Chapter 136: A Better Performance

Serena Blackwood’s thoughts moved fast, but her face stayed gentle.

"Why waste money twice?" she said. "Besides, a rental has always belonged to someone else before you. I don’t want you using things other people have already used."

Elias Kane gave a small inward nod.

Tender on the surface, possessive underneath, and completely open about the possessiveness once she dressed it as care. That was Serena.

She went on, voice warm enough to sound reasonable. "And a rental never really belongs to you. If you want to decorate it the way you like, you’ll have to ask permission for every little change. Even if you make it perfect, the lease ends eventually, and all your work becomes the landlord’s benefit."

Elias nearly laughed.

This was one of the things he liked most about Serena, in the same way a person could admire the engineering of a trap while standing inside it. When she wanted to give him something, she never relied only on money. She prepared reasons. Practical ones, emotional ones, reasons that made refusal sound childish or wasteful or vaguely self-punishing.

By the time Serena finished speaking, it did not matter which persona he was playing. The gift would have to be accepted.

So Elias looked stunned first.

Then he bit lightly at his lip, lowered his eyes, and said with obvious reluctance, "Fine."

Serena smiled. "Do you like it?"

Elias glanced at her once, then turned his face aside and gave a tiny, stubborn huff. "It’s okay, I guess."

It was exactly the kind of awkward, proud little reaction Serena used to enjoy.

Before today, watching him like this would have filled her with satisfaction. There was a particular pleasure in taking someone defiant and teaching his body to soften before his mouth admitted defeat. Elias’s resistance had always fed that pleasure perfectly. His pride, his reluctant compliance, the way he looked away as if refusing to give her the victory while already sitting inside it. Every piece had once landed exactly where she wanted it.

Now, all Serena felt was a strong sense of falseness.

It reminded her of a dinner from years ago, back when the Blackwood Group had nearly collapsed and she and Liora Voss had dragged it back from the edge. After the worst of the crisis passed, a business partner invited her to a private banquet. There had been too much congratulations, too much expensive wine, and a very pretty young server who "accidentally" spilled red wine down the front of her dress.

The boy’s acting had been weak. Serena saw through him before the first apology ended. Later, she understood the arrangement for what it was. Her partner had sent him in as a soft lure, hoping the mess, the embarrassment, and the private cleanup would create an opening to demand more in the contract.

Elias gave her the same feeling now.

Not because his acting was poor.

Because it was too good.

Everything he did fit her taste too closely. His surprise, his reluctance, his blush, his proud little refusal, the way his body stayed while his mouth complained. It all lined up as if someone had studied her appetite and built him to satisfy it.

Even Lucien Hart, standing in front of her in all his unreachable beauty, might not have pleased her this precisely.

And Elias’s performance had no obvious flaw. Even while suspecting him, Serena could not point to one expression and say, There. That was false.

That made it worse.

Serena lifted a hand and touched the side of his neck.

Elias trembled under her fingers.

The reaction traveled through him too quickly to look planned. Tiny bumps rose along the skin she stroked, clear beneath her touch. She felt the shiver, felt the living warmth of him, felt the body answer before the role could decide what to show.

Was that desire?

Or fear?

Was he trembling because her touch reached him, or because some older part of him knew that if her fingers tightened, she could hurt him before he had time to beg?

For a moment, Serena imagined a lamb caught in a wolf’s mouth. The lamb wanted to live, so it studied the wolf. It learned when to go still, when to lean closer, when to make itself look soft. Even terrified, it forced its body to behave.

The image should have moved her.

It did not.

His purpose, his fear, his mask, his calculation. None of that mattered anymore.

Only one question mattered.

Had he betrayed her?

Even now, Serena remained confident. If every tender, shy, stubborn expression Elias had shown her was fake, that was fine. Once she knew it was fake, she could control him more easily. A mask was only dangerous when the person wearing it believed no one could see the edges.

The thing she could not accept was deception that placed someone else between them.

Her thumb slid to his cheek and rubbed slowly over the warmth there. The faint red in his face made him look almost shy, and she could admit that it was beautiful. She could appreciate a lie when it was made well.

Pretending did not matter.

Only betrayal did.

Serena lowered her head until her mouth was near his ear. "Do you want to try something new?"

Elias felt his interest wake at once.

Well, look at that. Serena Blackwood, public service announcement in human form, had learned variety.

He was in favor. Completely in favor. Both hands, both feet, full spiritual support. Unfortunately, that response did not fit the obedient-but-still-proud character currently on duty. No matter what she suggested, his mouth had to reject it first.

Serena would persuade him. She always did.

Elias blinked at her. "What kind of new thing?" 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Serena smiled and whispered into his ear.

"No."

Elias refused at once.

His face flushed in a breath, and he stared at her with offended anger. "You’re a... pervert."

She wanted to play with breath and surrender.

It sounded interesting.

Which meant he absolutely could not agree right away. He was a pure, well-behaved boy, tragically burdened by love and moral standards. He would never agree to something so excessive.

Still, since he had fallen for Serena, if she wanted it badly enough, maybe he would not be completely impossible to convince.

Elias waited for her to start the usual process.

Instead, something soft touched his cheek.

Serena kissed him.

Her voice carried a thread of pleading. "Please, Eli."

Something’s off.

The thought cut through Elias’s mind with sudden clarity.

[What feels off?]

System Theta sounded genuinely confused.

From the outside, Serena looked normal. Gentle, possessive, dangerous under the softness, using affection as pressure. That was exactly what she did.

Elias did not answer.

He was thinking.

Once he caught the first wrong note, several earlier moments rearranged themselves in his memory. Serena being gentle was not the problem. That had been her original mask. In front of others, she was always graceful, warm, and reasonable enough to make cruelty look like restraint.

The nickname was the problem.

Elias could not imagine Serena Blackwood calling him "Eli" like that.

When the word left her mouth, the mismatch hit hard. It was not impossible because it was intimate. Serena was capable of intimacy when it served her. It was wrong because it sounded selected. A tool lifted from a box because she believed it would work.

That, unfortunately, also fit Serena.

She would use anything to get what she wanted.

So her current goal was to make him agree to this new game?

Elias laughed inwardly.

Interesting.

He felt no sense of crisis.

With Serena’s favorability where it was, even a crash would not necessarily kill him. Besides, a situation outside the plan was rare enough to be refreshing. Most people were boring once their patterns were solved. Serena, at least, had managed to move a piece he had not expected her to move.

Fine.

He would play along.

Elias jerked away from her as if her breath had burned his ear. His teeth caught lightly on his lower lip, and his face filled with flustered outrage. "You... you..."

Serena smiled. "Me what?"

There was another wrong note.

Serena was acting.

Not badly, either. Her performance had improved so much that only a small crack remained. Elias nearly laughed again. Did she know that acting too well could become its own mistake?

He stammered for several seconds before forcing out, "What did you call me?"

"So that’s why you’re upset." Serena’s expression shifted into understanding, then deliberate teasing. "What, you don’t like it?"

She leaned closer, her mouth still near his ear.

"Eli," she said softly. "Eli. Eli."

She repeated the nickname again and again, each time warmer than the last, as if the word had always belonged between them.

Elias looked as if he could not bear the sudden intimacy. With Serena speaking directly beside his ear, her breath hot against his skin, half his body seemed to lose strength. The flush on his face deepened until even his glare looked soft at the edges. When he tried to keep refusing, his voice came out thin and sweet in spite of him.

"Don’t... don’t call me that."

"Eli," Serena murmured. "Say yes for me."

Under the pressure of her voice, Elias finally nodded, as if he had been forced into surrender.

"I’ll be very gentle," Serena said.

She was smiling.

Her eyes were not.

One hand could not clap alone.

If she could not find the flaw in Elias, then what about the other person?