Chapter 12

Vera Caldwell was fire.

Untamed. Unapologetic. Proud.

And now, here she was, putting herself on a stage where every single person was waiting for her to stumble.

It was wrong.

But it was the only way he knew how to protect her.

He exhaled harshly, tugging at the collar of his dress shirt. The car was too warm. Too quiet. Too full of thoughts he couldn’t ignore anymore.

“You looked at her like you meant it,” Nicholas had said earlier.

And he hadn’t denied it.

Because how could he?

He remembered the first time he met Vera.

“Watch where you’re going,” she’d snapped, like he was the one who owed her an apology.

He hadn’t laughed in weeks before that moment.

She’d stuck in his mind long after, just a flash of a girl in a wrinkled white shirt and oversized sunglasses, too bold for her own good. He’d never expected to see her again. And yet, here she was back in his world, now wrapped in diamonds and secrets.

But the girl hadn’t changed. Not really.

She was still fire.

And he was still helplessly drawn to it.

Asher’s phone vibrated on the seat beside him. He glanced at the screen.

Sarah.

He didn’t touch it.

Didn’t need to see what she had to say. The memory of her narrowed eyes watching him leave the venue with Vera was enough to know what message was coming.

Sarah didn’t handle rejection well. And tonight, he’d handed her a silent, public one.

But she’d brought it on herself.

Paying off a waiter to humiliate Vera? Threatening her in the bathroom? Sarah might have had the Donovan family’s favor, but she didn’t have him. Not anymore. Maybe not ever.

The car rolled to a stop in front of the Donovan estate. Asher didn’t move.

He stared out at the sprawling mansion, the perfectly manicured lawns, the warm golden light glowing behind polished windows. It looked pristine. Immaculate. And completely suffocating.

He didn’t want to go inside.

Didn’t want to hear his mother’s carefully disguised disappointment or his father’s cold reminders about the company image. He didn’t want to hear them compare Sarah’s elegance to Vera’s “unrefined presence.”

He wanted to go back to the apartment where he’d dropped Vera off. He wanted to knock once, maybe twice, and see her open the door, looking annoyed and tired and so heartbreakingly real.

But that wasn’t part of the deal.

And Asher Donovan never broke a deal.

He ran a hand down his face, raking it through his hair, then grabbed his phone and sent a message.

He hovered over the second message he wanted to send, the one that wasn’t carefully filtered or masked in performance. The one that said:

I’m sorry they treated you like that.

I’m sorry I let them.

I don’t know why this doesn't feel like a game.

But he didn’t send any of those.

Instead, he slipped the phone back into his pocket and stepped out of the car. The air was sharp, crisp, like it had turned colder just to match the weight on his chest.

Asher Donovan had everything, a name, a legacy, a throne made of money and blood.

But tonight, he realized something terrifying.

He didn’t know how to hold on to the one thing he actually wanted.

And if he wasn’t careful… he was going to lose her before he ever had the chance to admit he wanted her at all.

As he stood in the entryway of the house he had grown up in, Asher felt the burn of everything he was trying not to feel.

He didn’t even get two steps further before he heard his mother’s voice.

“You left with her?” Evelyn Donovan emerged from the parlor, her arms folded in that way she always did when she was about to deliver judgment disguised as concern. “With her, Asher?”

His father wasn’t far behind, expression unreadable. But the tension in the room shifted, heavy with disapproval.

“Yes,” Asher replied flatly, shrugging off his blazer. “I left with Vera. Problem?”

Evelyn’s lips pressed into a thin line. “You were supposed to make a statement tonight, not stir the pot further. Sarah...”

“Sarah,” he snapped, turning sharply to face them, “was never the statement I wanted to make.”

The silence that followed was deafening. Even his father, usually quick to defuse such situations, held back.

“You think dragging around that girl, that outsider, is going to do anything but disgrace this family?” Evelyn’s voice rose slightly. “People are watching, Asher. They’re talking.”

“Let them,” he growled. “Let them talk. At least I’m not pretending anymore.”

Evelyn stepped closer, her tone sharp. “We’ve worked hard for this family’s name. For your future. Sarah is...”

“Sarah is a lie,” he cut in, voice low but laced with venom. “Everything about that arrangement is a lie, and I won’t keep playing a part just to satisfy some pre written script you two cooked up for me.”

His father finally spoke then, calm but firm. “Asher, you need to be careful. This girl, Vera, she’s not like us. She doesn’t understand the rules. The media will eat her alive.”

Asher’s gaze darkened. “She’s stronger than any of you give her credit for. She walked into that event tonight knowing she was being watched like a spectacle, and she still held her head higher than anyone else in the room.”

“And you think that qualifies her to stand by your side?” Evelyn scoffed.

“No,” Asher replied, his voice softer now, but laced with something dangerous. “I think that makes her the only one who deserves to.”

A long silence followed.

He didn’t wait for their responses.

Asher turned and walked past them, jaw clenched and steps purposeful.

His parents had built their world with walls of expectation and legacy, but he was done being their puppet. Whatever this was between him and Vera, fake or not, it was the most real thing he’d had in years.

And he wasn’t about to let them ruin it.