Chapter 7 Hostage Situation

[POV: Lanaya Roux]

The heavy oak door of the VIP lounge vibrated behind Lanaya's back.

Maverick was too close. The suffocating heat radiating from his massive frame trapped her against the wood. His dark, toxic promise still hung in the air - Because if you stop hating me, Huntress... we are both going to lose.

"I am not going to stop hating you," Lanaya breathed, her chest rising and falling rapidly against the tight silk of her dress. "That is the one thing you never have to worry about."

Maverick's jaw flexed. The raw, broken guilt she had seen on the press stage was completely gone, replaced by the ruthless, predatory captain she knew.

"Good." He stepped back, instantly severing the electric tension between them. The sudden loss of his body heat made her shiver, though she would die before admitting it. "Keep that energy for the cameras. We have a dinner in two hours."

"Another one?" Lanaya pushed off the door, her legs trembling slightly. "I just lied to fifty reporters. I'm done for the day."

"You are done when I say you are."

"I am not your hostage, Maverick!"

"You are my fiancée." He turned, his broad back to her as he adjusted his suit jacket. "And tonight is the Redstone charity gala. The entire board will be there. Including my father."

The name Alexander Hayden sent a spike of ice through her veins. "So what? I have to parade around in another tight dress and pretend you don't make my skin crawl?"

Maverick stopped. He turned slowly, his grey-blue eyes locking onto hers with a chilling intensity.

"Yes," he said softly. "You will smile. You will hold my hand. And you will not flinch when I touch you."

"I flinched because you cornered me!"

"You flinched because you are terrified of me."

"I am disgusted by you. There is a difference."

He crossed the room in two massive strides, invading her space again. He didn't touch her, but his sheer size was completely overwhelming.

"Are you?" His voice dropped to that lethal, vibrating rasp that scraped directly down her spine. "Because when I kissed you last night, you didn't feel disgusted, Lanaya. You felt desperate."

Her breath hitched. A dark, twisted pull tightened low in her stomach. "I pushed you away."

"Eventually." He leaned down, his mouth brushing dangerously close to her ear. The heavy scent of cedar and pure adrenaline flooded her senses. "But for two seconds, you were entirely mine."

"You're insane." She shoved his chest, desperate to put distance between them. It was like shoving a brick wall.

"Maybe I am." He caught her wrist, his long fingers wrapping around her pulse point. "But I am the only thing standing between your father and bankruptcy. Remember that tonight when my father starts asking questions."

He released her wrist and opened the lounge door. The chaotic noise of the arena hallway flooded back in.

"The car leaves in an hour," Maverick ordered without looking back. "Don't be late."

The Redstone charity gala was a glittering, suffocating trap.

The ballroom was packed with Boston's elite, all of them eager to stare at the newly engaged couple. The crystal chandeliers overhead felt like spotlights.

Lanaya stood near the ice sculpture, her hand tightly trapped in Maverick's. He was playing the devoted fiancé flawlessly. His thumb stroked the back of her hand, a slow, agonizingly tender rhythm that made her heart pound a frantic beat against her ribs.

She hated him. She hated her body's traitorous reaction to his touch even more.

"Smile, Huntress," Maverick murmured, his lips brushing her temple as a photographer snapped their picture. "My father is watching."

Lanaya stiffened. She looked past the flashbulbs and saw Alexander Hayden standing near the bar. He wasn't smiling. His cold, calculating gaze was fixed entirely on them.

"He knows," Lanaya whispered, her throat tight. "He knows this is fake."

"He suspects," Maverick corrected, his grip on her hand tightening painfully. "Which is why you need to sell it."

"I am trying!"

"Try harder."

Before she could argue, a sleek, sharp-featured woman in a red dress broke through the crowd, heading straight for them.

Lanaya's stomach plummeted. It was Chloe Vance. The lead anchor for Boston Sports Network, and Maverick's very public, very recent ex-girlfriend.

"Maverick." Chloe's voice was a purr that grated on Lanaya's nerves. She ignored Lanaya completely, resting a manicured hand on Maverick's arm. "Congratulations on the... sudden engagement."

Maverick didn't pull away from Chloe's touch. "Thank you, Chloe."

"I have to admit, I was shocked." Chloe finally turned her predatory gaze to Lanaya. "Especially considering how much you two despise each other. Or is the whole 'blood feud' thing just for the fans?"

Lanaya felt Maverick tense beside her. This was a trap.

"It's not a feud," Lanaya said, forcing her voice to remain steady. "It's passion. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference on the ice."

"How romantic." Chloe's smile was venomous. "But I know Maverick. He doesn't settle down. Not unless he's getting something out of it. So tell me, Lanaya..." Chloe leaned in, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "How much is Alexander paying you to wear that ring?"

The silence between them snapped tight.

Lanaya's blood ran ice-cold. She opened her mouth to defend herself.

Maverick dropped her hand.

He didn't defend her. He didn't step between them. He simply went still - his weight shifting almost imperceptibly toward Chloe, his attention narrowing in that specific, contained way that meant he was managing something he didn't want witnessed.

The stillness was the thing that broke her.

She knew this shape. She had carried a version of it in her chest for eight years - the image she had never let herself complete, of Maverick standing at the edge of the lake while Crew went under. Not running. Not shouting. Just that terrible stillness, the same contained quiet she could never find an explanation for, the detail that lived at the center of everything she believed about him and had never once let herself examine directly. She wasn't examining it now. But her body had already made the connection her mind refused to.

His inaction in this room was not the same as that day. She knew that. She told herself that.

It didn't matter. Something that had been holding for eight years gave way anyway.

"That is none of your business, Chloe," Maverick said, his voice terrifyingly calm. But he didn't step away from her.

"Excuse me," Lanaya choked out.

She didn't wait for a response. She turned and fled through the crowded ballroom, not because of Chloe's accusation, not even because Maverick had dropped her hand. She fled because the armor had cracked in a place she hadn't known was load-bearing, and if she stayed another second the thing she had been holding since the lake was going to come apart in full view of Boston's entire social elite.

She made it to the corridor before her back hit the wall and the breath finally left her in one long, ragged collapse.

Eight years. She had carried this for eight years. And she was so tired of holding it.