Chapter 84 Shield
Ethan kept knocking relentlessly, each heavy thud echoing through the room, refusing to let her have even a moment of peace. Lena pressed her hands to her ears, but the sound still rattled through her. It wasn't stopping. He wasn't stopping.
Finally, with a surge of anger boiling through her grief, she pushed herself up from the bed. Her tears still clung to her cheeks, but her fury gave her strength. If he wouldn't leave her alone, then she would face him head-on.
She yanked the door open, her movements sharp, and there he was, tall, composed, not a hair out of place, as though the chaos downstairs hadn't touched him at all.
Her chest heaved. "How dare you?" she burst out, her voice trembling with rage. "You just stood there while they called me a tramp, a gold digger, while they shredded my name to pieces, and you said nothing! Not a word! Do you have any idea what that felt like?"
Her words spilled, jagged and raw, the pain of the ballroom finally crashing out of her.
Ethan's face remained unreadable, calm to the point of cruelty. He let her anger hang between them, unshaken, his silence stretching long enough to make her fists clench at her sides.
Then, in a voice low and steady, he asked, "Why did you leave the party?"
The question struck her like a slap. For a moment, she could only stare at him, her fury colliding with disbelief. After everything, after her humiliation, her tears, her broken trust, that was what he chose to ask.
"Should I have stayed whilst they threw jabs at me?" Lena cried, her voice breaking, tears running freely down her face. "While they mocked me like I was nothing?"
Ethan stood before her, broad-shouldered and still, his expression unreadable. He didn't flinch, didn't move, didn't soften. His calmness only made her sob harder.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low, steady. "You didn't do anything wrong. And I know it wasn't you in that video."
Her tears faltered. Confusion clouded her face, her brows knitting. "Then... if you knew, if you knew it wasn't me, why didn't you say anything?" Her voice cracked under the weight of disbelief.
Ethan's eyes held hers without wavering. "Because that wasn't the right way to address the issue."
Lena's lips parted, stunned into silence.
He continued, his tone firm, clipped, as though explaining something obvious. "Your reaction matters more than their accusations. The moment you let it break you, the moment you ran, people will take that as guilt. They'll believe you had something to hide."
The words stung. They echoed with a cold truth she hated to admit, and yet she felt too raw, too betrayed, to accept them.
He could see the storm written all over her expression, the hurt, the doubt, the sharp edge of betrayal. For the first time that night, Ethan moved closer.
Lena immediately stepped back, her eyes glistening, refusing to meet his gaze. She didn't want his calm, his indifference, not when her heart was bleeding.
But he reached for her anyway, his hand settling firmly on her shoulder. The touch stilled her, though her body tensed beneath it.
"Lena," his voice was quieter now, stripped of its steel. "I'm sorry my silence seemed like nonchalance to you. But this is my world, and I know how best to handle the people in it."
Her eyes flicked up to his, uncertain.
"Those people downstairs," he went on, his grip steady but not harsh, "they're jealous. Every last one of them. They'll use anything they can to tear you apart, and tonight it was that video. Tomorrow it will be something else. But you, " his gaze bore into her, "you can't let them win. You hold your head high, knowing you're innocent. That's your shield."
Lena's chest rose and fell, his words cutting through the haze of her emotions. Part of her wanted to push him away, to tell him he couldn't possibly understand how small and exposed she had felt. But another part, the quieter, more vulnerable part, clung to the strange comfort hidden in his certainty.
He reached for her face, his thumb brushing away the wetness on her cheeks with a gentleness she didn't expect.
"In this world," Ethan said quietly, his voice almost coaxing, "the best way to handle rumors is to starve them. Don't feed them with fear, or with tears. Let them die on their own."
With one hand beneath her chin, he tilted her head up until her eyes finally met his. The harshness she'd braced for wasn't there. Instead, his gaze held something softer, concern, even regret.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, "for exposing you to such cruelty. But you have to trust me, Lena. I know best how to handle everything."
Her breath caught. She wanted to doubt him, to tell him his silence had cut her deeply, but the care threading through his tone made her falter. It was the first time since the video surfaced that she felt the storm around her begin to quiet.
Suddenly, he pulled her into his arms. The movement was swift, sure, leaving no space for her to resist. His embrace was strong, almost protective, his hand moving in slow, steady pats against her back.
The warmth of him seeped into her, drying the tears that lingered on her lashes. Against his chest, she was reminded of that fleeting sense of safety she'd begun to associate with him.
Instinctively, she yielded. Her slender arms wrapped around him, clinging to him as though he were the only steady ground left beneath her feet.
Ethan didn't know why Lena made him feel this way.
As her arms clung around him, something shifted inside him, an unfamiliar ache, a pull he couldn't quite explain. It felt as though she belonged there, pressed against him, as though his arms were made to shield her from the world.
He held her tighter, his hand moving up to caress her hair in slow, soothing strokes. The silk of it slipped between his fingers, grounding him in a way he hadn't expected.
A sharp weight of guilt pressed into his chest. He should have warned her, should have prepared her for the cruelty that came with standing at his side. Instead, she had been blindsided, humiliated, brought to tears in front of strangers, and he had let it happen.
The sight of those tears, the knowledge that he had been part of what caused them, unsettled him more than he cared to admit.
He bent his head slightly, his lips brushing the crown of her hair, not quite a kiss, but close enough to feel the tremor of restraint.
For a moment, Ethan Sinclair, the unshakable man of power, felt like nothing more than a man desperate to protect the fragile warmth trembling in his arms.
Lena felt it too. She had expected his embrace to be stiff, obligatory, the cold comfort of a man who cared only for appearances. But it wasn't. His arms held her like she mattered, like she wasn't a burden but something he needed close. She froze for a breath, startled by the warmth in him. The man who had stood in silence while the crowd tore her down was not the same man holding her now.