Chapter 2
Ethan stood on a circular wooden pedestal surrounded by three seamstresses who were pinning the cuffs of an midnight-navy tuxedo. Every tug of thread felt like a tiny hook pulling at his flesh.
“We’re supposed to be celebrating our artistic reconciliation,” Ethan muttered through gritted teeth. “Not auditioning for a Victorian melodrama.”
“You are giving the market what it wants,” Clara said coolly, flicking a finger across her tablet screen. “A three-year rift caused by creative friction, healed by mature collaboration. The public has already swallowed the teaser we leaked to *Variety*. Four hundred thousand engagements in forty-five minutes. The narrative is setting beautifully. Julian has spent the morning handling the trades; your job is simply to look enchanted.”
“I’m an independent filmmaker, not an escort.”
“You are currently an exclusive Vanguard asset,” Clara corrected, finally lifting her eyes to fix him with a clinical glare. “And as an asset, you will wear the Tom Ford, you will keep your fingers within six inches of Julian’s forearm whenever there are flashbulbs, and you will not contradict his narrative during the carpet interviews. If a reporter asks about the Brooklyn project, you tell them the creative ownership was always intended to be shared, and that timing simply kept you apart until now.”
Ethan felt a sudden, suffocating nausea. *Timing.* That was what they were calling the theft of his youth and his studio’s intellectual property. A simple scheduling conflict.
The door to the styling suite swung open.
The chatter died instantly. The three tailors backed away from the pedestal, their shears clinking into their aprons, and Clara’s rigid posture straightened into immediate deference.
Julian stepped inside. He had already changed into his evening wear: a double-breasted black tuxedo with satin peak lapels that emphasized the lean, powerful frame Ethan used to know every line of. His dark hair was styled back, neat and uncompromising, but his eyes were exhausted—shadowed with an intensity that seemed out of place for a corporate golden boy on the verge of a triumph.
“Leave us for five minutes,” Julian said quietly.
Clara hesitated. “Julian, the limousine is downstairs, and we still have to run through the speaking points for the *Hollywood Reporter*—”
“Out, Clara.”
There was no heat in the command, just the heavy, immovable gravity Julian had possessed even as a twenty-year-old student directing amateur theatre in draughty warehouses. Clara pressed her lips into a thin line, gathered her tablet, and gestured for the tailors to follow. The door closed with a muffled thud, sealing the room in sudden, unnatural quiet.
Ethan remained standing on the wooden pedestal, elevated four inches above Julian. He refused to step down. He needed every millimeter of advantage he could get.
“Come to inspect the merchandise?” Ethan mocked, crossing his arms. The pinned fabric of his jacket pulled tight against his shoulders. “Did Vanguard approve the lapels? Do I look sufficiently domestic?”
Julian didn't answer right away. He walked slowly toward the pedestal, his footsteps silent on the deep-pile carpet. When he stopped, he was barely two feet away, looking up into Ethan’s face. At this distance, the corporate polish couldn't completely hide the lines of strain around Julian’s mouth, or the faint, familiar scar just below his left earlobe—the result of a shattered lens casing from their first zero-budget short film in Philadelphia.
“Your bowtie is crooked,” Julian said.
“I don’t care.”
“The cameras will.”
Julian reached out. Before Ethan could flinch away, Julian’s hands were on his collar.
The contact hit Ethan like a downed power line. Julian’s long, dexterous fingers brushed the bare skin of his throat, cool at first, then burning with immediate, familiar heat. Ethan’s breath caught in his chest. His instincts screamed at him to slap the hands away, to drive an elbow into Julian’s ribs, but his body remained utterly paralyzed, trapped in the tactile memory of a thousand nights where those same fingers had unbuttoned his shirts in the dark, had traced the curve of his spine, had pulled him close under thin wool blankets while rain drummed against dirty Brooklyn windowpanes.
Julian’s knuckles brushed Ethan’s Adam’s apple as he straightened the black silk knot. Ethan felt his own pulse leaping violently against Julian’s thumb.
Julian felt it, too. His eyes lifted from the bowtie, locking onto Ethan’s.
For a second—a single, suspended second—the boardroom executive vanished. In his place was the boy who used to stay awake until sunrise sketching shot lists on Ethan’s kitchen table, his gaze raw, dark, and terrifyingly intense. Julian’s breath was warm against Ethan’s cheek. His thumb lingered against the hollow of Ethan’s throat, pressing with a delicate, deliberate pressure that was almost an ache.
“Julian,” Ethan whispered, his voice cracking with a mixture of hatred and an involuntary, humiliating hunger.
Julian’s hand froze. The slate-grey eyes shuttered, the iron walls slamming back down with brutal speed.
“Remember the rules, Ethan,” Julian said, his voice dropping into a flat, measured murmur as his fingers dropped away from Ethan’s throat. He stepped back, widening the distance between them until the air grew cold again. “No spontaneous statements. When we step out of the car, I take your hand. You do not pull away. If someone asks a question you don’t like, you smile and let me answer.”
“And if I want to tell them the truth?” Ethan’s voice shook slightly. “If I want to tell them that you’re a corporate parasite who sold our partnership to the highest bidder?”
Julian adjusted his own cuffs, his expression completely closed, a mask carved out of granite.
“Then Vanguard cancels the escrow,” Julian said, turning toward the door. “And Vance Media dies tonight. The choice has always been yours.”
He opened the door and walked out into the corridor. Ethan stood on the pedestal, his heart pounding in his ears like a muffled bass drum, the skin of his neck burning where Julian had touched him as if branded by fire.
***
The limousine was an armored cocoon of tinted glass and black leather. Outside, the rain had turned the streets of Manhattan into smeared streaks of red taillights and amber streetlamps.
Neither of them spoke. Julian sat opposite Ethan, staring at a set of confidential forensic schedules on his encrypted tablet. His thumb scrolled with methodical rhythm, the blue glow of the screen illuminating the sharp angles of his cheekbones. Ethan stared out the window, watching the rain run down the glass, feeling the suffocating weight of the bespoke tuxedo like a straitjacket.
“Ten seconds out, Mr. Cross,” the driver’s voice came over the intercom.
Julian locked the tablet and slid it into his inner breast pocket. He turned his gaze to Ethan. “Ready?”
“Go to hell,” Ethan said quietly.
Julian’s jaw tightened, but he offered no retort. Instead, he reached out as the limousine slowed to a halt, his hand hovering near the door handle.
Outside, the noise began. It started as a muffled roar—hundreds of voices shouting against the barricades, the metallic thrum of rain against umbrellas, the sudden, violent burst of flashbulbs illuminating the dark interior of the car in blinding, strobe-like flashes.
“Showtime,” Julian murmured.
The door swung open. The sound slammed into them: the deafening crescendo of photographers screaming names, the aggressive pop-pop-pop of shutter clicks, the damp smell of wet asphalt, hot halogen lights, and designer perfume.
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