EPISODE 24- Headline News
(Ethan's POV)
The engine of the Audi was a low, impatient growl beneath my hands. Layla's request—"Take me somewhere. Just us."—hung in the air, a tempting escape from the ticking clock. But the city felt like a fishbowl. My father's eyes were everywhere. Marcus's loyalty was a question mark. The penthouse was a known secret now, at least to me. I needed neutral ground. Unpredictable ground.
"Just us," I repeated, my mind racing. I put the car in drive, pulling away from the curb. "Okay. But we're not hiding indoors."
I navigated away from the boutique district, away from campus, heading for the river. The industrial parks gave way to a stretch of reclaimed waterfront—a paved bike path, patches of scrub grass, and the wide, grey expanse of the water. It was a weekday afternoon. It would be empty. Exposed, but in a different way. No gilded cages. Just open sky and the risk of being seen by anyone.
"Where are we going?" Layla asked, her hand resting on my thigh.
"Somewhere with no walls," I said, my tone leaving no room for argument.
I parked in a gravel lot serving a closed-down boathouse. The structure was weathered wood and peeling paint, a skeleton against the sky. Beyond it, the path stretched in both directions, utterly deserted. The wind off the river was brisk, cutting through my sweater. I came around and opened her door.
She stepped out, the breeze immediately tangling her ponytail. She hugged her arms around herself, not from the cold, I thought, but from the vast, unprotected feeling of the place. Good. That was the point. To feel the scale of what we were up against.
"Come on," I said, and started walking toward the water's edge, away from the car, away from any semblance of shelter.
She fell into step beside me, her sneakers crunching on the gravel. We walked in silence for a few minutes, the only sounds the wind, the distant cry of a gull, and the lap of water against the concrete embankment.
"You're angry," she said finally. It wasn't a question.
"I'm calculating," I corrected, my eyes scanning the empty path ahead. "Anger is a luxury. It makes you stupid. My father uses anger. He provokes it, waits for the mistake."
"So what is this, then?" She gestured to the desolate landscape. "A calculation?"
I stopped, turning to face her. The wind whipped her hair across her face. "This is a reminder. This is what's left when you strip away the money, the names, the dresses. It's just you and me and a whole lot of nothing. And them." I nodded back toward the city skyline in the distance. "This is the battlefield, Layla. Not a ballroom. The ballroom is just where we plant the flag."
Her eyes searched mine, and I saw the fear there, but also a hardening resolve. She was listening. She was learning.
"Tell me the plan again," she said. "The real one. Not the 'show up and look defiant' one. The one you're running in your head right now."
I admired her for asking. For not wanting to be a pawn. I took a breath, the cold air sharp in my lungs. "We arrive. We make an entrance. We stay visible, photographed, together. For one hour. That's the window. After that, my father will make his move. He'll try to separate us. He'll have Veronica intercept. He'll have a 'business associate' demand my attention. He'll create a scene that requires you to be escorted out."
"And we don't let that happen."
"We can't stop it physically without causing the exact scene he wants—a messy, emotional scandal. So we use it. The moment we're separated, you go to the ladies' lounge on the east terrace. It has a service exit. Marcus will be there."
Her brow furrowed. "Marcus? Your father's…"
"My father's weapon," I finished. "But weapons can be turned. I've given him an order. Tonight, his priority is you. Getting you out cleanly, before my father can escalate. If he's there, we have a chance. If he's not…" I let the sentence hang. The wind filled the silence.
"And you?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
"I stay. I play my part. I let my father think he's won the round, that you've been successfully removed. I smile for Veronica. I talk mergers. And the second I can, I slip away and meet you."
"Where?"
"A place he'd never think to look." I didn't elaborate. The less she knew now, the safer. "The goal tonight isn't to win a war. It's to survive the first battle with our options intact. To prove we can move under his nose."
She was silent for a long moment, staring out at the choppy water. "It's a good plan," she said finally. "It's smart. It's cold."
"It has to be."
"I know." She turned back to me, and her expression had changed. The fear was still there, but it was now fused with something else—a fierce, almost reckless determination. "But right now, I don't want to be smart or cold. He's taken everything else. This time, this afternoon… he doesn't get this, too."
Before I could process her words, she closed the distance between us. Her hands came up, not to my face, but to the hem of my sweater. Her fingers, chilled from the wind, slipped underneath the fabric, finding the bare skin of my stomach.
I sucked in a breath. "Layla…"
"He doesn't get this," she repeated, her eyes blazing up at me. Her touch was a brand, a claim in the open air. Her thumbs stroked the ridges of my abdomen, a deliberate, possessive motion. The contrast of the cold wind on my back and the heat of her hands on my front was dizzying.
My own hands came up to grip her arms, but I didn't push her away. I couldn't. The raw need in her eyes mirrored the primal, defiant roar in my own chest. This wasn't the penthouse. This wasn't a secret. This was a line in the sand.
Her exploration grew bolder. Her palms slid up, over my ribs, her fingertips scraping lightly against my nipples through the thin cotton of my t-shirt. A sharp, electric jolt shot straight down my spine. My grip on her arms tightened.
"Someone could see," I growled, the warning automatic, but my body was already betraying me, leaning into her touch.
"Let them," she whispered, and she rose on her toes, her mouth finding mine.
The kiss was nothing like the one in the car. That had been a promise. This was a declaration. It was hard and hungry, all teeth and desperate, sliding tongues. She tasted of mint and the faint, metallic tang of the river air. I groaned into her mouth, my control fraying at the edges. My hands left her arms to fist in the back of her sweater, pulling her flush against me. I could feel every curve of her, even through our layers, and the hard ridge of my erection pressed insistently against the fly of my jeans.
She broke the kiss, panting, her lips swollen and wet. "I need to feel you," she breathed, her voice ragged. "Not in a bed. Not in a room he could own. Here."
Her hands went to the button of my jeans. The click of the metal release was obscenely loud in the vast, empty space. The zipper's rasp was a slow, deliberate tear in the fabric of sanity. The cold air hit my heated skin, and I shuddered.
"Layla, wait…" The protest was weak, a last ghost of reason.
She didn't wait. Her small, cool hand slipped inside my boxer briefs, wrapping around my length. The sensation was so intense, so shocking in the open air, that my knees nearly buckled. A harsh, guttural sound was torn from my throat.
"Fuck."
She stroked me, once, twice, her grip firm and knowing. Her eyes were locked on mine, watching every flicker of surrender on my face. "This is mine," she said, the wind carrying her words away almost as soon as she spoke them. "You are mine. And I'm taking what's mine."
Her words, her touch, the wild, exposed setting—it shattered the last of my restraint. Logic, plans, calculations evaporated. There was only need, raw and demanding.
I spun her around, not gently. Her back met the cold, rough concrete of a massive support pillar for the old boathouse. It shielded us from one direction, but we were still visible from the river, from the path. The danger of it, the sheer insanity, poured gasoline on the fire inside me.
I kissed her again, deep and devouring, as my hands found the waistband of her jeans. I made quick, rough work of the button and zipper, pushing them down over her hips along with her cotton panties. She kicked them off one ankle, the fabric pooling around her sneaker. The cold air made her gasp against my mouth, and I felt her skin pebble with goosebumps.
I broke the kiss, my breathing ragged. "Hold onto me."
She understood. Her arms wrapped around my neck, and I hooked my hands under her thighs, lifting her. She locked her legs around my waist, her weight a perfect, anchoring pressure. The position pressed her core, hot and slick despite the chill, directly against my straining erection. We both cried out at the contact, a mingled sound of desperation and triumph.
I didn't enter her. Not yet. I just held her there, our foreheads pressed together, breathing the same air, feeling the frantic, synchronized hammering of our hearts. The world was the wind, the water, and the incredible, searing heat where our bodies met.
"Look at me," I commanded, my voice rough.
Her eyes, dark and wide open, found mine. No walls. No pretense. Just her, and the terrifying, beautiful truth of what we were doing.
I shifted my grip, guiding myself with one hand. And then, with a single, powerful thrust of my hips, I was inside her.
The feeling was catastrophic. The tight, wet, welcoming heat of her, the shocking vulnerability of our position, the biting cold on my back—it was too much, too intense. She threw her head back against the concrete with a sharp cry, her nails digging into the nape of my neck. I buried my face in the curve of her shoulder, my own groan muffled by her sweater.
I didn't move. For a long, suspended moment, I just stayed there, buried to the hilt, letting us both feel the utter madness of it. We were joined in the most intimate way possible, completely exposed to the elements and to anyone who might pass by. It was a fuck-you to every rule, every expectation, every threat.
Then, I began to move.
It was not a gentle rhythm. It was hard, driving, punishing strokes, fueled by a week of fear, of manipulation, of being a pawn in my father's game. Each thrust was a reclaiming. Each gasp she made was a victory. The concrete pillar was steady and unyielding at her back, and I used it as leverage, slamming into her with a force that shook us both.
"Ethan… God…" Her voice was broken, a series of breathy moans torn away by the wind. Her legs tightened around me, her heels digging into the small of my back, urging me deeper, harder.
I could feel the tension coiling in her, the telltale flutter deep inside her that signaled her approaching climax. The knowledge drove me wild. I shifted the angle slightly, and her cry pitched higher.
"That's it," I gritted out, my own release building like a storm surge. "Come for me. Out here. Where he can't touch it."
My words were the final trigger. Her body went rigid against the pillar, her back arching, and a raw, uninhibited scream was ripped from her throat, echoing briefly over the water before the wind snatched it away. Her inner muscles clenched around me in rhythmic, devastating pulses, milking me, pulling me over the edge with her.
My own climax hit me like a freight train. I drove into her one last, deep time, holding her impossibly close as I emptied myself with a hoarse shout, my vision whiting out at the edges. For a few seconds, there was nothing but the pulsing heat between us and the roar of blood in my ears.
Slowly, the world seeped back in. The cold. The wind. The sound of water. The heavy, satiated weight of our bodies.
I was still inside her, still holding her up against the pillar, both of us trembling with aftershocks and exertion. I gently lowered her until her feet found the ground, but her legs were unsteady. I kept my arms around her, holding her upright as she leaned into me, her face buried in my chest.
We stayed like that for a long time, just breathing, coming down from the cliff we'd just jumped off together. I tucked myself away and helped her step back into her jeans, my movements slow, almost reverent. The vulnerability after such raw possession was its own intimacy.
She finally looked up at me, her eyes clear, her face flushed. She didn't speak. She didn't need to. The act had said everything.
I smoothed her hair back from her face. "We should go. The dress will be ready."
She nodded, taking a deep, steadying breath. As we turned to walk back to the car, her hand found mine, lacing our fingers together with a firm, unshakeable grip.
We were almost to the Audi when my phone buzzed in my pocket. A different, sharper tone than a text. A news alert. I pulled it out, frowning, and thumbed it open.
Layla saw my expression freeze. "What? What is it?"
On the screen was a headline from the city's society blog, the one that lived for pre-Gala gossip. It had been published twenty minutes ago.
SCOOP: Marshall Heir' Mystery Date Revealed? Sources say Ethan Marshall has arranged a last-minute, top-secret fitting at Valentino for an unnamed guest. The chosen gown? A show-stopping silver number. All eyes will be on who wears it tonight at the Clarendon Gala. Has the eligible bachelor finally chosen a partner to defy his father's preferred match?
Beneath the headline was a blurry, zoomed-in photo. It was taken from across the street, through the boutique window. It showed a girl with a ponytail, her back to the camera, standing next to me. My hand was on her face. The caption read: The mystery woman, in a tender moment with Marshall at Valentino earlier today.
The leak was precise. Damning. And it changed everything. The plan for a controlled, public reveal was dead. We were already headline news.
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