“Is this a conflict of interest?—?”
Camera shutters fired in rapid succession, flashes going off in uneven bursts that turned the air white and disorienting. Chairs shifted. Someone stood. The energy surged, no longer controlled, no longer patient.
And through all of it—Alois moved, completely ignoring the chaos rippling all around us. His hand came up without warning, fingers sliding firmly against the back of my head, strong fingers knotting into my hair. There was no time to process it, no space to anticipate what he was doing before he was already pulling me toward him.
The world narrowed. Sound collapsed into something distant and distorted.
And then his mouth was on mine.
The heat of him was all-consuming, the solid weight of his presence calming and disorienting as his embrace held firm, guiding rather than forcing, leaving me just enough control to make it look like I was choosing this.
I knew this was part of the plan. I knew we were supposed to sell it. I had not known it would feel like this.
The faint scrape of his scruff against my skin sent a sharp, unexpected awareness through me, the kind that settled low and fast before I had time to brace against it. His mouth moved with quiet certainty, not rushed, not tentative, but deliberate in a way that made it impossible to mistake this for hesitation or performance alone.
I should have stayed still. I should have let him lead it, let it read exactly the way it was meant to from the outside.
Instead, I leaned into it. The movement was subtle, instinctive, barely there, but it was mine.
For one brief, unguarded second I forgot where we were. About the room, the cameras, the noise waiting just beyond the edge of the moment. I forgot every rule I had set for us about keeping distance, about not letting any part of this feel real.
Because it did. Not entirely. But dangerously.
Enough that my chest tightened on a breath I did not control, enough that I felt the warmth of it spread across my cheeks before I could stop it.
I hated how easily my body responded, how quickly it slipped past logic and into something softer, something reactive, something I needed to contain.
But I did not pull away. I let it play, giving the cameras exactly what they were begging for, my hand lifting slightly against the table as if to steady myself while everything inside me shifted out of alignment.
Then he pulled back. Not abruptly, not reluctantly, but with the same calm he had brought into it, ending the embrace on his terms before it could tip into something else entirely.
He room rushed back into rapid focus. Voices rose overeach other in a sharp, immediate surge, questions shouted instead of asked, chairs shifting, bodies moving, the rapid, relentless burst of camera flashes turning the air white in uneven pulses as the entire room erupted around us.
“Next question,” he deadpanned the wake, as if he had not just detonated the narrative in front of every vulture in the room. As if this was exactly how it had always been.
Adrenaline moved through me in a sharp, unfamiliar wave, faster than I could regulate. My breath came a fraction too quick, my chest rising and falling before I could smooth it out, the physical reaction impossible to ignore even as I tried to contain it.
Get a grip, Beatriz. It was a fake kiss.
I drew in a slow, cautious breath, forcing my shoulders back into alignment, forcing my expression into something composed, something professional, something that matched the version of myself I had walked into the room with.
I did not look at Char. I did not need to. I could feel her.
Her attention was fixed, steady and unbroken from where she stood at the side of the room, not intervening, not redirecting, not doing any of the things she should have been doing to regain structure. She let the moment expand instead, let it take up space, let it grow into something larger than the incident we were supposed to be addressing.
The room fed off it immediately. Reporters leaned forward, voices sharper now, more animated, the tone shifting from measured inquiry to something closer to pursuit. Cameras flashed faster, more aggressively, chasing angles, chasing reactions, chasing anything that would capture what had just unfolded.
And Char—she watched it happen.
Stealing a moment, I glanced over at my new, unhelpful boss. I could not read her expression, but I could feel herenergy. I felt it in the absence of restraint. In the way she did not step forward. In the way she allowed the chaos to replace the narrative we had come here to control.
Something about her settled wrong. Not obvious. Not immediate. But enough to register as a shift I could not yet name. Because this felt different. Less like oversight. More like calculated design.
As I tried to shake off the unsettling feeling, my phone buzzed in my pocket. While Alois was wrapping up a question about how we met, my attention left his voice and snapped to my phone screen, happily welcoming the interruption from my best friend.
Micah: OMGEEEEE! Alois kissed you on TV! I’m watching the interview. YOU LOOK AMAZING! So proud of you!
I smiled despite myself. I straightened.