Chapter 19 Sep 17, 2025 By the next block, the heat from the fitting room thinned into caution. I could see it in the way his shoulders tensed, in the careful distance he maintained between us despite the car's intimate space. "Ruby, we need to talk about what happened back there." His voice carried that particular tone I'd learned to dread-the one that preceded lectures about propriety and expectation. "That was... intense." "I thought intense was what we were aiming for," I said, watching his jaw tighten. "You seemed to appreciate the show." "I did. God, I did." He accelerated through a yellow light, the car surging forward with barely controlled energy. "But that consultant will talk. These people always do. By tomorrow, half of Manhattan will know that Ruby Pearson was modeling lingerie for her fiancé in the middle of La Perla." "So what? We're engaged. We're allowed to shop for underwear." "It's not about permission." His hands adjusted on the wheel-ten and two, like a driving instructor's diagram of control. "We're the faces of our families, Ruby. Your father's tech empire, my family's hotel dynasty-everything we do reflects on them. What felt thrilling in that fitting room was also reckless, and reckless isn't who we are." The words landed like cold water, dousing whatever warmth remained from the afternoon. "When did we become so afraid of being seen?" I asked, my voice sharper than intended. "When did keeping secrets become more important than actually living?" "It's not about fear, it's about prudence." He was fully in lecture mode now. "Our reputations aren't just ours-they're assets, investments our families have cultivated for generations. One photo, one story in Page Six about us being inappropriate in public, and suddenly there are questions about our judgment, our stability, our fitness to inherit what's been built for us." "What's been built for us," I repeated, tasting the prison in those words. "Not by us. For us. Like we're dolls to be dressed up and positioned correctly." "That's not fair." "Isn't it?" I turned to face him fully, watching him navigate the familiar streets with the same careful precision he applied to everything. "Ten minutes ago you could barely form words watching me in that lingerie. Now you're giving me a dissertation on reputational risk management." "Because ten minutes ago I wasn't thinking clearly." The car edged faster, his anxiety bleeding into acceleration. "You looked incredible, Ruby. You made me forget everything except wanting you. But that's exactly why we need boundaries. That kind of wanting, that loss of control-it makes people stupid. Makes them careless." I felt my smile sour at the edges, curdling into something bitter. "Heaven forbid we be careless. Better to be safe and suffocated than alive and problematic." "I'm trying to protect us." His voice softened, reaching for conciliation. "Protect you. I don't want you to ever be the story, Ruby. I don't want strangers dissecting our private moments over brunch gossip." "Maybe I want to be the story," I said, though even as the words escaped, I knew they weren't entirely true. "Maybe I'm tired of being the subplot in someone else's carefully edited narrative." He pulled to the curb outside my building with his usual precision, putting the car in park with a gentle click that somehow sounded like resignation. "I love you," he said, turning to face me with earnest eyes. "I love you enough to be the boring one who thinks about consequences. Someone has to." "I know," I said, because part of me did love him for exactly that-his steadiness, his reliability, his desperate need to keep me safe even from myself. "I know you're trying to protect us." He walked me to the door. At the entrance, Alex kissed me-soft, grateful, careful. A kiss that tasted like appreciation rather than hunger, like he was thanking me for understanding rather than wanting me with the desperate need I'd seen in the fitting room. "I'll call you tomorrow," he said, already stepping back, already establishing safe distance. I managed a smile that probably looked more convincing than it felt. "Goodnight, Alex." In the hallway, I paused at the brass mailboxes, my thumb hovering over my phone screen. The temptation to scroll through messages, to seek the electric thrill Alex had just systematically extinguished, pulled at me with gravitational force. I could almost feel Aiden's words waiting there, sharp and dangerous and utterly without caution. But I didn't look. I wanted to sit with this feeling without immediately medicating it with someone else's attention. The elevator ride felt endless. I replayed the afternoon in loops that grew more distorted with each repetition-the way Alex had looked at me in those mirrors, the hunger in his eyes when I'd pulled him behind that curtain, the way his hands had trembled with want. And then, like a film reel burning through, the careful way he'd packaged all that desire into a cautionary tale about reputation and prudence. I told myself he was protecting us both. I told myself protection wasn't a cage. I told myself boundaries were healthy, necessary, mature. I told myself so many things that the hollow echo of them filled the elevator like white noise. Under all that carefully constructed reasoning was the simple, brutal truth: I wanted Alex to be reckless for me. To choose me over reputation, over prudence, over the suffocating weight of family expectation. And deeper still, the comparison I couldn't stop making-measuring his careful desire against hands that grabbed without asking permission, against a voice that spoke danger like a first language. The apartment door opened to the sound of canned laughter. Emma had commandeered the living room, some comedy special playing loud enough to bounce off the bookshelves. The normalcy of it-my roommate in pajamas, empty wine glass on the coffee table, the familiar chaos of her law school materials scattered across every surface-should have been comforting. Instead, something cracked in my chest. The tears arrived without warning, hot and inelegant, streaming down my face before I could even close the door properly. "Ruby?" Emma was on her feet instantly, crossing the room in three strides. "What happened? What's wrong?" "I don't know," I managed between gasps that felt too big for my lungs. "I'm just tired and I don't-I don't know what I feel or for whom anymore." "Did Alex do something? Did someone hurt you?" Her hands found my shoulders, steadying me with the kind of fierce protectiveness that made me cry harder. "No, it's not-nobody hurt me." I wiped at my face uselessly, makeup smearing across my palms. "I'm just confused and exhausted and I think I need space from everything." Emma's face tightened with concern, her lawyer's instincts clearly wanting to interrogate, to fix, to solve. But I shook my head before she could launch into questions. "Don't worry about me," I said, though we both knew that was impossible. "I'm going to my parents' house on Sunday. Just for a day. To rest and think without all of this noise." She pulled me into a hug that smelled like her expensive shampoo and the coffee she mainlined during study sessions. "Okay. But I'm here when you're ready. And if someone needs to disappear into the Hudson, I know a guy who knows a guy." That startled a laugh out of me-wet and ugly but real. "I'll keep that in mind." Later, after Emma had forced me to eat something and drink water and pretend to watch the comedy special, I finally retreated to my room. The bags from La Perla sat in the corner like evidence of a crime I hadn't quite committed. My phone vibrated on the nightstand as I slid under the covers. Aiden's name glowed on the screen. I let the screen go dark without opening it, without reading whatever dangerous thing he'd written. For once, I didn't want the electric thrill of his attention. I wanted to lie in the dark with my confusion, with my anger at Alex's caution and my guilt over wanting more, with the simple, complicated truth that I loved a man who would always choose safety over passion. The phone vibrated again. I turned it face down and pulled a pillow over my head, as if I could muffle not just the sound but the want itself.