Robin’s thumb stroked the cold skin of April’s cheek. She didn’t pull away. She didn’t lean in. She was a statue carved from ice, her eyes fixed on a point somewhere past his shoulder, seeing nothing. The silence in the marble foyer was a physical weight, broken only by the distant hum of the Beverly Hills traffic, a world away.

“I can fix this,” he said again, his voice too loud in the quiet. It was the same line he’d used on stage, in interviews, in hotel rooms. A performer’s promise, empty of craft.

April’s gaze slowly dragged to his. There was no anger in it. No hurt. Just a flat, exhausted resignation that was worse than any slap. “You already have,” she said, her voice a monotone. “I’m here. That was the deal. What else is there to fix?”

His hand dropped from her face. The space between them felt arctic. He looked at her, really looked, for the first time since she’d walked in with her single bag. She wore a simple cotton dress, her hair pulled back. No makeup. She looked younger than nineteen, and older than him. Her hand rested, as it always did now, on the gentle, impossible curve of her stomach.

“Us,” Robin said, the word sounding foolish. “This… tension.”

“There is no ‘us,’” April said, turning to walk further into the mansion. Her bare feet were silent on the travertine. “There’s a tenant and a landlord. A biological father and an incubator. Pick the metaphor you like. They all mean the same thing.”

He followed her into the vast, sunlit living room. A month. She had lived in his house for a month, occupying the guest wing like a ghost. He’d tried everything. Extravagant gifts left outside her door—jewelry, designer clothes. She’d thanked him with the polite distance of a hotel maid. He’d hired a private chef to make her cravings; she ate in her room. He’d played his music for her, the new, raw tracks born of this chaos, hoping she’d hear him in it. She’d listened, nodded, and gone to bed.

Last week, in a fit of desperate, stupid nostalgia, he’d thrown a party. He’d filled the house with the old crowd, models and musicians, the kind of beautiful noise that used to make Paula roll her eyes and April’s light up. He’d flirted openly with a blonde from the opening act, his hand on the small of her back, his laugh too sharp. He’d watched April from across the room.

She had watched back. He saw the flicker in her eyes, the quick clench of her jaw. Jealousy. It had sent a vicious, hopeful thrill through him. She still felt something. But she didn’t storm out. She didn’t cry. She simply turned, walked to the kitchen, and poured herself a glass of water. She drank it slowly, staring out at the dark garden, her reflection a pale, still portrait in the window. Then she went upstairs. The victory had tasted like ash.

Now, standing in the sterile perfection of his living room, that ash was all he had. “The party,” he started, a lame opening. “I saw you watching.”

“I was observing the habitat,” April said, running a finger along the back of a white leather sofa. “It’s what you do, isn’t it? This is your natural environment. I was just studying it.”

“It was for you,” he said, the confession ripped out of him. “To make you feel something. Anything.”

She finally looked at him, and the faint, sad ghost of a smile touched her lips. It was the most terrifying expression he’d ever seen. “Oh, I felt something, Robin. I felt sick. I felt like I was nineteen and stupid all over again, watching my boyfriend cheat on me at a club in Miami. Congratulations. You managed to make me relive the exact moment I should have walked away. It was very effective.”

He crossed the room in two strides, his hands coming up to frame her face again. This time, she flinched. The tiny recoil was a knife to his gut. “I need you to forget that,” he breathed, his voice ragged. “I need you to forget him. That drunk, pathetic asshole on the beach. He’s gone.”

“Is he?” she whispered, her breath warm against his lips. Her eyes searched his, not with hope, but with a bleak curiosity. “Where did he go?”

Instead of answering, he kissed her.

It wasn’t gentle. It was a claiming, a desperate attempt to overwrite every bad memory with the heat of his mouth. He poured every ounce of his practiced skill into it, the angle, the pressure, the slow sweep of his tongue. He waited for her to melt, to sigh, to kiss him back with the hungry innocence of that first night.

For three heartbeats, she was rigid. Then, a surrender. Her body went soft against his. Her lips parted. A small, broken sound escaped her throat, and her hands came up to rest lightly on his chest. It was everything he wanted. It was a lie.

He could feel it. Her mouth moved under his, but it was mechanical. The sound she made wasn’t pleasure; it was exhaustion. The hands on his chest weren’t pulling him closer; they were a barrier. She was kissing him back the way she ate the food he provided—because it was there, because it was expected, because she had surrendered the right to refuse.

He broke the kiss, pulling back just enough to see her eyes. They were closed. A single tear traced a path from her lashes down to her jaw. She didn’t open them.

“April,” he said, his forehead resting against hers.

“I don’t know,” she whispered, her eyes still shut tight. “I don’t know if I can love you again. I want to. My body… remembers wanting to. But when you touch me, all I can see is her. Paula. And all the others I don’t even know. And I just go cold inside.” She opened her eyes then, and the tears welled, spilling over. “So if this is what you need, if this is part of the deal… just do it. Don’t ask me to feel it.”