Jayme Barnes POV:

The sharp click of the shutter cut through the silence of the lavender field.

Autry stopped.

He looked at the camera, then shifted his gaze to me.

He looked confused.

He wasn't a man accustomed to hearing the word 'no'.

"Excuse me?" he said, his voice low and laced with danger.

"This is a closed set, Mr. Villarreal," I said.

I didn't call him Autry.

I used his business name.

The name people feared.

"Mr. Villarreal?" he repeated, clearly offended. "Get in the damn helicopter. You've made your point. You've had your vacation."

"I'm working," I said, keeping my voice steady.

"This isn't work. This is a hobby. I have a dinner with the Governor tonight. I need you there."

"Why? Is Cassie busy destroying another garden?"

His jaw clenched tight.

"Cassie is... occupied."

"Security!" Kenan yelled, his voice cracking across the set.

Two local French security guards stepped forward.

They looked terrified of Autry, but they managed to stand in front of me.

Autry laughed.

It was a cold, sharp sound.

"You think these rent-a-cops can stop me?"

"No," I said. "But I think you don't want to cause an international incident in front of a documentary crew."

I pointed to the camera operator, who kept the lens trained on him.

Autry looked at the lens.

He straightened his tie.

He threw the roses on the ground.

"Fine," he said. "We'll do this the hard way."

He turned and strode back to the helicopter.

The wind from the rotors whipped my hair across my face.

I didn't flinch.

Kenan walked over to me, looking pale.

"Who the hell is that?" he asked.

"My past," I said.

"He seems intense."

"He's a mob boss, Kenan. Intense is his baseline state of existence."

I went back to my hotel room that night.

My phone pinged.

A text from Autry: We need to talk.

I deleted it without hesitation.

The next morning, I arrived on set to find chaos.

The lead actress was crying in her trailer.

The producer was popping champagne.

"We got a new investor!" the producer yelled. "Tripled the budget overnight! We're saved!"

My stomach dropped.

A black SUV pulled up.

Cassie Turner stepped out.

She was wearing oversized sunglasses and a smirk that suggested she knew exactly how much space she took up.

"Surprise," she said, looking right at me.

"She's the new lead?" I asked Kenan.

"The new investor insisted," Kenan said, looking unhappy. "Said she has 'star power'."

Autry had bought the production.

He had bought my escape.

"And Jayme," Cassie said, walking over to me. "Since you're here, we need a stand-in for the lighting checks. You're about my height. Be a dear and stand there so they can light me properly."

She wanted me to be her shadow.

Literally.

"I'm the photographer," I said.

"Do it, or the production loses the funding," Cassie said sweetly.

I looked at Kenan.

He looked desperate. This film was his dream.

I nodded.

"Fine."

I stood on the mark.

The lights burned my skin.

I saw Autry standing by the craft services table.

He was watching me.

He looked miserable.

Why did he look miserable? He was winning.

Later that afternoon, they were rehearsing the kiss scene.

The male lead was late.

"I'll stand in," Autry said, stepping out of the shadows.

"You're not an actor," Kenan argued weakly.

"I'm the money," Autry said. "And I know the lines."

He walked onto the set.

Cassie wasn't there. It was just the stand-in rehearsal.

It was just me.

He walked up to me.

The script called for a passionate reunion.

"Autry, don't," I whispered.

"You look tired," he said softly.

He reached out and touched my cheek.

His thumb brushed my lower lip.

My body betrayed me.

My heart hammered against my ribs.

"Action," the assistant director called nervously.

Autry didn't act.

He grabbed the back of my neck.

He pulled me flush against his chest.

He crashed his lips against mine.

It wasn't a stage kiss.

It was possession.

It was anger.

It was a claim.

He tasted like peppermint and dominance.

For a second, I melted.

For a second, I was eighteen again.

Then I remembered the roses.

I remembered the "guest wing."

I remembered the bulldozer.

I bit his lip.

Hard enough to draw blood.

Jayme Barnes POV

The metallic tang of iron flooded my mouth.

Autry pulled back, his hand flying to his lips. When he pulled it away, his fingertips were stained red.

I didn't think; I reacted. I shoved him.

I put every ounce of my rage into that shove, channeling months of frustration into the heels of my hands.

He stumbled back, his boot catching on a stray cable.

The Great Don Autry Villarreal, knocked off balance by a girl in combat boots.

"Get off me!" I screamed, my voice cracking.

The set went dead silent. You could hear a pin drop.

Autry touched his lip again, staring at the blood on his fingers. When he looked up, his eyes weren't angry.

They were hungry.

"You still feel it," he said, his voice rough with something dark.

"I feel nothing but disgust," I spat.

I grabbed my camera bag, slinging it over my shoulder. "I quit."

"You can't quit," Autry said, regaining his composure and straightening his jacket. "You have a contract."

"Sue me," I said.

I walked off the set, ignoring the stares of the crew.

I walked all the way back to the hotel, my boots pounding against the pavement.

Once inside my room, I locked the door and threw the deadbolt.

I took a shower and scrubbed my lips until they were raw, trying to erase the ghost of his touch.

Exhaustion claimed me, and I slept for twelve hours.

I woke up to my phone blowing up.

My agent-the one who fired me-was calling repeatedly.

Chloe, my friend back home, was texting in all caps.

DON'T LOOK AT INSTAGRAM.

So, naturally, I looked at Instagram.

JaymeBarnesScandal was the number one trend in the world.

There were photos. Grainy, black and white monstrosities.

They showed a woman who looked like me snorting lines of cocaine in a bathroom stall.

They showed a woman who looked like me entangled in bed with a married senator.

They were fake.

I knew they were fake because the woman in the photos didn't have the small tattoo of a bird on her shoulder.

But the internet didn't care about tattoos. The internet wanted blood.

Cassie had posted a photo of herself crying.

Caption: Heartbroken that someone I welcomed into my home would try to ruin my family. Addiction is a disease. Praying for Jayme.

She was framing me.

She was destroying my reputation so that no one would believe me if I ever told the truth about them.

I saw red.

I didn't call a lawyer.

I called Autry.

He didn't answer.

I called again.

Voicemail.

I grabbed my coat.

I knew where he was staying. He always rented the biggest villa in town.

I stormed up the hill, my breath hitching in my throat.

The gate was open. The front door was unlocked.

I walked in.

Autry was in the living room.

He was wearing a silk robe, looking every inch the relaxed king.

He was watching the news coverage of my "scandal."

He looked up when I entered. He didn't look surprised.

"Fix it," I said.

"Jayme," he started, standing up.

"Fix it, Autry! You know those photos are fake! You know I've never touched drugs in my life!"

"I can't," he said.

"Can't? You're the Don. You control the press. You control the police."

"Cassie leaked them," he said quietly.

"So?"

"If I expose her lie, I expose the cracks in our alliance. Her father will pull the treaty. War will start again. Men will die."

I stared at him. The room spun.

"So you're letting her destroy me?" I whispered.

"I'm protecting the family," he said.

He reached for a briefcase on the table and opened it.

It was full of cash. Stacks of hundred-dollar bills.

"Take this," he said. "Go to Switzerland. Change your name. Start over. I'll make sure you're safe. I'll make sure you never want for anything."

He was paying me to be the villain.

He was paying me to die.

"You promised to protect me," I said, my voice breaking. "You gave me that star and promised."

"I am protecting you," he insisted. "This is the only way you survive Cassie."

"No," I said.

I looked at the money.

Then I looked at him.

I finally saw him clearly.

He wasn't a king.

He was a coward in a tailored suit.

"You aren't protecting me, Autry. You're burying me."

I stepped back.

"Keep your money. I'd rather starve."

"Jayme, be reasonable!"

"I'm done being reasonable. And I'm done being yours."

I turned around and walked out into the night.

I had no reputation.

I had no home.

I had no money.

But for the first time in my life, I was free.

Jayme Barnes POV:

I stared down at the briefcase.

It was filled with rows of neatly stacked hundred-dollar bills. Crisp. Cold. Impersonal.

It was enough money to buy a house. It was enough money to buy a new identity.

But it wasn't enough to buy my silence.

And it certainly wasn't enough to buy my forgiveness.

"You think this fixes it?" I asked.

My voice was quiet. It was the heavy, suffocating silence before a hurricane.

Autry looked at me. He looked like a man trying to defuse a bomb with a sledgehammer.

"It secures your future, Jayme. It gives you a life away from the crossfire."

"My life was in the crossfire because you put it there," I countered.

I reached up to my neck.

My fingers found the cool metal of the silver star necklace. He had given it to me when I was eighteen. He had fastened it around my neck and told me I was his North Star.

Now, against my skin, it felt like a noose.

I unclasped it.

The chain slid through my fingers like water draining away.

I held it out to him.

"Take it," I said.

Autry stared at the silver star in my palm. He didn't move.

"Jayme, don't."

"Take it, Mr. Villarreal. Or I drop it in the dirt."

He flinched at the formal address as if I had slapped him.

He reached out slowly and took the necklace. His fingers brushed mine. His skin was burning hot. Mine was ice cold.

"We are strangers now," I said.

I turned around and walked away from the villa, leaving the money and the man behind.

I didn't go back to the hotel.

Instead, I walked up the winding path to the old temple garden on the hill.

It was a public spot, but at night, it was deserted. A ghost town of memories.

We used to come here when I was nineteen. Before the engagement. Before Cassie.

There was a wooden railing overlooking the city lights. Years ago, Autry had carved a knot into the wood. A lover's knot.

It didn't have initials. It was just a symbol of something that couldn't be untied.

I needed to see it one last time. I needed to see the lie carved in wood.

I reached the railing. I ran my hand along the rough timber, searching for the carving in the dark.

"Looking for this?"

The voice was high and sharp.

I froze.

Cassie stepped out from the shadows of a cypress tree. She was holding a flashlight.

The beam cut through the darkness and landed on the railing.

There was a fresh carving right next to where the old knot used to be.

It was a heart. Crude and jagged.

Inside the heart were the letters A & C.

And the old knot?

It had been sanded down. It was just a smooth, blank scar on the wood.

"He brought me here yesterday," Cassie said, smiling. "He told me about this place. He said he wanted to make new memories."

She walked toward me. She looked like a porcelain doll that had been dropped and glued back together wrong.

"You're pathetic, Jayme. Scrounging for scraps of a man who only saw you as a charity case."

"He offered me two million dollars to leave," I said, my voice steady.

Cassie's smile faltered for a second. Then it widened.

"Hush money," she said. "He's paying you to take out the trash. Himself."

She raised her left hand.

A diamond the size of a grape glittered in the flashlight beam.

"He designed it himself," she bragged. "We're setting the date for June. It's going to be the wedding of the decade."

Something inside me snapped.

It wasn't a loud snap. It was the sound of a final tether breaking.

I didn't think.

I stepped forward and slapped her.

It was a solid connection. My palm stung from the impact.

Cassie's head snapped to the side. She stumbled back, dropping the flashlight. It rolled on the ground, the beam spinning wildly across the grass.

"You bitch!" she shrieked.

"That was for the rose garden," I said.

"Jayme!"

Autry's voice roared from the path.

He had followed me.

He ran into the light, chest heaving. He saw Cassie holding her cheek. He saw me standing there, my hand still raised.

"She hit me!" Cassie cried, throwing herself at Autry. "She's crazy, Autry! She attacked me!"

Autry looked at me. His eyes were wide with shock. He had never seen me raise a hand in violence.

"Jayme," he warned, his tone low.

I looked down at the railing. I saw a loose piece of wood where the old knot used to be. A splinter of the past.

I ripped it off.

It made a loud cracking sound in the quiet night.

I held the piece of wood up.

"You sanded it down," I said to Autry.

"It was rotting," he said.

"Everything about us is rotting."

I snapped the wood in half.

Crack.

I threw the pieces at his feet. They landed on his polished shoes.

"The Omertà is broken," I said. "I owe you nothing. Not silence. Not loyalty. Not love."

I walked past them.

Autry reached for my arm.

"Don't touch me," I hissed.

He froze.

I walked down the hill, leaving the Don and his future wife alone in the dark.