Elias Kane's eyelids gave the faintest tremor, the whites of his eyes almost rolling before he caught himself.

  These women threw money around like it cost them nothing—vish, effortless—but when it came to actual emotion, they were miserly to the bone. He'd flirted with Liora Voss right in front of Serena Bckwood, practically dangling himself between them, and all he'd gotten in return was a pathetic, toothpaste-squeezed 1% bump in favorability.

  Clearly, it wasn't stimuting enough.

  Fine, buy me if you want. Let's just see how smug you stay when the time comes and I'm the one Liora gets to call her husband.

  Only after Marlene Voss's figure vanished at the far end of the corridor did Serena finally withdraw her gaze and turn it fully on Elias.

  Elias's smile dropped in an instant; the easy curve vanished as he reassumed his guarded posture, shoulders subtly squared, chin lifted just enough to signal wariness without overt challenge.

  "I just solved a rather rge problem for you," Serena said, her voice ced with soft amusement that felt more like gentle mockery than genuine warmth, "and you won't even spare me a gnce in thanks?"

  "Why should I give a pleasant look to someone trying to put me on a leash?" Elias returned, tone ft.

  Even so, he slowly raised his head. A pair of ice-cold, cautious green eyes met hers—wary, almost like a young deer that had learned the hard way what happened when it stepped too close to the fence.

  "I'm offering to keep you," Serena corrected, a trace of helplessness threading through her words, mingled with the indulgent patience one might reserve for a stubborn child, "not kidnap you. Do you really think I'd force you if you said no?"

  Oh, you didn't force anything. You simply backed me to the cliff's edge until there was nowhere left to run.

  Elias held her stare. "And if I do say no?"

  Serena lifted one elegant hand. Elias's eyes snapped shut on pure instinct, bracing for the sp that never nded. When he cautiously reopened them, he found her smooth fingers delicately removing his gsses instead.

  For the first time Serena truly looked at his uncovered face, her breath catching involuntarily as the full, devastating simirity washed over her in a slow, heated wave—pulse jumping beneath her calm facade, the ghost of Lucien's elusive smile flickering behind Elias's wary green eyes, stirring that old, helpless ache she had buried for years. She had anticipated beauty—had steeled herself for it—but the reality still stole a fraction of a second from her composure. The resembnce was uncanny: the same delicate bone structure, the same quiet elegance in the brow and eye shape, carrying an almost identical ghost of Lucien Hart's distant, untouchable grace.

  If not for the cheap, brassy gold dye currently ruining Elias's hair, she could almost believe the real Lucien stood before her.

  Her fingers twitched with the automatic urge to trace the beloved lines of that face—the one she had dreamed of night after night—but she caught herself. Rubbing her thumb against her fingertip once, she deliberately lowered her hand.

  No need to rush. In time, every inch of Elias Kane would belong to her. When that moment arrived, she could arrange him however she pleased.

  Because of the nine-tenths simirity to Lucien, Serena decided she could afford to be more patient with this counterfeit.

  She had always been very good at waiting.

  Instead of answering his question, she let a soft ugh escape. "You really are beautiful."

  Elias showed not a flicker of pleasure at the compliment.

  No matter how gently Serena phrased it, the words still carried the detached appraisal of someone pricing merchandise.

  "You've been using this advantage to make money—to hold this household together, haven't you? Impressive." Her praise shifted abruptly. "But have you ever considered that instead of working in that kind of pce, drinking with so many different women night after night, it might be simpler to keep just one company?"

  Elias's long shes quivered once—almost as though her logic had nded.

  Seeing the tiny crack, Serena pressed forward, voice low and coaxing. "We both know what gamblers are like. Marlene Voss is addicted beyond redemption; she won't change. Right now I've driven her off, but it's temporary. She'll come back. She'll demand more money. And when she does, what will you do? Hide? She only has to camp outside your father's hospital room to force you to show yourself. She doesn't even need to hunt you down."

  Elias's lips slowly pressed into a thin, bloodless line.

  Serena watched the youth's resolve waver, allowed herself the smallest, most satisfied curve of her mouth, then delivered the final stroke. "Agree to be with me, and I'll handle Marlene Voss permanently. I'll make sure she never gambles again—give her stable employment, a fresh start, one-and-done. Your father's medical bills will be covered entirely by me. On top of that, I'll give you ten million dolrs. All I ask is one year of your time. During that year, you come when I call. That's the deal."

  Inside Elias's head a voice screamed: Enough, stop talking—I'm in!

  Serena Bckwood truly was a businesswoman to the marrow. She could locate the exact pressure point on any target, then apply whatever combination of carrot and stick the situation demanded. Nothing she wanted had ever stayed out of reach.

  And when it came to being kept, Serena offered gentleness wrapped in breathtaking beauty, a body that turned heads in any room she entered. Accepting felt less like surrender and more like the kept boy had somehow won the lottery.

  But…

  Elias parted his tightly sealed lips and spoke in a voice like chipped ice. "After circling around with all those pretty words, you still just want to fuck me, don't you?"

  The tenderness on Serena's face froze solid.

  The nearby doctor and nurse both flinched, ears burning.

  They had been trying—desperately—to become furniture, heads bowed, breathing shallow. Yet Elias's blunt sentence still hit like a sp.

  Did this kid even know who he was talking to?

  The young male nurse silently judged: Ungrateful little shit. Serena Bckwood just offered him the deal of a lifetime and he's still making faces? He already works in that kind of pce—why pretend to be some pure virgin now?

  Liora Voss drew in a long, slow breath, holding it to keep ughter from escaping.

  This was the first time she had ever seen Serena eat defeat—especially at the hands of a boy barely out of his teens.

  Serena's fwless silver tongue, the one that unraveled anyone she chose, seemed to slide right off Elias without purchase.

  Liora fought down the grin that wanted to spread. Then a stray thought struck her.

  Why was Elias treating Serena this way?

  If the boy truly valued his "virtue" so highly, how could he have acted so brazenly—shamelessly flirtatious—in front of her earlier?

  She had watched him closely. That easy, practiced wantonness had not been an act; it flowed from him like second nature.

  Unless… that side of him only surfaced when he was with her.

  The realization sent Liora's pulse spiking hard—then just as quickly fttening back to calm. She gave her head the smallest shake.

  He belongs to my sister.

  Liora slipped her hands from her pockets, crossed her arms over her chest, and settled into the cool detachment of a spectator enjoying a very private show.

  Elias caught every micro-reaction in the room and allowed himself an internal smirk.

  He had zero interest in pying along with Serena's favorite fantasy—the gentle CEO tenderly seducing her beautiful, tragic stand-in.

  If he wanted to conquer her as fast as possible, the first step was ripping that perfect porcein mask clean off.

  Serena's expression smoothed again. The smile returned, unruffled.

  She had lived through far more than Elias had years on this earth; a single crude sentence was nowhere near enough to crack her composure.

  Her shes simply lowered and rose once. Beneath the velvet gentleness, a bde-thin gleam of ice flickered through her pupils.

  Stupid. And worse—oblivious to how stupid he was. Lucien would never have been so crude, so blind to consequences.

  If Elias didn't wear that exact face, whoever dared speak to her like that would already be erased from this city by morning.

  "So," Serena asked, the softness in her voice cooling by a single measured degree, "are you willing?"

  Elias stayed silent for several long heartbeats.

  Then, quietly: "Mm."

  One sylble—and every defiant word, every guarded posture, every barbed line he'd thrown at her suddenly became a punchline.

  Even the young nurse couldn't hold back a derisive snort, the sound thick with contempt for the boy who had just folded so easily.

  Serena was smiling too, though whether the curve held disdain for Elias's weakness or quiet triumph at finally securing him was impossible to tell.

  "Your father will receive the best care starting right now."

  Once Serena gave the word, transferring Arthur Hale to a superior facility required no paperwork from Elias whatsoever.

  "Now." Serena extended one hand toward him, the gesture impossibly elegant, almost courtly. "Let's go to the hotel."