Chapter 121

Levi

“Then what is your question?” I asked, my voice low, steady—but curiosity had crept in now, curling around the edges like smoke.
She pressed her lips together, the hesitation almost delicate. It was like she was calculating the cost of speaking, as if the wrong answer would ruin whatever fragile equilibrium we’d built in this twisted arrangement. Then, in a voice barely above a whisper, she said, “This whole contract… when it’s over, how do we break up without being dragged all over the internet?”
The question settled between us like a blade.
It was a good question. One I hadn’t even thought about. A fact that irritated me more than it should’ve. I had drafted this damn contract, every cold, clinical clause—how the hell had I managed to forget the most public part of the fallout?
Maybe because I’d started to forget it was a contract at all.
And if that was true… then I was truly fucked.
I kept my face unreadable and let silence stretch—one beat, then another—using the stillness like a scalpel, carving through her nerves. “That’s what’s bothering you right now?” I said at last, my voice cool, dismissive. “You don’t even know if my father will tolerate your presence.”
I glanced sideways at her. She didn’t respond.
That gave me permission to turn the blade. “Which reminds me—something I’ve been meaning to ask. What about your parents?”
The shift in her was immediate. Her gaze whipped to mine, sharp with disbelief, as though I’d slapped her. For a second, she looked almost like a child. Vulnerable. Like it genuinely hadn’t occurred to her that I could be cruel—not just cold, but calculated.
But then she blinked, and the moment was gone. Her mask slid back into place like it had never left. Like she realized that it was me she had been talking to.
“My parents are dead,” she said flatly. “Levi.”
And just like that, the air thinned.
It was the first time she’d said my name. Not Mr. Ferrari. Not sir. Not any of the polished, distant placeholders she usually used to remind herself this wasn’t real.
Just… Levi.
It shouldn’t have meant anything. But it did.
I held my hands together, tighter, knuckles blanching, and kept my eyes on the road, yet I could feel the guilt rising up in me. Clawing its way. “What? Am I supposed to have known that? You’re the one who won’t tell me a damn thing about yourself. Remember? Mrs. ‘I don’t have favorite things’?”
My voice was sharp, mocking. But beneath it was something else. A flicker of something I didn’t want to name.
And in my head, another decision was made—final, irreversible.
After this meeting with my father, I was hiring a private investigator. The best. I didn’t care what it cost. I wanted everything. Who she was, who she’d been. The names of her childhood pets. What she dreamed about. How many times a day she pissed. I wanted it all.
I didn’t want to be caught off guard again.
“That’s beside the point,” she said after a moment, her voice thin, fraying at the edges. “I mean we need to make a proper plan. Something controlled. Clean. Not… humiliating. For both of us. Especially for me.”
I clicked my tongue. “You think I haven’t planned for that already?”
It was meant to cut. And maybe it did. But the sharpness had dulled. Because I could hear something else in her voice—something that sounded a lot like fear.
Or worse… trust.
“The internet and its wolves will always talk,” I added, trying to sound colder than I felt. “But they’ll move on. They always do. In a month, no one will even remember your name.”
She turned to me then, and there was disbelief in her eyes. “So… the plan is to wait it out?” she asked, almost stunned. “That doesn’t sound like a plan at all.”
I exhaled slowly, careful to control my breathing like I had in boardrooms and interviews. My father. That was the focus. Not her. Not this emotional turmoil.
“I said I have it handled. You’ll know soon enough.”
My voice came out harder than I intended. Brutal, even.
Her shoulders drew in slightly, like she’d been struck. “You’re so rude,” she muttered under her breath and turned her face to the window. “Jerk.”
I almost said something. I almost reminded her she was just as sharp, just as cutting, when she wanted to be. But I swallowed it. The air between us had grown too taut. Too fragile.
Somehow, we were both stretched thin, wound so tight we couldn’t even breathe right.
Silence fell again—heavy and close, like the inside of a confession box.
I didn’t look at her, but I didn’t have to. I could feel the change. The tremor in her hands. The uneven rhythm of her breath. She was trembling. And I hated that I noticed. Hated even more that it fucking bothered me.
That somewhere along the line, the contract had stopped feeling like protection—and started feeling like something I wanted to break.
Just to get closer.
Just to know if she trembled for me.
We turned off the main road and approached the gates of the Ferrari estate. The wrought iron barrier peeled open soundlessly, a silent bow to our arrival.
And then I saw her.
Really saw her.
Not the composed face she wore in public, or the carefully chosen dresses for staged appearances. But her. The way her hands clutched the hem of her dress. The way her eyes kept darting outside the window like she was trying to find an escape route. Her chest rose and fell too fast, and when she swallowed, it was audible.
She looked like she wanted to run.
And for a moment, I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t expected this—her anxiety, her panic, her vulnerability. I didn’t know why she was so restless. Was it my father? The estate? Or just me?
What did she want to run away from?