Chapter 2

Clare Jennings POV: The silence after his words was so absolute it felt like the pressure in my ears had dropped. Before I could find my voice, my phone buzzed on the couch, the vibration a jarring intrusion. It was David, my agent, calling this time. Chase watched me with a look of growing impatience, as if my personal crisis was an annoying delay to his dinner plans. I took a deep, shaky breath and awkwardly used my elbow to nudge the green icon on the screen. “David,” I managed, putting the phone on speaker. “Clare, thank God.” His voice was tight with a forced, professional sympathy. “Listen, about the De Beers campaign…” My stomach plunged. I already knew what was coming. “The client… they’ve decided to go with the backup model. It’s a three-million-dollar contract, Clare. They can’t afford to wait.” The room tilted. Three million dollars. It wasn’t just money. It was the culmination of a decade of work. It was my independence. My value. “I understand, David,” I heard myself say, my voice eerily calm. “Thank you for letting me know.” I ended the call and looked up at Chase. The last fragile light of hope inside me flickered and died. “The contract is gone,” I said, stating the fact as if it had happened to someone else. Chase blinked, processing. His first reaction wasn't comfort. It was a frown of mild confusion. “Which contract?” “The De Beers diamond campaign,” I said, forcing the words out. “The three-million-dollar one.” I said the number again, wanting it to land, wanting him to understand the magnitude of my loss. His frown deepened. He was silent for a moment, and I could almost see the gears turning in his head, calculating. I waited, praying for a single kind word. *It’s okay. We’ll figure it out.* Instead, he let out a short, dismissive sigh. “You’re going to fall apart over one contract?” His tone was laced with contempt. “Clare, don’t be so dramatic.” The world stopped. “Dramatic?” I stared at him, incredulous. “Chase, that was everything to me. My entire career was leading up to that.” He waved a hand dismissively, as if swatting away a fly. “*I’m* everything to you, not some job. You’re about to be my wife. Why do you even care about that kind of money?” His words were a slap in the face, a casual erasure of my identity, my ambition, my worth. He wasn't offering to support me; he was offering to own me. A bitter, ugly laugh escaped my lips. “So my hands are ruined, my career is over, and it doesn’t matter, as long as I can still marry you?” He completely missed the sarcasm. To him, it was a perfectly logical statement. “What else is there? Karis is so torn up over your little ‘accident’ she can barely eat, and you’re in here picking a fight with me over money?” He brought her up again. Always Karis. Her feelings were real, important. Mine were a childish tantrum. “You need to see the bigger picture, Clare,” he said, his voice taking on a commanding edge. “The bigger picture?” I shot back, my voice trembling with a rage I didn't know I possessed. “Am I even in your bigger picture, Chase? Or am I just a part of the frame?” He was taken aback by my defiance. He paced in front of the window, running a hand through his perfect hair, agitated that this conversation wasn’t going according to his script. He stopped and looked at me, his expression shifting as if he’d just solved a complex business problem. “Alright, stop this,” he said, his tone softening into one of magnanimous, condescending authority. “I have a solution.” I waited, my body rigid. A self-satisfied smirk touched his lips. “As compensation, you can start at my company tomorrow.” My blood ran cold. “The PR department needs a new… brand ambassador,” he said, catching himself before he said the word I knew was on his mind: *mascot*. “You’d be perfect. Name your salary. It’s yours.” He thought he was being generous. He was offering me a golden cage, a decorative position to keep me quiet and dependent. He was taking my life’s work, my passion, and reducing it to a line item on his corporate budget. I felt the metallic taste of blood in my mouth and realized I was biting the inside of my lip, hard. “Salary is no object,” he added, as if that was the only thing that could possibly matter.