Fleeting Love, True Encounter

: Be Obedient

I imagined fireworks exploding across the sky above The Iron Tower. I pictured Shane Sinclair getting on one knee to propose to Tanya Gable, and my stomach churned.

"What's wrong? You seem a little down." Shane Sinclair finally noticed my silence and leaned in to look at my downcast face.

I forced a smile. "Maybe I'm still jet-lagged."

"Fair enough," he nodded, then excitedly launched into his plan again. "Once my workaholic brother marries you, you'll be so free! All he ever does is attend meetings and read financial statements. He probably won't even lay a finger on you. You'll be able to do whatever you want. Isn't that great?"

I snapped my head up.

The pain, slow to arrive, finally spread from my heart through my entire body.

I took a step back, dodging the arm he habitually tried to sling around my shoulder. My voice held a sharp edge I hadn't even realized was there. "That's right. I'll use your brother's black card to order a dozen male models every day!"

Shane Sinclair froze.

In the darkness of the night, his expression was momentarily unreadable.

Then he chuckled softly, reaching out to cup my face and force me to look at him. "After seeing a face like mine, you think you'd still be interested in other male models?"

His thumb caressed my cheek in a familiarly intimate gesture.

We were too close. So close I could smell the faint scent of his cologne—the one I had given him for his birthday last year.

"Shane Sinclair, you—"

His kiss cut off my words.

My back pressed against the cold railing of The Iron Tower, his burning body flush against mine.

The gasps of tourists echoed from a distance as the first firework shot into the sky.

Shane Sinclair finally let me go.

Amidst the deafening roar of the fireworks, I heard myself whisper, "Shane Sinclair, I love you."

He didn't hear me. He was looking up at the sky, his profile bathed in a soft glow from the fireworks, a gentle smile on his face.

I looked up and saw the custom fireworks in the sky spelling out a few words: TANYA GABLE, I LOVE YOU.

The last of the fireworks faded, and the world fell silent once more.

Shane Sinclair turned to me, his tone casual. "By the way, there's something else I wanted to talk to you about."

Still clinging to a ridiculous sliver of hope, I looked up at him.

"My brother is also here on business. You should stick close to him, try to bring him here. I'll get someone to take some cleverly angled photos that look intimate. We'll create a buzz online, saying you're the wife of President Sinclair. Under pressure from public opinion, my dad will definitely make him marry you."

He paused, then added in a placating tone, "You don't even have to really touch him, so it won't be awkward. Be good, okay?"

'Be good.'

That one phrase defined my entire relationship with Shane Sinclair. Be good and act as his little tagalong. Be good and wait for him to finally turn around and notice me. Be good and appear when he needed me, then disappear when he didn't.

Twenty years of companionship, three years of intimacy. It went on for so long that I actually believed we were in love. How laughable.

The lingering smell of gunpowder from the fireworks drifted over, mixing with the mist from The Serene River. I heard my own hoarse voice reply, "Okay."

Shane Sinclair smiled. "Good girl."

The next day, Shane Sinclair dragged me to the luxury boutiques on Elysian Avenue.

"Let me buy you something," he said casually, but his eyes kept darting toward the street outside, as if he were waiting for someone. "I can't have you helping me for nothing, after all."

I smiled bitterly to myself.

'It wasn't even about helping anymore. It was just a transaction.'