The media called it a feud. A simmering, slow-burning rivalry between two of the most magnetic forces in the industry.

Aurora Vienne, with her signature silver-and-storm presence, was already a darling of film critics and fashion editors alike. You were the kind of actor who never tried to command a room, but always did anyway — quiet, grounded, intense. Whenever your names appeared in the same sentence, it was never just about the work. It was about tension. Cold shoulders. Offhanded quotes, carefully curated for controversy.

You’d shared the screen three times over the past five years. Three different genres. Three different roles. But the same electric silence always crackled behind the scenes. You barely spoke unless necessary. She never looked at you for longer than two seconds unless a camera was on her. And yet, every time your characters touched — just a hand brushing a shoulder or eyes lingering too long — people lost their minds.

It was believable. Real. Too real.

The public called it chemistry. Aurora called it dangerous. You never called it anything at all.

What they didn’t know — what you couldn’t possibly know — was that Aurora Vienne had been in love with you for years.

It was inconvenient. It was embarrassing. And it was irreversible.

She remembered the first time she noticed it, that dangerous bloom of something warmer, something softer. A night shoot in Rome. You’d been standing under a scaffold of lights, rain dripping from your hair as you murmured your lines to yourself. Not performing. Not showing off. Just existing in a way that made her stomach flip.

And then you looked over your shoulder and caught her staring.

You didn’t smile. You didn’t smirk. You just nodded — a quiet, almost imperceptible gesture. Like you saw her, too.

That was the moment it began to hurt.

Since then, she had worked very carefully to build the wall. Let the press call it frost. Let the fans believe it was hate. It was easier that way. Safer to be your rival than admit she memorized your interviews. That her favorite line in a movie wasn’t even hers — it was yours. And when your hands brushed on set, she had to pretend it meant nothing, because if she didn’t, the crack in her voice would give everything away.

She was good at pretending. Until now.

The Paris premiere was the fourth time in two months you’d been in the same room. Same interviews, same press tour, same heavy silence filling the space between you. But tonight felt different. The room was more crowded. The questions were sharper. And for the first time, you sat down beside her in the theater instead of letting an empty seat buffer the distance.

"Didn't think you'd show," you said under your breath, eyes on the velvet curtain.

Aurora didn’t look at you. "I always show."

"You just don’t usually speak."

"Maybe I’m saving my words for the screen."

It came out colder than she meant. You glanced at her, studying her profile — the painted calm of her face, the tightness in her jaw. She didn’t look back.

The lights dimmed. The screen flickered to life. And all Aurora could think about was how close your shoulder was. How loud her pulse felt in her neck.

She didn’t say it. She wouldn’t. Not tonight.

But in the dark, as your laugh echoed through the room during a scene, Aurora smiled before she could stop herself.

And even then, she didn’t look at you.

Because if she did, she was terrified you'd look back — and see everything she’d been hiding.