Daniel Ashbridge did not keep people waiting.
People waited for him.
The private elevator carried me silently to the top floor of Ashbridge Tower, its mirrored walls reflecting a version of myself I barely recognized. Calm posture. Neutral expression. Hair smoothed back carefully, as though appearances could still protect me from what had already happened.
The doors opened into a corridor that smelled faintly of wood polish and something sharper. Power, maybe. Or money that had learned how to behave.
A secretary led me into the conference room without a word.
The room was vast and deliberate. Floor-to-ceiling windows wrapped around the space, offering a commanding view of the city below. This high up, the chaos looked almost beautiful. Orderly. Manageable.
I wondered how many decisions had been made in this room that ruined lives quietly.
I stood near the window, hands folded in front of me, listening to my own heartbeat. Every instinct told me to pace, to fidget, to do something with the nervous energy crawling beneath my skin.
I did none of it.
The door opened.
Daniel Ashbridge walked in alone.
No greeting. No pause. No surprise.
He shut the door behind him with a soft click that felt far too final.
For a moment, he simply looked at me.
Not the way men usually did. Not with curiosity or interest. His gaze was surgical. As if he were cataloguing damage, assessing cost.
"So," he said at last. "You're real."
I turned slowly from the window.
"You sound disappointed."
His mouth curved slightly. Not a smile. More like an acknowledgment of something unpleasant.
"I sound accurate."
He crossed the room with unhurried steps and stopped a few feet away. Up close, he was sharper than the headlines suggested. There was nothing warm about him. Nothing careless. Everything about him spoke of control earned the hard way.
"You understand what you've done," he said.
"I understand what I've been accused of," I replied. "Those are not the same thing."
His eyes flicked to my face again, sharper now.
"You walked out of my hotel suite."
"I did not."
"There's footage."
"There's a woman who looks like me."
Silence settled between us, heavy and deliberate.
"You ruined my engagement," he said calmly. "You humiliated my fiancée. You turned my family into entertainment."
"I didn't," I said. "But someone wanted that outcome badly enough to manufacture it."
He studied me for a long moment.
"Everyone says they were framed."
"I'm not everyone."
That earned me another pause. A longer look.
He turned away, moving toward the window, hands slipping into his pockets. The city reflected faintly in the glass, fragmented across his sharp profile.
"My family thinks marrying you will fix this," he said. "They think the public will accept a narrative of passion instead of betrayal."
"And you don't."
"No." He exhaled slowly. "I think it rewards the wrong person."
I felt the sting, but I didn't flinch.
"This marriage," he continued, "is not redemption. It's containment."
"For me," I said.
"For both of us."
The door opened then, and the room filled with lawyers, assistants, documents. The conversation shifted into something colder. Legal language. Clauses. Terms.
The contract was placed in front of me.
Confidentiality. Duration. Appearances. Penalties.
My name looked strange printed at the bottom of every page.
"You may want time to review," one of the lawyers said.
"I won't," I replied, and signed.
Daniel watched closely, his expression unreadable.
When the others finally left, the room fell quiet again.
"You're calm," he said.
"I don't have the luxury of panic."
"You should understand something," he added. "I don't protect people I don't trust."
I met his gaze, steady.
"Then it's good I don't plan on being protected."
Something dark shifted in his eyes.
As I walked out of the tower, the noise hit me immediately. Cameras. Shouts. My name dragged through the air like an accusation.
I kept my head high.
Behind the glass, high above the city, Daniel Ashbridge stood watching as the world devoured me. And for the first time since the scandal broke, I wondered which of us was in more danger.