Chapter 2 Public Enemy

They didn't even wait twenty-four hours.

By the time I got back to my apartment, my name was trending - not in the triumphant, career-defining way. No. It was the kind of viral that stuck like tar and burned everything it touched.

#LucianWhore.

#PRPuppet.

#ThorneLeaks.

They plastered my face beside his like I was a co-conspirator. Or worse - his latest toy.

Screenshots of company emails I hadn't even seen were circulating online. Edited. Leaked. Weaponized.

It wasn't just spin - it was a surgical takedown. And I was the bait.

By morning, my inbox was a graveyard. Clients pulling out. Agencies ghosting me. A voicemail from my landlord asking-politely-if I'd still be able to make rent this month.

Lucian Thorne didn't just ruin reputations. He dragged them into his fire and stood back while they burned.

---

When I stormed into the penthouse the next night, he didn't even look surprised to see me. He was at the bar, stirring a glass of something dark and expensive like the world wasn't currently burying me alive.

"You knew this would happen," I snapped, tossing my phone onto the marble counter. The screen was still lit with another headline:

"Thorne's PR Girl: Mistress or Mastermind?"

He glanced at it. One blink. No reaction.

"I told you. You're not invisible in my world."

"No," I hissed, "but you could've warned me before you made me a fucking target."

Lucian set down his drink with the kind of slow, calculated grace that made my skin prickle.

"You were already a target the moment you signed that contract. I don't make the rules, Aria. I just stopped pretending they're fair."

I stared at him. At the man who wore indifference like armor and silence like a threat.

"You could've protected me."

"I am."

My laugh came out sharp. Ugly. "This? This is what protection looks like to you?"

Lucian stepped closer - not enough to touch, but enough that I felt it. That hum in the air. That pressure he wore like a second skin.

"You're still standing," he said softly. "Still sharp. Still fighting. That's all the protection I offer. Anything more would be... personal."

Something twisted in my chest.

He didn't say it like a warning.

He said it like a confession.

We stared at each other, the room too quiet, the city stretching out behind him like a battlefield.

"You don't care what they say about me," I whispered.

"No," he said. "Because what they say doesn't matter."

"Maybe not to you."

Lucian's jaw ticked, just once. "You think I'm letting them tear you apart for fun?"

"I think you don't care who bleeds, as long as you stay clean."

His eyes darkened. "No one in my position stays clean, Aria. That's not how empires are built."

"Then maybe your empire's already rotting."

That did it.

He stepped forward - faster this time - and I backed up instinctively until the edge of the kitchen island met my spine.

He didn't touch me. He didn't need to.

"I didn't hire you to play moral compass," he said, voice like cut glass. "I hired you because you're smart. Because you don't scare easy. Because I thought, out of all the vultures, you might actually survive in my world."

"And if I don't?"

Lucian's eyes dropped to my mouth. Just for a second. Too fast. Too sharp.

"Then you were never the threat I thought you were."

-

That night, I packed a bag. Small. Efficient. No sentiment.

By morning, I was in his penthouse.

Not as a guest. Not as a lover. Not as anything that had rules.

I moved into the lion's den wearing red lipstick and a pulse that beat too loudly whenever he looked at me.

The headlines kept spinning. The vultures circled.

But the real danger?

He was sitting across the room in silence. Watching me like I was a puzzle he hadn't decided whether to solve... or destroy.

And for reasons I couldn't name -

That made me want to win.