to be.
“I was going to tell you,” he pleaded. “I needed more time.”
“Time for what? To figure out how to manage your ‘temporary complication’?” The words, Beatrice’s words, were acid on her tongue.
He flinched as if she’d slapped him. “Never. You are not a complication. You are the only thing that makes sense.”
He reached for her. She jerked back.
“Don’t touch me.”
The words hung between them, sharp and final. Pain flashed across his face, so real it almost broke her resolve. Almost.
“We can’t talk here,” he said, his voice dropping low. “She might have people watching. She’s… thorough.”
The casual mention of surveillance sent a chill down her spine.
“Let’s walk,” he said. “Down by the water. Where we met. Please, Audrey. Just give me five minutes to make you understand.”
She didn’t want to. She wanted to run. But she was so tired of running. And she needed to hear it. She needed to hear the whole, devastating truth.
She gave a single, sharp nod.
The air outside was heavy. The sky was a bruised purple. They walked without touching, a chasm of silence and secrets between them. The familiar path along the waterfront felt alien now, tainted by the lie.
“My family has a shipping empire,” he began, his voice flat. “Sterling Maritime. It’s a prison. The money, the expectations, the people… it’s all poison. I came down here to escape it. To be a person, not a name on a stock portfolio.”
Audrey said nothing. She just listened, her arms crossed tight against her chest.
“I never meant to lie to you. At first, it was just… easier. And then I met you. And you saw me. Just me. Not the money. Not the name. For the first time in my life, someone saw me. I was terrified that if you knew the truth, you’d look at me differently. That you’d become like them.”
“So you lied,” she stated. It was that simple.
“I kept my worlds separate,” he corrected, his voice desperate. “And I was wrong. I see that now. I should have told you everything. I was just… a coward.”
They stopped near a rusted old cleat, the water slapping against the pier. The city lights glittered across the river, a million tiny, distant stars.
He turned to her, his eyes dark with regret. “My mother is ruthless. She sees you as a threat to her control. That lunch, that photo… that’s how she fights. She tries to break things. But she can’t break us, Audrey. Not if you trust me.”
Trust him. The word was a joke.
Before she could answer, a voice cut through the evening air. A soft, hesitant voice.
“Kian?”
They both turned.
A woman was standing a few feet away, bathed in the glow of a nearby lamp post. The woman from the coffee shop. The woman from the tabloid photo Beatrice had sent her days ago.
Cassandra Thorne.
She was holding the hand of a small boy, no older than two, who was clutching a stuffed bear.
Audrey’s heart stopped.
Kian went absolutely still. His face was a mask of disbelief and horror. He looked like a man watching a ghost walk out of the water.
Cassandra took a tentative step closer, her eyes fixed on Kian. She gave Audrey a fleeting, apologetic glance before her gaze snapped back to him.
“Kian,” she said again, her voice stronger this time, laced with a history Audrey could only guess at. “I can’t believe it’s you.”
The little boy beside her looked up, his eyes wide and curious.
Kian didn’t speak. He didn’t move. He just stood there, frozen. Trapped between the woman he claimed to love and the woman from his past.
Audrey looked at Cassandra’s sad, familiar face. She looked at the small, innocent child clinging to her hand.
Then she looked at Kian. At his stone-like profile, his clenched jaw, his utter, damning silence.
Her world didn’t just crack. It shattered into a million pieces at her feet. She took one step back. Then another.
She turned and walked away, leaving him standing there with his other family.