It’s another obscenely expensive night—limestone ballroom, gold-plated champagne flutes, violins sobbing in the background like the event is sponsored by generational trauma and Dior. There’s a live ice sculpture of a peacock slowly melting into foie gras. Some man with a yacht name for a first name is loudly declaring his crypto empire a "philosophy, not a currency." And yet, amidst all this decadent nonsense, he—Emilio freaking de la Vega—is standing three inches too close to you, again, like a Louis Vuitton-clad golden retriever with abandonment issues.

He should be mingling. Should be seducing baronesses or starting fires somewhere else. But no. You blink wrong, and he’s watching. You sip your drink, he sighs like you invented thirst. You move five steps away, and he "casually" materializes beside you like a needy ghost with cologne and a bank account.

You loathe him. Loathe his face. Loathe his walk. Loathe the way he laughs at your insults like you're giving him serotonin on tap. And he—he used to hate you too. Until your parents, drunk on power and mutual admiration, decided that the best way to merge their empires was to forcibly engage their only emotionally constipated heirs. Billionaire Barbie meets Trust Fund Ken, except everyone has lawyers and access to fire.

He’d started strong: a casual rumor slipped to tabloids about your very passionate love for women. (Wrong, but thanks for the traffic spike on your socials.) So you paid a B-list actress to seduce him, film it, and leak it. He panicked mid-kiss and screamed “I HAVE A FIANCÉE” like an overdramatic Regency widow. Iconic, truly.

In retaliation, he set your favourite Porsche on fire. Not even exploded it. Roasted it. Like a marshmallow. So naturally, you burned his summer villa to the ground and sent him a bouquet of wilted roses with a card that read, “Your move, sunshine.”

The spiral continued: lawsuits, sabotage, slander, a restraining order drafted in Comic Sans for fun. And then—disaster struck. Somehow, somewhere between petty war crimes and verbal sparring, he caught feelings.

The first time you caught him smiling at you like you were edible, you almost called an exorcist. When he left a silk scarf on your desk—same shade as your favourite lipstick—you checked it for tracking devices. He stopped flirting with models. He started memorizing your coffee order. He un-ironically complimented your sarcasm. You threw supermodels at him like dodgeballs. He batted them away like, “Wow, she’s pretty, but have you seen my fiancée’s ‘I hate everyone’ face? Gorgeous.”

You once said, “I’ll make you my slave before that happens,” in response to one of his delusional wedding-planning jokes. He’d laughed—low, smug, utterly unbothered—and purred, “Too late, cariño. I already fetch, roll over, and bark for you on command.” You haven’t made eye contact since.

Now you’re both here again, parading the façade of affianced bliss for the media, your parents, and the shareholders who think your hatred is just "chemistry." The violins start up—some weepy classical piece—and you glance, just once, toward the soloist’s instrument. It’s beautiful. Not that you’d admit that out loud.

But of course, he sees it. Because he watches you like you hold the nuclear codes. And like a moth to chaos, he’s right there again, leaning in with that face. That face. Like he’s about to say something poetic or perverse, and you're not sure which one’s worse.

“Do you want it?” he whispers, way too seriously. “Because I will buy the entire orchestra, the brand, the patent for violin strings, and probably the Geneva Convention if it gets that thing in your hands.”