He Paid a Million to Watch My Ex Go Crazy for Me

POV: Sophie

The bathroom water shut off at 2:17 AM.

I counted Andrew's movements through the wall—the slide of the glass door, the wet slap of his feet on marble, the creak of the cabinet where he kept his sedatives. Ten minutes until the pills kicked in. Fifteen until his breathing deepened into that slow, heavy rhythm I'd learned to recognize as safety.

My feet were already on the floor.

The bedroom carpet swallowed my footsteps. The door to the hallway opened without a sound—I'd oiled the hinges three weeks ago, a trick I'd learned from watching Maxwell move through the house. Andrew's assistant was a ghost in tailored wool, and ghosts left traces if you studied them long enough.

The study door wasn't locked.

Andrew never locked doors inside the house. Why would he? He owned everything behind them. Every chair, every painting, every woman in silk pajamas holding her breath in the hallway like a thief.

I slipped inside.

The mahogany desk loomed in the darkness, its surface immaculate except for a leather blotter and a brass lamp. Moonlight sliced through the curtains, throwing silver stripes across the Persian rug. I didn't dare turn on a light. My phone's screen would have to do, its pale glow guiding me around the desk to the chair, to the drawers, to the bottom one that always stuck a little when you pulled it.

It stuck now.

I tugged harder. The wood groaned. Upstairs, the silence held. No footsteps. No creaking floorboards. Just my heart hammering against my ribs and the cold sweat gathering at the small of my back.

The drawer opened.

Financial reports. Tax documents. A leather folio with Andrew's initials embossed in gold. I lifted the papers carefully, my fingers brushing the bottom of the drawer. Nothing. Just more paperwork and a velvet box that probably held a watch he'd forgotten about.

Then I saw it.

Not in the drawer. Under it. Tucked between the bottom of the drawer and the frame, as if someone had shoved it there in a hurry and never bothered to retrieve it. A legal-sized envelope, cream-colored, heavy stock. The kind of paper that existed to make you feel small.

I slid it out.

The flap wasn't sealed. Inside: a contract. Seven pages, stapled at the corner, each one dense with legalese and numbered clauses. My eyes skipped to the signatures at the bottom.

Julian Vance's name in black ink.

Andrew Croft's name beside it.

The date at the top of the page was six months ago.

I read the first paragraph three times before it made sense. Supplementary Agreement Regarding Cancellation Fee Settlement. Andrew had paid Julian's ten-million-dollar contract buyout. Not offered. Not threatened. Paid. Six months before I'd ever stepped foot in that greenhouse. Six months before Julian had walked into the dressing room with his camera and his hard eyes and his voice saying We've met like a blade.

Three meetings.

Andrew had told me about three meetings with Julian. Three "negotiations" he'd claimed were about the photography contract. Three times he'd sat across a table from my ex-lover and never mentioned it to me until the day of the shoot.

Three times he'd lied.

The paper trembled in my hand. I kept reading. Clause seven, subparagraph B: Croft retains exclusive rights to assign Vance to any event, location, or project for a period of eighteen months following the execution of this agreement. Andrew hadn't hired Julian. He'd bought him. Locked him into a contract that made him available on demand, whenever Andrew wanted, wherever Andrew chose.

Including my engagement shoot.

Including the fifteen days leading up to my wedding.

The reunion was staged. Andrew hadn't planned my cramp or Julian's dive, but he had engineered the trap—the contract, Cassandra, every humiliating concept—before I said yes. I was the last actor to see the script.

"What the fuck," I whispered.

The bathroom door opened upstairs.

I froze. The envelope was in my hand. The drawer gaped open, its papers shifted from neat stacks. No time to restore them. No time to hide. I shoved the contract into the waistband of my pajamas, pushed the drawer closed with my hip, and turned toward the door just as footsteps started down the stairs.

Andrew moved like a man who knew where every creaky floorboard lived and avoided them out of spite.

I pressed myself against the wall beside the study door. The footsteps passed. Paused. Turned back.

The door swung open.

Andrew stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the hallway sconces. His bathrobe hung open, revealing the pale expanse of his chest, the dark trail of hair that disappeared beneath the silk belt. His hair was damp. His eyes were clear. He'd never taken the sedatives at all.

"Couldn't sleep?" he asked.

My fingers curled around the contract behind my back. "I was looking for a book."

"A book."

"Something to read. You said I should stay in bed, but I couldn't—" I forced my shoulders into a shrug. "Insomnia."

He stepped closer. The moonlight caught his face, throwing the sharp angles into relief. His hand came up and I flinched, but he only reached past me to the desk, to the lamp, clicking it on. Yellow light flooded the study. His gaze went to the open drawer, then the envelope protruding from behind my back. He needed no other clue.

"Sophie."

His voice was soft. Almost gentle. The way you'd talk to a dog before you put it down.

"What did you find?"

I didn't answer. Couldn't. My throat had closed around every word I might have used—accusations, questions, pleas. They all died somewhere between my lungs and my lips.

Andrew reached behind me and pulled the contract from my grip. He didn't look at it. He didn't need to. He just smiled, that thin-lipped smile that never touched his eyes, and set it on the desk beside the lamp.

"The cancellation fee," he said. "The one you asked about at dinner. I thought you'd want to see it for yourself. Understand exactly how trapped he is." He tilted his head. "How trapped you both are."

"You paid it six months ago."

"Of course I did. Julian is difficult to pin down. The buyout gave me leverage. The assignment clause gave me control. The months between then and the engagement gave me time to plan." He smoothed the front of his robe. "You didn't think I proposed to you by accident, did you? You didn't think I chose Julian out of a catalog?"

"Three meetings." My voice came out as a rasp. "You met with him three times before the shoot. You told me they were negotiations."

"They were. Just not about photography." He stepped closer. His hand found my hip, fingers pressing into the bone. "The first meeting was about his mother. Eleanor. Her debts, her tastes, her vulnerability. The second was about his career—how easily it could be destroyed, how much he'd sacrifice to protect it. The third was about you."

"Me."

"You." His thumb traced the ridge of my hipbone. "I wanted to see his face when I said your name. I wanted to watch him try to hide what he still felt. And he couldn't, Sophie. Not even a little. The man's still in love with you, and he's been carrying around the evidence for seven years like a goddamn shrine."

"What evidence?"

Andrew laughed. It was a cold, hollow sound that bounced off the study walls. "You'll see. Tomorrow. At the shoot. I've arranged something special for the cliffside location. Cassandra knows her part. Julian doesn't know his yet." He leaned in, his mouth brushing my ear. "Neither do you."

"You're a monster."

"I'm your fiancé." His grip tightened. "And you're going to go back to bed, and you're going to stay there until morning, and you're not going to warn him. You're not going to text him. You're not going to look at your little burner phone or send any secret messages to that foster family you think I don't know about."

The blood drained from my face.

"Oh, yes," Andrew whispered. "I know about Leo."

The cliffside location was a jagged stretch of black rock overlooking a gray sea.

Wind tore at my hair, my dress, the veil the stylist had pinned to my head despite my protests. Julian was already there, camera in hand, his back to the parking area as he scouted angles. Cassandra stood three feet behind him, her arms wrapped around a metallic reflector, her heels wobbling on the uneven stone.

Andrew stayed by the car, supposedly taking a call. His eyes said he was waiting.

I moved toward the prop table, where the assistant had laid out flowers and fabric swatches and a pair of white satin gloves I was supposed to wear for the next set. My hand was still bandaged from yesterday—the burn from Cassandra's tea had blistered overnight.

Cassandra's shadow fell across the table before I heard her footsteps.

"Careful," she said. "The rocks are slippery."

She didn't sound concerned.

She bumped me. Hard. Her shoulder caught my arm and sent me stumbling sideways, my bare hand skidding across the rough black stone. Pain lit up my wrist. Blood welled in the fresh scrape, bright red against my pale skin.

"Oops," Cassandra murmured. "How clumsy of me. Again."

I straightened, cradling my injured hand. "You did that on purpose."

"Prove it." She smiled, all teeth. "There's no tea this time. No witnesses. Just a clumsy assistant and a bride who can't stay on her feet."

Julian's camera stopped clicking.

He turned. Saw me holding my bleeding hand. Saw Cassandra's smirk. The reflector clattered to the ground as he strode toward us, his boots crunching on the rock, his face set in a fury I hadn't seen since the day he'd pulled me out of that pool.

"Cassandra." His voice cracked like a whip. "Back off."

"Julian, darling, she tripped—"

"I said back off."

His hand closed around Cassandra's arm and yanked. She stumbled backward, her heels scraping over the stone, her arms pinwheeling. The metal reflector stand beside her wobbled, tilted, and crashed to the ground with a sound like a gunshot.

Cassandra screamed.

Julian didn't look at her. His eyes were on my hand, on the blood dripping onto the white satin of my dress, on the way my fingers were trembling.

"Let me see it," he said.

"It's nothing—"

"Let me fucking see it, Sophie."

The wind howled around us. Behind Julian, Cassandra was cursing, brushing rock dust from her designer dress. In the chaos, Julian's camera bag—the battered leather satchel I remembered from seven years ago, the one he never let anyone touch—worked loose from his shoulder and dropped away.

It hit the rocks hard.

The main compartment stayed closed. But the bottom zipper, the one I'd never seen him open in seven years, split wide.

Something fluttered out.

Pale. Flimsy. Edges curled with age.

It landed at my feet.

I looked down.

A sonogram. Black and white. A tiny shape curled at the center, barely distinguishable from the grain around it. Beneath the image was a date from seven years ago. Eight weeks. At the top of the printout was Sophie Vance.

A silver anklet slid out after it.

Tiny. Delicate. Slightly tarnished at the clasp. Engraved in cursive:

Leo.