Chapter 145: The Other Key

Across town, Sloane Sinclair looked away from Giselle on the bed and turned toward Naomi Vale.

"Did he answer you?"

Naomi’s smile disappeared so smoothly that it almost looked planned. She locked her phone, turned the screen facedown against her palm, and gave Sloane a look of innocent confidence.

"He blocked you," Naomi said. "Why wouldn’t he block me too? What, do you think I have a magic pass?"

Sloane stared at her for half a second.

Naomi did not blink.

The hotel room still carried the sour aftermath of a night that had gone badly for everyone except Elias Kane. Giselle lay under the hotel’s white duvet, pale and exhausted, her silver hair loose against the pillow. The private doctor who had checked her earlier had left behind a few sealed packs of supplements, a small tray of medical tape, and the sort of warning that sounded professional only because the woman had clearly been paid not to ask why a Frost heiress had boxed until her body shut down.

Sloane rubbed the bridge of her nose.

Naomi, who had been plenty worried ten minutes ago, now looked like she had found a side show worth buying tickets to.

"Right," Naomi said, before Sloane could keep questioning her. "Did her mother call back?"

Sloane’s expression tightened.

"She did."

"What did Victoria say?"

Technically, Victoria Frost had not said anything. That was the problem.

"One of the household staff picked up," Sloane said. "The message was that there was no need to concern ourselves with Giselle."

Naomi went silent for a moment.

Then she said, very sincerely, "Is Giselle adopted?"

Sloane shot her a look.

"What? I’m asking because that is a wild way to respond to your daughter passing out."

"She isn’t adopted." Sloane looked back toward the bed. Giselle’s lashes did not move. Even unconscious, she seemed to hold herself apart from the room, as though sleep was just another form of refusal. "And Victoria does care about her."

Naomi’s face said she had doubts.

Sloane did not blame her.

Still, people outside the Frost family always misunderstood the fracture between Giselle and Victoria. They saw distance and assumed indifference. They saw coldness and assumed lack of love. Sloane had known both women long enough to understand that the truth was uglier and harder to dismiss.

Victoria cared. She had cared so much that she had tried to shape Giselle’s entire life with gloved hands and a smile. Schooling, social circles, public image, future marriage, family obligations, every move that could matter and plenty that should not have mattered at all. She had called it guidance. Giselle had called it a cage. Neither of them had been fully wrong.

The only man in that house had died too early, and the loss had left both women with the wrong kind of silence. What should have been a close mother-daughter bond had turned into a private war fought through schedules, locked doors, and conversations neither side knew how to finish.

Sloane knew better than to say any of that aloud.

Naomi watched her for a second, then picked up her phone again the moment Sloane’s attention shifted back to Giselle.

Her thumbs moved fast.

Naomi Vale: Helloooo?

Naomi Vale: You didn’t block me, so does that mean we’re friends now?

Naomi Vale: Elias?

Naomi Vale: Friend?

Naomi Vale: Paid friend?

The messages kept landing.

On the other side of campus, Elias nearly blocked her.

His phone buzzed once, then again, then again with the kind of persistence usually associated with scam callers, lonely exes, and people who did not understand the concept of shame. He looked at the string of messages, his thumb already hovering near the block option.

Only the earlier $125,000 kept Naomi Vale alive in his contacts.

It was not that Elias had suddenly become generous. He had standards. Most of them were financial.

Fortunately, Naomi seemed to understand the cliff edge she was dancing on. Just as his patience dipped below the level required for civilized society, the messages stopped.

Elias slid the phone back into his pocket with a faint look of disgust.

"So annoying."

He was almost starting to regret accepting the money. Almost. Compared with Liora Voss, Naomi had the same spectator’s appetite but came with an added defect: she talked too much.

Then again, she had paid.

Earning money was hard.

Little Eli sighed.

His morning schedule only had one class, and now that it was over, he had no reason to stay on campus. Westbridge’s rear gate was quieter than the main entrance, mostly used by students who wanted to avoid the central walkways, delivery staff coming through side access, and rich girls trying very badly to look like they were not waiting for someone.

Elias slowed before he reached the gate.

Then he stopped.

A line of trees bordered the paved path. Beyond them, a private car waited near the curb with its engine off and its windows tinted dark enough to make questions useless. The campus security camera above the gate angled politely away from the trees, as if status had already whispered in its ear.

Elias turned his head toward the shade.

His eyes cooled.

"If you’re going to hide, at least do it well," he said. "Come out." 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

A long leg stepped out from behind the tree first.

Elias glanced down.

The leg was slender and well-shaped, the kind of leg that looked expensive before the rest of the woman even appeared. The curve, the height, the unhurried confidence in the step, all of it landed in the same answer.

Liora Voss.

[???]

System Theta froze for one full processing cycle.

[Host, when did you develop the ability to identify someone by leg shape?]

Elias ignored the system and lifted his gaze.

Liora emerged from behind the tree in a tailored coat that made the campus around her look underdressed. Her hazel eyes held that familiar foxlike amusement, though today it sat behind something more careful. She looked composed, of course. Liora always looked composed. The woman could probably be standing in a burning elevator and still make the fire seem like a scheduling inconvenience.

Elias met those seductive eyes, and the coldness in his own sharpened.

"So now you’re not even hiring people to follow me?" he asked. "You’ve upgraded to personal stalking?"

Liora’s expression shifted by the smallest degree. Not guilt. Not quite amusement either. Something closer to resignation, which on her face was already a major public confession.

"Stalking?" she said. "I came to give you something."

She walked toward him, unhurried, her heels soft against the pavement. Her driver did not leave the car. No security stepped forward. That restraint was its own message. Liora had arranged the scene so she could look alone with him while still making it clear that the space around them belonged to her.

Elias watched her hand slide into her coat pocket.

She took out a key.

Not a flashy one. Nothing tacky, nothing oversized, no glittering key ring built for drama. Just a clean electronic fob and a slim metal key attached to a black leather tab. Understatement, then. The expensive kind.

Elias looked at it and understood.

"The place Serena bought me?"

Liora shook her head.

"I bought this one."

Elias went still for half a second.

Then his eyes narrowed.

"So Serena bought me a condo, and you also bought me one."

"Yes."

The picture became clear at once.

Elias’s expression brightened.

It was a lovely change, almost enough to fool someone who had not already been cut by him. His brows curved, his eyes warmed, and the smile that came over his face had the kind of charm that made people forget there was a blade inside it until they were already bleeding.

"How much was it?"

Liora’s tone stayed even. "Not much. About $1.3 million."

Elias did not look shocked. He did not gasp, blush, stammer, or perform gratitude. The smile remained exactly where it was, bright and beautiful, untouched by the size of the gift.

"Cash it out," he said, turning as if the matter had been settled. "Sell your condo and wire the $1.3 million to my account."

Liora caught his wrist.

The motion was not rough, but it was decisive. Her fingers closed around him with the kind of authority that assumed resistance was a temporary error rather than a real possibility.

Elias stopped.

For a passing student, the scene probably looked like an intimate argument between a beautiful young man and a woman too composed to be ordinary. The student’s glance lingered for a beat, then slid away with practiced Westbridge survival instinct. At this university, when a woman like Liora Voss held someone by the wrist beside a waiting private car, intervention was not bravery. It was stupidity wearing a good coat.

Liora’s thumb rested against Elias’s pulse.

"Serena’s place," she said. "You’ll accept that one?"

Elias lowered his eyes to her hand, then lifted them back to her face.

Jealous.

There it was.

Maybe this was the first time Liora had let possession show without dressing it as amusement. Elias had wondered how long it would take. A woman like Liora enjoyed standing above the game, smiling while other people stepped into traps, but she still had hands. She still wanted to hold things. She still disliked seeing what she wanted being carried away by another woman.

Elias bit his lower lip lightly, and when he turned back toward her, the warmth had already left his face.

"What else should I do?"

Liora studied him. "Why won’t you accept mine?"

"I did accept it." Elias lifted a delicate brow. "I told you to send me the money."

Her brows drew together a fraction.

"You know that isn’t what I mean."

Of course he did.

Accepting a gift and liquidating it for cash were not the same thing. Keeping the condo meant allowing Liora to place a door in his life, a room he could enter because she had given it to him, a space staff could learn, elevators could record, security could recognize, and future habits could grow around. Taking the money destroyed the shape of the gift. It turned claim into currency. It left no key, no address, no bed, no private access point that could quietly become normal.

Elias knew exactly what she meant.

That was why his smile grew brighter.

His eyes curved beautifully, and with Liora’s hand still around his wrist, anyone walking by would have seen a boyfriend coaxing his girlfriend after some ridiculous fight. The posture helped him. The face helped him more. Elias had always been talented at making cruelty look like affection from the right angle.

"I know what you mean," he said lightly. "You just don’t seem to know what I mean."

Liora did not move.

Before she could speak, Elias lifted his free hand and touched her face.

His palm was warm against her cheek. His fingers were soft. The gesture looked tender enough to be forgiven by anyone watching from a distance, and that made it worse.

"I’m dating your sister," he said gently. "So behave, okay?"

Liora’s gaze held.

Elias’s thumb brushed once along her cheekbone.

"You know I don’t like disobedient puppies."

The last word came out almost sweet.

His lips pursed faintly as he said it, full and red enough that the expression looked like a request for a kiss. The kind of look that could make a sane person step back. The kind that made Liora, for one brief and humiliating second, want to lean down and take exactly what he was making impossible to take.

She did not.

"Sorry," she said.

It was not the first time she had apologized.

Not for the condo. Not only for the surveillance. This apology went back to the mistake that had almost let Serena suspect the shape of their arrangement. Liora had overreached. She had let her private amusement and curiosity leave marks too close to Serena’s line of sight.

Now she wanted to smooth the damage with a seven-figure key.

Elias’s mouth curved.

She thought the condo was an apology.

Fine. It was. He accepted apologies. He was not unreasonable.

Acceptance did not mean forgiveness. It did not mean she got to choose what came next.

"I accept your apology." Elias stepped closer until their bodies nearly touched. From the outside, the closeness looked intimate, maybe even affectionate. Up close, Liora could feel the precision in it, the deliberate way he placed himself inside her reach while refusing to give her anything she could keep. "But I’m going to say it again. Be good."

For the first time, real confusion entered Liora’s eyes.

It was small, but Elias caught it. He always caught those things. Her lips parted slightly, as if she meant to ask the question she had been holding back since he started turning Serena into the center of the stage.

Elias raised one finger and pressed it lightly against her mouth.

"Shh."

His lips came close to his own finger, leaving only that narrow barrier between them. The gesture trapped the almost-kiss where it could be felt but not taken.

"I know what you want to ask," he murmured. "My goal is to seduce women. You’re already on the hook, so why am I not pulling you in?"

Liora did not answer.

She did not need to.

Her stillness said enough.

Elias rose slightly onto his toes and breathed against the bridge of her nose, a slow, wicked little exhale that carried the clean warmth of him into her space. Liora’s breath changed before she could stop it. She inhaled, and it was full of Elias, his skin, his shampoo, the faint sweetness of whatever hotel soap still clung to him from the morning.

His voice softened.

"Because from the beginning, you were never the meal I wanted." He watched her face as he spoke. "Eating you was just a way to stop being hungry. Your sister, Giselle, the others. They’re the main course."

Liora’s expression did not collapse.

That would have been too easy, and Liora Voss was not built for easy damage. Her face stayed calm, her eyes steady, her posture clean. She looked as though the words had brushed past without entering.

Or maybe her body had reached the point where doing nothing was the only protection it had left.

Elias did not care which one it was.

"I didn’t mind playing with you," he continued. "A puppy is a puppy. Teasing one isn’t that different from teasing another."

His finger still rested against her lips. Her breath warmed his skin.

"But you almost made another one of my puppies run away." His smile did not leave. "I was already being kind by not throwing you out."

Liora’s fingers around his wrist tightened by a bare degree.

There was the reaction.

Elias removed his finger.

Then he leaned forward and kissed her.

It looked natural from the outside, almost soft. A young man stepping into a woman’s space after scolding her. A private fight turning into a public reconciliation. A beautiful little scene for anyone foolish enough to romanticize people with money and too much control.

The kiss itself was slow.

Elias did not rush. He did not give her the frantic, messy hunger she might have wanted. He gave her enough warmth to feel chosen and enough restraint to know she had not been chosen at all. His mouth moved over hers with lazy precision, gentle in pressure and cruel in timing.

Liora did not pull away.

For all her control, her breath caught. Her hand was still on his wrist, and for one moment the hold stopped feeling like restraint and started looking like the only thing keeping her upright.

Elias drew back just far enough to speak against her mouth.

"As long as you behave from now on," he said softly, "I don’t mind feeding you a few bones the other puppies already chewed on."

Liora’s eyes darkened.

Elias smiled into the narrow space between them.

"But if you don’t..."

He let the sentence hang long enough for her to understand that the pause was deliberate, not hesitation.

His voice dropped, still gentle enough to pass for affection to anyone too far away to hear the words.

"You can forget about licking my feet."