Chapter 6

CLARA POV

The heavy rap on my door was drowned out by the music, but I felt the vibration through the floorboards. I didn't have to guess who it was. The music was my shield, a wall of sound to keep him out.

It didn't work.

I heard the faint click of the lock picking, a skill I knew he possessed but had never seen him use on me. The door swung open.

Sterling stood there, his face a thundercloud. He walked over to the stereo and shut it off, plunging the room into a tense silence.

"That's a new low, Sterling," I said, my voice dripping with ice. "Breaking into my room?"

"We need to talk," he said, ignoring my accusation.

"No, we don't. I heard everything I needed to hear in the stables."

A flicker of something-annoyance? regret?-crossed his face. "You don't understand, Clara. My life... before your father... it was just me and her. In that orphanage, you did what you had to do to survive. She was just a little girl. I was all she had."

He was trying to paint a picture of a tragic past, a noble protector. But I had seen his kiss. I knew the truth.

"So you protected her," I said flatly. "I get it."

"I am grateful to your father for everything," he continued, his voice low and intense. "And I will spend my life repaying him. That includes taking care of you. I will always protect you."

The words were a hollow echo of a promise he'd already broken.

"But?" I prompted, already knowing the answer.

He hesitated, his jaw tight. "But she comes first. Always."

There it was. The brutal, unvarnished truth. I was an obligation. She was his priority.

"So, what's your plan, Sterling?" I asked, a bitter laugh threatening to escape my lips. "Marry me, the dutiful prize, while you keep your real love tucked away on the side? You get the ranch, she gets the world, and I get to be the biggest fool in Texas?"

"I will give you a good life," he said, as if that was some grand consolation prize. "You will be Mrs. Cole, the matriarch of this ranch. You will have my respect."

I just stared at him, the absurdity of it all washing over me. He was offering me a title, a position, a gilded cage, while he gave his heart to someone else.

Suddenly, a frantic voice called from downstairs. "Sterling! Can you help me? I can't reach the book on the top shelf!"

Savannah. Of course.

Sterling's entire posture shifted. His attention, his focus, everything snapped away from me and towards her voice. He looked back at me, his eyes holding a silent apology that meant nothing.

"I have to go," he said.

He turned to leave, then paused at the door. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, velvet box, placing it on my dresser. "This was meant for your birthday. A down payment on my promise."

He left, closing the door softly behind him.

I walked over to the dresser and opened the box. Inside was a delicate diamond necklace. It was beautiful. It was expensive. And it felt like an insult. A bribe.

I closed the box. A down payment on a promise he had no intention of keeping.

My twenty-first birthday was in two days. The party was meant to be my coming-of-age celebration, the night my father would unofficially announce my future with Sterling. Now, it felt like a countdown to my own execution.

The next day, a package arrived. It was from Preston. Inside was a much larger, heavier box. I opened it to find the most breathtaking necklace I had ever seen. A single, flawless sapphire the color of a deep ocean, surrounded by a halo of brilliant diamonds. It wasn't delicate. It was a statement. A queen's jewel.

Tucked inside was a simple note: *Happy Birthday, Clara. Wear this and remember you deserve the whole world, not just a piece of it. - P.*

I held Sterling's small diamond necklace in one hand and Preston's magnificent sapphire in the other. There was no comparison. One was a consolation prize. The other was a coronation.

On the night of the party, I was descending the grand staircase when Savannah appeared at the bottom, blocking my path. Her eyes immediately locked onto the sapphire glowing at my throat.

Her face, usually a mask of sweet innocence, twisted with raw, ugly jealousy. "Where did you get that?" she demanded, her voice a harsh whisper.

I swept past her without a word.

"He won't love you, you know," she hissed at my back. "No matter what you wear. You can't buy his heart."

I stopped, but didn't turn around.

"You want to see what his heart really looks like?" she said, her voice turning venomous. I heard the tap of her fingers on her phone screen. "Here."

She shoved the phone in front of my face.

It was a video. Shaky, obviously self-shot. Sterling, shirtless in his bed, sleeping. The camera panned to Savannah, nestled beside him, wearing one of his shirts. She smiled slyly at the camera and then leaned over to kiss his sleeping lips.

"He's not the only one," she whispered, her breath hot and poisonous in my ear. "Wade, Owen... all of them. They tell me they love you, Clara. But at night, they come to me. Because I'm one of them. And you... you're just the boss's daughter."