KADE'S POV
Kade watches her like she's a problem he needs to solve.
Vivian sits across from him at breakfast, barely touching her food, scrolling through news on her phone. She wears one of the designer outfits from the closet but it doesn't fit her the way it fits other women. She moves in it like it's borrowed clothes. Like she's playing a part and waiting for someone to call her out on the performance.
He should look away. Should pretend not to notice.
He doesn't.
She tucks her hair behind her ear when she's concentrating. It's a small gesture, completely unconscious. Her brow furrows when she reads something that angers her. Her lips press into a thin line. She's easy to read once you bother to actually look at her.
She's nothing like Elena.
Elena was soft. Gentle. Easy to be around. Elena would float through a room like she was made of water. People gravitated toward her because she made everyone feel safe.
Vivian is sharp edges and contained fury barely held under control. She looks like she could cut someone just by existing near them.
He likes it more than he should.
Kade realizes he's been staring when Vivian looks up from her phone, meeting his eyes with suspicion.
"What?" she asks.
"Your mother's surgery is scheduled for next week," he says, pulling the conversation away from whatever she was just thinking about. "Top cardiac surgeon in the country. Dr. Patricia Chen. She did my mother's surgery five years ago."
Vivian's head snaps up. "That fast?"
"I made calls."
"Thank you." The words sound like they cost her something. Like gratitude is a foreign language she's forcing herself to speak. "I didn't expect it this soon."
"You should have expected it. You paid for it."
She flinches at that. At the reminder that this is transactional. That his help comes with a price attached to her soul.
"The legal team will meet with you tomorrow," he continues. "They need all the details about the fraud. Evidence, documentation, anything you have."
Her jaw tightens. "I have files. Evidence. Not that anyone believed me before."
"They will believe you now."
"Why? Because you're backing me?"
"Yes. People believe money." He doesn't soften it. Doesn't apologize for how the world works. "Money and power move mountains. Everything else is just noise."
She sets down her coffee cup harder than necessary.
That afternoon, Kade sits in his study and realizes he made a mistake bringing her here.
Not a mistake in the sense of regret. More like miscalculation. He thought he could keep her at a distance. Thought he could use the resemblance to Elena as a buffer between them. Thought he could maintain control.
Instead she's becoming real.
Every moment he watches her, she becomes more real. Less like a ghost. More like a person with thoughts and fears and a future that doesn't revolve around his need to torture himself.
That's the problem.
He needed the torture. He needed something to feel guilty about. He needed Elena's absence to justify his own emptiness. And Vivian showed up, looking like Elena, desperate enough to sign away a year of her life, and it seemed perfect.
Except it's not.
Because Vivian is not Elena and he's starting to not want her to be.
At midnight, Kade can't sleep.
He works in his study, trying to distract himself with acquisitions and profit margins. Trying to make the numbers mean something again. But nothing connects. Nothing matters.
He finds himself walking to the balcony.
That's where Vivian is.
She stands at the railing in pajamas, barefoot despite the cold, staring out at the city lights like they're going to give her answers. Her arms are wrapped around herself. Her hair is down, falling past her shoulders in waves. Without the careful styling, without the armor of expensive clothes, she looks young.
She looks breakable.
"Cannot sleep?" he asks.
She doesn't jump even though he approached silently. Like she knew he was there. Like some part of her was expecting him.
"Adjusting," she says, still not looking at him. "This is all very surreal."
"You will adapt."
"Will I?" She finally turns to face him. "Or will I just pretend until the year is up?"
The question hits harder than it should.
Kade doesn't have an answer. That's what terrifies him. He's spent two years having answers for everything. Managing his empire. Making decisions that affect thousands of people. Controlling outcomes.
This girl with Elena's eyes and nothing else of Elena is asking him a question he can't answer.
"You'll adapt," he says, because he has to say something.
"You keep saying that like it's a certainty. Like I'm going to just become someone I'm not." She turns back to the city. "I'm not made of clay, Kade. I can't just be molded into whatever shape you need me to be."
"I'm not asking you to be anything other than what you are."
"Aren't you?" She gestures vaguely at the penthouse behind them. "You bought me because I look like your dead wife. You filled a closet with clothes I didn't choose. You're controlling who I can see and where I can go. You want me to lie to my mother. You want me to be your companion at events. You want me to smile when photographers ask and pretend everything is normal." She pauses. "That's not asking me to be myself, Kade. That's asking me to become a version of myself that serves your needs."
He should argue. Should remind her of the contract. Should remind her that she agreed to this.
Instead he just watches her.
In the city light, with her hair down and her defenses stripped away, she looks like someone who's been drowning and just realized she's too tired to keep swimming.
"What would you do?" he asks. "If you had unlimited choices. If you didn't have debt or criminal charges or a mother who needs surgery. What would you actually do?"
She's quiet for a long time.
"I'd build another company," she finally says. "Something different this time. Something focused on AI ethics and responsible technology. I'd hire people who actually believe in the work instead of just chasing money." She turns to look at him. "I'd have a life that was mine, not something I had to buy or trade for or pretend to be happy about."
"Then that's what we'll work toward."
"Is it? Because it doesn't feel like an option. It feels like another cage."
He wants to argue. Wants to tell her she's wrong. But looking at her in the darkness of the balcony, barefoot and exhausted and still fighting, he realizes she's not wrong.
He did buy her. He did fill her world with constraints. He did surround her with the appearance of choice while actually removing every meaningful option.
Just like everyone else in her life has done.
"I will give you what you're asking for," he says.
"How? You own my time for a year."
"And I will use that year to make sure that when it's over, you actually have choices." He steps closer to the railing. "Your mother's surgery is Monday. After she recovers, we'll get her set up with the best cardiac care in the city. The legal team will dismantle the charges against you. We'll take back your company if that's what you want or we'll build you a new one."
"Why would you do that?"
"Because you're right." He meets her eyes. "You're not made of clay. And I didn't buy you to break you. Even if that's what I told myself when I first brought you here."
She stares at him like she's trying to figure out if he means it.
"One year," she says quietly.
"One year," he agrees. "And then you're free to choose your own cage."
Something flickers across her face. Not quite hope. Not quite trust. Something in between.
"That's not as comforting as you think it is," she says.
"I know."
She hugs herself tighter, looking back at the city.
"I'm going to fail at this," she says. "At being your companion. At pretending. At all of it."
"Probably."
"And you're still going to make me try?"
"Yes. But I'm also going to help you. And maybe, if you let me, I'm going to figure out how to stop being a ghost long enough to actually be a person again."
She doesn't respond.
They stand together on the balcony, two broken people staring at a city that doesn't care about their damage.
And Kade realizes something that terrifies him more than anything has terrified him in two years.
He's starting to see Vivian Lawson.
Not as Elena's replacement. Not as a ghost he bought to punish himself. But as a woman. Real. Fierce. Brilliant. Deserving of more than what he's offering her.
Which means everything is about to get much more complicated.
Because wanting her to be free and needing her to stay are two completely different things.
And he's not sure which one will win.