Chapter 2 Shadow Agreement

Lila Hart's POV

I ought to have stepped away.

I ought to have told Jaxon Vale to take his agreement, his cash, and his arrogant, inscrutable gaze and disappear from my life.

However, I chose to sign.

And now, all that I created was no longer solely mine.

The elevator doors opened with a sharp hiss and a sterile chime as I entered the Vale Industries headquarters. The carefully selected fabrics and comfortable disorder of my former design area were no more. In its stead remained chrome, glass, and quiet. Business aviation. Sanitary and chilly. Exactly like him.

The receptionist beamed, far too cheerfully for the anxiety buzzing in my chest. "Miss Hart, Mr. Vale is on the executive floor waiting for you." "Use elevator B."

My heels tapped like charges as I walked through the shiny lobby. I ought to have sensed strength. Rather, I sensed that I was being watched. Confined within a transparent enclosure, anticipating a response.

Upon reaching the top floor, the doors swung open to unveil him.

Jaxon positioned himself at the window, with the Manhattan skyline extending behind him like a personal empire. He turned around, his gaze locking onto me with that same calm intensity, one that made you feel he already understood every response you would ever provide.

"You're tardy," he remarked, not glancing at a clock.

"Perhaps I reconsidered," I responded, head raised.

"You didn't."

I despised how accurate he was.

He moved nearer, carrying a folder. "Here is your project overview." Your initial responsibility as Creative Director within the new framework. A fashion technology conference is taking place in Milan. You will showcase our combined concept lineup. "You depart in forty-eight hours."

My fingers became stiff on the folder. "Are you sending me away?"

"I am placing you where the world can recognize your brilliance."

"Or where I can be kept confined."

He gave a slight smile. "You have a wrong perception of control, Lila." It's not about limitation. "It concerns direction."

I felt the urge to yell.

Instead, I grabbed the folder, entered the connected design studio, and shut the door forcefully behind me.

However, slamming a door in a property he possessed seemed very much like yelling into the breeze.

The studio was contemporary and stylish, yet it didn't have the soul of my previous place. No drawings on the walls. No incomplete dresses hanging on display figures. Simply an empty canvas.

"Begin anew," I whispered. "Okay."

I laid out the items from the folder on the table. It was a fashion collection that integrated technology, aimed at combining AI-driven fabrics with eco-friendly luxury. Aspiring. Bold. Cannot be carried out in fewer than three months.

Unless someone had previously established the foundation.

My heart dropped as I turned the pages.

Designs. Textiles documentation. Color theory. Uniform sewing designs. It was my design, but not my execution.

Someone had impersonated me.

Or even worse... someone had analyzed me.

I took out my sketchbook, turning to a design I created two years back. The shapes, the substance, the integrated electronics, just like what I was observing now.

Only one explanation existed.

"Jaxon," I muttered quietly, marching out of the studio.

I discovered him precisely where I had left him, composed, balanced, a glass of whiskey in hand as if he possessed all the time in the universe.

"You replicated my designs."

"I maintained your legacy," he responded. "Prior to the downfall of your brand."

"That was not your entitlement."

"You transferred it as soon as you agreed to the arrangement."

My hands formed fists.

"You observed me," I said. "Prior to the acquisition." "You had a person go through my archives."

"I accomplished it on my own," he stated plainly.

The words struck like a blow.

"You dedicated months... observing me?"

"Not observing." "Acquiring knowledge."

"Why is that?"

"Since I had to comprehend the woman I was preparing to rely on for a fifty-million-dollar launch."

"No, Jaxon." "You aimed to possess me entirely, including my brush strokes."

He moved nearer, speaking softly. "You believe I am unaware of it?" The manner in which your hands tremble when discussing setbacks. You design as if you're trying to prove something to your father's ghost. Do you consider that to be ownership? "That is staying alive."

I gazed at him, my breath trapped in my throat.

He looked away.

"You're not alone in battling legacy."

That evening, I was on my rooftop with my sketchbook, gazing at the skyline as if it had the solutions. The city seemed to feel less like home now. More similar to a platform. And I had turned into a performance for someone else.

I started a fresh page and sketched until my fingers hurt.

This time, it was not for validation. Not for existence.

It was meant for me.

Only me.

However, as I descended the stairs, I found my studio door slightly open.

I always made sure it wasn't left like that.

I entered slowly and carefully.

Everything appeared untouched until I noticed the envelope.

Unlabeled. Off-white. Resting on my desk as if it had a rightful place.

I turned it open gently.

Within was a picture.

A more youthful Jaxon. Positioned beside a man who resembled his twin, but older and more weathered.

And a message inscribed in swirling black ink:

"He wasn't truthful with you." "Exactly how he deceived me."

My blood became frozen.

Since I identified the individual next to him.

It was my dad.

Jaxon's essence remained in the atmosphere long after he exited the office. The room seemed colder in a way, more vacant, yet his voice resonated in my thoughts like an eerie tune I couldn't suppress.

I gazed at the folder he had forgotten on my desk. Contained within were the ultimate conditions. His conditions. My name already written clearly on the dotted line, as though my consent was an assumed certainty.

A part of me wished to dismantle it. The other side, the scared, fatigued, hopeless side, understood I had no option.

My phone vibrated.

Eva.

I allowed it to ring. I am unable to clarify this, not at this moment.

Instead, I moved to the window and gazed at the Manhattan skyline, lights flashing like quiet observers. I created something genuine. A lovely sight. Yet now, in one deliberate action, Jaxon Vale grasped everything tightly in his grasp.

I took the pen.

I inhaled once.

And then-I hesitated.

Because on the other side of the street, partially obscured by the shadows of a drifting crowd, I noticed him.

A man wearing a dark coat, remaining entirely motionless.

Gazing straight up at my window.

Staying still. Not winking.

Observing.

As if he had been anticipating my signature.