Part 2Eavesdropping on My Fiances Secret System

Finding out my life was a plot point in a commercial novel was surreal enough.

Finding out that Roman Blackwood had been secretly in love with me for eight years? That was bordering on the impossible.

I’m two years older than Roman. If the System was right, he’d been pining for me since he was eighteen.

But we barely had a history before the merger. We’d seen each other at galas, traded maybe ten sentences in a decade. Even when our families brought up the alliance, I wasn't the first choice.

The offer was originally for my younger sister, Beatrice. She was his age, the "perfect" socialite, the polished heir. But Beatrice had thrown a fit, refusing to be "sold off," and so the burden fell to me—the quiet daughter who lived in scripts and film sets.

I had always assumed I was the consolation prize. The runner-up.

When Roman suggested we skip the wedding for a while and just stay engaged to "get to know each other," I didn't object. For eighteen months, we’d gone through the motions of a modern power couple. Our bodies were intimately acquainted, but our hearts remained at a polite, lukewarm distance.

Roman was cold. He didn't laugh. He barely talked.

And his temper? It was legendary.

Shortly after the engagement, my father sent me to his office to deliver some papers. I’d stopped outside his door, paralyzed by the sound of him obliterating his senior staff.

"Is this a report or a ransom note? The only thing correct in this entire pile is the page numbers."

"Does your job description involve anything other than keeping your chair warm?"

"I don't pay you this much to see how smooth you can keep your cerebral cortex."

The employees had filed out looking like they’d been through a war zone. It terrified me. From that day on, I made sure never to poke the bear. I stayed out of his way, handled my own problems, and tried to be the "low-maintenance" fiancée.

It had worked. He’d never yelled at me. But he certainly didn't seem like a man in love.

Maybe the System was glitching. Or maybe I was just hallucinating from the stress of my upcoming shoot. Yes, I told myself, pulling the duvet over my head. A good night's sleep and the voices will disappear.