Chapter 3 Contracted Feelings

> "This was supposed to be business. So why did my heart get involved?"

As Alora signs the contract to ghostwrite Julian's life, emotions begin creeping into the spaces between words.

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Alora moved into the guesthouse on a Thursday.

It was nothing like she expected. It wasn't cold or corporate. It was warm, with cream-colored walls, soft linen sheets, and a view that looked out onto the private gardens of the Vale estate. It was the kind of place a writer could fall in love with-if she wasn't so preoccupied with the dangerously magnetic man living in the mansion just beyond the rose hedges.

Julian hadn't spoken to her since the contract signing. A week passed. Then two. She submitted drafts. He gave no feedback. Only polite, vague texts from his assistant.

Until one evening, when the door to the main house opened, and she was summoned.

No explanation. No warning. Just:

"Mr. Vale would like to see you. Now."

Alora followed the assistant through a grand hallway lined with abstract art and silver sconces that looked more like sculpture than lighting. Her heels clicked softly on the marble floors, her heartbeat loud in her ears.

They led her to the library.

It was dimly lit and impossibly quiet, filled wall-to-wall with books. Old ones. First editions. Gold-embossed spines and the scent of ink and memory. She could've gotten lost in here.

But her eyes were drawn to him.

Julian Vale stood by the fireplace in a black turtleneck and gray slacks, a glass of scotch in his hand, looking like a poem written in shadows. His hair was slightly tousled, like he'd run his hand through it too many times. He didn't look like a CEO tonight. He looked like a man who couldn't sleep.

"I read the first three chapters," he said, without turning around.

Alora waited. She hated how he always made her wait.

"And?" she asked quietly.

"They're good," he said simply.

She blinked. "That's it? No notes? No edits?"

He turned then, slowly, and walked toward her, stopping just a few feet away. "You captured me better than I expected."

"But?"

"But you're still writing from the outside," he said, eyes sharp. "You're trying to understand me, but you're only seeing the surface."

"I'm not a mind reader, Julian," she said, folding her arms. "You're not exactly an open book."

A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Then maybe we should change that."

He walked past her and pulled something from a drawer in the desk: a folder. He handed it to her.

Alora opened it slowly. It was a collection of photos-childhood pictures, teenage years, clippings from old tabloids, even a few personal letters written in a young boy's handwriting.

"Full access, remember?" he said. "You want the truth? Here it is. Start from the beginning."

She looked up at him, her fingers tightening on the folder. "Why now? Why give me this?"

He hesitated. Then: "Because something tells me you won't weaponize it. And because... I don't think I want to hide anymore."

The room fell silent.

And in that silence, something shifted between them.

She saw it-the tiredness in his shoulders, the soft edge to his voice, the way his eyes stayed on her like she was a tether keeping him from drifting off the edge.

And Julian... he saw something too. The spark in her. The stubborn curiosity. The quiet ache she carried like armor.

It wasn't just a contract anymore.

It was connection.

Unspoken. Unexplored. But there.

"I'll rewrite the beginning," she said softly. "Make it more human."

He nodded once. "Start tonight. Stay here if you want."

She laughed. "In your haunted billionaire library?"

He smiled. A real one, slow and soft. "Only the ghosts of who I used to be."

She didn't say yes. She didn't have to.

She sat at the desk with her notebook, opened the folder of his memories, and began again.

And Julian Vale stood by the window, glass in hand, watching her like she was the only thing that didn't feel artificial anymore.