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"Some silences scream louder than arguments. Some confessions never need words to be heard."
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The gala was coming to a close.
The orchestra had slowed to its final few bars, and the guests had scattered into clusters of champagne and empty flattery. The chandeliers still blazed, but the fire of the evening had burned down to polite goodbyes and secretive handshakes.
Rayyan nodded once to the cluster of executives that lingered near the stage.
"Pleasure, as always," he said distantly.
Keira, standing next to him in her heels and fatigue, pulled off a small, professional smile.
"Thank you for the evening."
"We'll be watching the merger closely," one of the men said, raising his glass. "And your wife… she was a pleasant surprise."
Rayyan's gaze didn't falter.
"She always is.".
Keira bit her tongue until they stepped away from the marble floor, down the steps covered in velvet carpeting, and into the evening where city lights hummed low like gossip.
Their black car slid up quietly.
Rayyan opened the door for her. Their eyes met briefly.
No words.
She slid into the back seat, the weight of her dress sinking into the leather. Rayyan got in a moment later, and the door shut with a sound like a last clap.
The world outside rolled out in gold reflections, but inside the car it was too quiet.
Too loud in its quiet.
Keira stared out the window, arms clasped tightly around her. Her voice was soft, but biting.
"You really get into a role."
Rayyan didn't look her way.
"Only when the stakes are high."
"So now I'm a stake?"
"No," he said finally, voice low. "You're the game."
Keira turned to him then, actually looked.
"Next time you're going to kiss me in front of half the Eastern Seaboard," she said, "give me some warning first. So I can smile better for cameras."
He exhaled short, almost a laugh.
"If I warn you, it won'twork."
The silence between them stretched beyond the one over the tinted windows.
New York melted outsi deneon haze, soft rain obscuring the glass, taillights flashing like spectral cautions. The city crawled, but inside the car, time stood still.
The driver did not speak. Nor did Rayyan.
A soft instrumental filled the space. A melancholic piano composition beautiful, sad, too fitting.
Keira leaned her head against the cool glass, her breath leaving the faintest trace of fog.
Her hands folded in her lap, tight enough to betray the tension she tried to hide.
You're the game.
She replayed his words like a looped lyric. Cold. Controlled. And terrifyingly honest.
Was that what this was? A game he was winning without rules?
Her lips still remembered the kiss. Her back still felt the weight of his hand.
It meant nothing, she told herself.
It couldn't.
He was a tactician. A CEO. A master of front. He did not kiss her because he wanted to.
He kissed her because it was expedient.
And yet.
Her fingers trembled against her dress.
Why did it feel like it broke something within me?
The music continued, slow and agonizing.
Outside was a bridge looming lights outlining around the railings like stars hung too low. Under them, water shone under nightfall. A subdued hum from the tires filled the gap between every quiet question.
She caught Rayyan's glance out of the side.
He gazed out the opposite window, jaw set, his thoughts elsewhere or perhaps just avoiding hers.
Do you regret it? she wanted to ask.
Or worse. don't you ever think of it at all?
But she didn't speak.
Because the last thing she needed was an answer
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The car did not head home.
Keira knew it when the recognizable turns of the avenue never came. When the driver turned left, instead of right, and the skyline switched from steel gray condos to glowing rooftops with valet stops and velvet ropes.
She blinked, sat a bit more upright.
"This is not the way home."
Rayyan did not answer immediately.
His eyes remained on the passing streets unfazed, uncaring. As if he hadn't just changed the direction of the night without asking.
Keira's voice was dry. "Are we getting kidnapped or is this your idea of foreplay?"
Rayyan turned to her then, just barely. "Neither. Although the suspicion is oddly flattering."
She looked at him. He didn't volunteer more.
The car glided into a private, chic entrance beneath a plain awning. No sign. No queue. Only one tall, dark blue-coated man who opened the door as if they were expected.
Keira didn't move.
Rayyan was already outside, already opening the door for her, hand extended. His face expressionless.
"Come on," he said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
She took his hand.
Mostly because she wouldn't look uncertain.
The lobby was gold and glass. Classy in a way that said money more softly than it proclaimed fame. No host greeted them. No check-in. Just a short elevator ride, quiet and smooth, and they stepped into
A bar.
But not the usual kind.
This wasn't the kind of place individuals stumbled into for happy hour or vodka sodas. It was hidden. Curated. Lit like a slow-burn secret. Jazz played slow, languid, genuine. And every table was placed just far enough from the other that privacy wasn't a luxury, it was a given.
Keira exhaled slow, turning on her heel.
"Is this where you bring all your fake wives?
Rayyan didn't flinch. "You're the first person who hasn't asked why we're here."
"That's because I know better," she said, adjusting the strap of her dress. "You don't answer questions. You just turn the car around."
They were in a private booth by the window dimly lit, with the whole city laid out beneath them like a broken constellation.
A waiter materialized. No menu. No question.
Just: "The usual, Mr. Alverdine?
Rayyan inclined his head.
The server vanished into thin air.
Keira's brow lifted. "You frequent this place."
"From time to time," he said. "When I need quiet."
She glanced around. "You dragged me to your sanctuary. Should I feel honored or just suspicious?"
Rayyan leaned back, one arm on the edge of the booth, his profile shadowed by amber light.
"Maybe both."
The drinks arrived. Hers was a champagne cocktail complex, floral, too expensive. His, neat scotch. Predictable.
Keira took a sip, eyes never leaving him.
"You kissed me tonight," she said at last. No emotion. Merely statement.
Rayyan didn't respond right away. He gazed at his glass as if it held answers he was afraid to speak out loud.
"I did."
"And?"
He held her eyes long, measured.
"It worked, didn't it?"
She laughed once, softly, acidily. "That's how you gauge intimacy? Appearance?"
"Keira," he said, his voice low, "I don't play for appearance. I play for outcomes."
"And what was the result?" she inquired, her hand tight on the stem of her glass. "A room full of investors who now believe we're in love?"
He said nothing.
And in that not-a-word, she read it all.
Her stomach twisted.
"You know what's ironic?" she whispered. "You could have warned me. One word. One look. Something. And you kissed me like it meant nothing to you."
Rayyan's eyes moved to hers sharp now, darker.
"You think it didn't?"
Keira's breath caught.
He didn't say anything else.
Needn't.
The silence between them was thick and charged, like a storm cloud on the horizon.
He looked away again. Out the window. Into the night.
"It was supposed to be neat," he breathed. "Strategic. You weren't supposed to look at me like that."
She blinked. "Like what?"
Rayyan gulped his drink in one smooth motion. The glass came down onto the table too quietly.
"Like it mattered."
Keira was furious hard.
And suddenly, for the first time, she noticed:
He wasn't invincible.
He bled somewhere under that perfect suit.
And the horrible part?
She was beginning to feel it too.
The silence returned.
Not uneasy. Not hostile. But dangerous in the way it mellowed.
Keira's hand stayed on her glass, untouched now. Her gaze drifted to the skyline shining, unrelenting, out of reach. Just as the man across from her was.
Rayyan didn't look at her.
But his voice came, low and controlled.
"If I said it did matter… what would you do?"
Keira blinked.
Once.
Her breath hitched, barely.
"Are you asking on a hypothetical basis?" she breathed.
Rayyan finally looked up.
They didn't change this time. No smile. No mask. Just a unyielding, raw steadiness that pulled her spine tight.
"Would it make a difference to you?" he questioned.
She released a slow breath, a near-laugh but it snagged in her throat.
"I don't know," she said, and she meant it. "I don't even know what 'it' is."
Rayyan leaned forward, just far enough for his shadow to fall on the table between them.
"Then we're both at a disadvantage."
Keira looked down, her thumb tracing the rim of her glass, as if the solution would appear from the bubbles.
"What I know," she said quietly, "is that I didn't come into this wanting to feel anything. Not for you. Not for anyone."
"And now?"
Her voice almost cracked. But she held it in place.
"Now would you keep kissing me like it's strategy… if it's not."
Rayyan stared at her. Long. Intently. Something unreadable on his face.
"And if it is?"
"Then don't do it again," she said.
"Because I don't want to get good at pretending too."
Neither of them uttered a word.
The city outside the window kept on living cars hummed, lights blinked, the world turned round and round but in this velvet-draped cocoon of overindulgence and not-knowing, time itself came to a halt.
Keira looked down at her nearly-finished glass.
Thoughts tumbled together in her chest like wire:
Was he serious?
Was she a fool?
Did that kiss count for something. or did she hope it did?
Her emotions folded inward on themselves pain and desire, awe and dread too many to enumerate. Too loud to quiet. Too deep to submerge.
Rayyan did not press.
He did not move closer.
He simply rocked back in his chair, the corner of his mouth twisting into the faintest, laziest smile. Not arrogant. Not taunting. Just… spent.
Like someone who'd been lugging something heavy for far too long, and had finally set it down even if only for a moment.
Keira had no idea what to do with it.
So she didn't say anything.
And neither did he.
The silence between them wasn't empty.
It was filled with all of the words that they both refused to say.
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END OF CHAPTER 9
"And in the silence between them, something shifted. Not spoken. Not broken. Just waiting to become undeniable."
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