Chapter 16

LISA POV:

Jean-Luc looked like he hadn’t eaten a single carbohydrate since the year 2018. He stood with a pair of gold-plated fabric shears, staring at Lisa’s left shoulder like it had personally insulted his entire family lineage.

“The clavicle,” Jean-Luc whispered, making a tiny, dramatic gesture in the air. “It is too… sportif. The Mugler requires a structure that honors the architecture of the bone, not the court of the basketball.”

“I played volleyball, actually,” Lisa told him, sitting cross-legged on a velvet ottoman that cost more than her entire vintage camera collection. “And my clavicles are perfectly happy being sporty, Jean-Luc. They’re just trying to hold my shirts up.”

Jennie didn’t even look up from her iPad. She was sitting on the opposite side of the massive fitting room in Wing A—which had been completely transformed into a high-fashion war room—looking like a tiny, terrifying judge at a luxury tribunal. She was wearing a matching black tweed set that screamed corporate dominance, and her hair was held up by a single silver clip that looked sharp enough to puncture a tire.

“Ignore her, Jean-Luc,” Jennie said, her voice smooth and entirely cold. “She doesn’t understand the concept of tailoring. She thinks an oversized hoodie is a personality trait.”

“Hey!” Lisa gasped, clutching her chest. “The NASA hoodie is a classic. It represents human achievement. It represents space, Jennie. It’s deep.”

“It represents laziness, Lalisa. Now stand up straight. We have four more hours of this, and the fabric supplier from Milan is on a video call in ten minutes.”

Lisa groaned loudly, dropping her head back against the plush velvet.

They were currently on day three of what Lisa was calling the “September Siege.” After their high-stakes stunt at The Residence last week—where Lisa had literally used the word vibe to fight off a May wedding date like some kind of chaotic corporate warrior—the families had officially accelerated the logistical rollout. Yes, they bought themselves five more months. Yes, September was the new target. But the universe decided that meant they had to spend every single second of those five months being poked, measured, and judged by men with French accents and zero body fat.

It was currently 2:30 p.m. on a Tuesday, and Lisa had already been measured for seven different jackets, three types of formal trousers, and one specific silk vest that made her look like a very expensive waiter at a restaurant where a glass of water costs forty dollars.

“The trousers,” Jean-Luc muttered, tapping Lisa’s ankle with a soft measuring tape. “They must be low-rise. To balance the length of the torso. The Gen Z, they love the low-rise, yes? The nostalgia for the year 2000?”

“Please don’t use the word nostalgia while looking at my hips,” Lisa muttered, looking at her reflection in the three-way mirror.

The suit she was currently wearing was a deep, midnight-blue silk blend. It was gorgeous, obviously. It felt like liquid money against her skin. But looking at herself in the mirror, all tailored and polished, made Lisa’s stomach do that weird, heavy flip it always did when the reality of this whole arrangement hit her.

In the reflection, she could see Jennie watching her.

Jennie wasn’t looking at her iPad anymore. Her cat-like eyes were fixed on the line of Lisa’s shoulders, her gaze traveling down the custom cut of the jacket, lingering on the open collar where Jean-Luc had left the top two buttons undone. Her expression was completely unreadable—the ultimate CEO face—but there was a tiny, microscopic shift in the way she was holding her champagne glass. Her knuckles were just a little bit white.

Lisa caught her eye in the mirror and gave her a slow, deliberate wink.

Jennie immediately looked away, taking a very fast, very sharp sip of her champagne. A tiny hint of pink blossomed on the tips of her ears, right beneath her sleek ponytail.

Score one for the sporty clavicles.

The Mid-Afternoon Slump

By 4:00 p.m., the fashion circus had finally packed up their gold shears and their silk swatches and retreated down the private elevator. The apartment was quiet again, but it was that heavy, post-production quiet where everything smelled like expensive cologne and fabric softener.

Lisa collapsed straight onto the green beanbag chair in the living room, her legs hanging off the side, her midnight-blue suit trousers wrinkling horribly against the neon foam. She didn’t care. The beanbag was her sanctuary. It was the only thing in this 50th-floor aquarium that didn’t have a designer label or an attitude.

“If Jean-Luc touches my shoulders one more time, I’m going to throw him into the Han River,” Lisa announced to the ceiling. “He has no boundaries. He treats me like a piece of drywall he’s trying to plaster.”

Jennie walked into the living room, kicking off her Chanel slides with two sharp thwacks against the stone floor. She looked completely exhausted, the sharp executive posture finally dropping as she dragged her feet toward the kitchen island.

“He is the chief couturier for a house that has been alive since before your grandfather was born, Lisa. Show some respect.”

“I’ll show respect when he stops judging my posture. I have a great posture. It’s athletic.”

“It’s slouchy,” Jennie corrected, but there was no heat in it. She leaned her elbows against the quartzite counter, buried her face in her hands, and let out a long, muffled groan. “My mother called during the boot consultation. She wants to add sixty more people to the Tuscany guest list. Apparently, some shipping magnate from Greece just bought a stake in our European distribution center, so now he needs to watch us say ‘I do’ while eating truffle risotto.”

Lisa rolled over on the beanbag, resting her chin on the bright green fabric so she could look at her. Without the cameras and the designers, Jennie looked so small against the massive scale of the kitchen. The cream suit looked heavy on her.

“Sixty more sharks in the water,” Lisa murmured. “Lovely. We’re going to need a bigger aquarium.”

“Don’t joke, Lisa. I’m serious. The press rollout is getting out of hand. The marketing team is already tracking the engagement metrics for the September announcement. They’re calling it The Convergence.”

“The Convergence?” Lisa snorted, pulling herself up into a sitting position. “What are we, a Marvel movie? Are we going to fight aliens after the cake cutting?”

Jennie lifted her head from her hands. Her eyes looked huge, dark, and genuinely overwhelmed. “It’s not funny. It feels like the wedding is a product launch. Like we’re releasing a new phone instead of… instead of whatever this is.”

The word whatever hung in the air between them, heavy and full of things they weren’t allowed to say out loud.

Lisa stood up, the silk of her custom suit rustling in the quiet room. She walked over to the kitchen, her bare feet making no sound on the floor. She didn’t stop until she was standing right on the opposite side of the island from Jennie, the space between them shrinking down to nothing but a few feet of white quartzite.

“Hey,” Lisa said, her voice dropping into that lower, softer register that she only used when the “rebel” mask was completely off. “Look at me, Jen.”

Jennie blinked, her eyes rising slowly to meet Lisa’s.

“We bought five months,” Lisa reminded her, leaning her forearms on the counter so she was level with her. “We fought them off at the dinner table. Remember? September was your play, and it worked. We have time. Don’t let them crowd your brain before we even get to the summer.”

Jennie’s mouth twitched, a tiny, fragile line. “They’re planning the menu, Lisa. They’re choosing the wine based on the stock prices. It’s disgusting.”

“Then we won’t drink the wine,” Lisa said simply. “We’ll hide a bottle of cheap beer under the main table. We’ll drink that instead. We’ll make it our own little corporate sabotage.”

Jennie let out a breath that was half-laugh, half-sigh, her shoulders dropping an inch. “You are completely insane.”

“I’m efficient,” Lisa corrected, flashing her a grin. “It’s my second-best quality, remember? Right behind the hair.”

Jennie looked at Lisa’s hair—which was currently sticking up in three different directions thanks to Jean-Luc’s frantic styling attempts—and the tension in her face finally broke. A small, genuine dimple appeared near the corner of her mouth.

“Your hair looks like a tragedy today, Manoban.”

“It’s called fashion, Kim. Look it up. Jean-Luc said it had ‘vibrant youthfulness’.”

“Jean-Luc was lying to save his life.”

Lisa laughed, the sound bright and loud in the massive room. Jennie watched her, her gaze dropping to Lisa’s open collar for a split second before rising back to her eyes. The atmosphere in the kitchen shifted instantly. The relief turned into something else—something warm, thick, and incredibly dangerous.

Lisa remembered the night before. She remembered the feeling of Jennie’s forehead pressed against hers, the smell of her shampoo, the way Jennie had leaned into her touch like she was a ship looking for a harbor in the middle of a storm.

Rule Number Four: No falling in love.

The rule felt less like a legal boundary and more like a challenge that the universe was actively mocking them for writing down.

“Lisa,” Jennie whispered, her voice suddenly losing its sharp edge.

“Yeah?”

“Your collar is crooked.”

Jennie reached across the white stone island. Her movements were slow, almost hesitant, completely different from the efficient executive who had been managing a boardroom three hours ago. Her fingers brushed against the midnight-blue silk of Lisa’s lapel, her knuckles lightly scraping the skin of Lisa’s collarbone.

A literal jolt of static electricity traveled straight down Lisa’s spine. She didn’t move. She didn’t breathe. She just watched Jennie’s face.

Jennie was focusing very hard on the fabric, her tongue peeking out just a millimeter between her teeth as she straightened the collar. She was so close Lisa could see the tiny gold flecks in her dark irises, could see the way her eyelashes fluttered every time she took a breath.

“There,” Jennie murmured, her fingers lingering on the fabric for two seconds too long. “Now you don’t look like a total disaster.”

“Thanks, boss,” Lisa whispered, her voice a little raspy. She reached up and gently caught Jennie’s wrist, her thumb resting right over her pulse point. It was beating fast. Fast enough to match the stupid, frantic rhythm currently happening inside Lisa’s own chest. “You know… for someone who hates the suit, you spend a lot of time fixing it.”

Jennie’s eyes flared, her breath catching in her throat. She didn’t pull her wrist away. She just stared at Lisa, her chin lifting in that defensive, proud way that Lisa was slowly realizing was just her way of trying to survive the sheer amount of tension between them.

“I don’t hate the suit,” Jennie said softly, her voice dropping into a register that made Lisa’s knees feel slightly unstable. “It… it suits you, Lisa. The blue.”

“Just the blue?” Lisa teased, leaning in a fraction of an inch closer, their faces so close she could feel the heat radiating off Jennie’s skin. “Not the girl inside it?”

Jennie’s gaze dropped to Lisa’s lips. The silence in the kitchen became absolute. The city outside, the fifty floors of glass, the sixty Greek shipping magnates—none of it existed. There was only the white stone between them, the grip of Lisa’s fingers around Jennie’s wrist, and the terrifying realization that if Jennie didn’t move away in the next three seconds, Lisa was going to jump over this counter and break every single rule they had ever signed.

Then, Jennie’s phone on the counter exploded with a loud, aggressive corporate ringtone.

The spell broke like a rock hitting a mirror.

Jennie snatched her hand back, stepping away from the counter so fast her heels nearly slipped on the floor. She grabbed the phone, her face burning a bright, undeniable crimson as she looked at the caller ID.

“It’s… it’s the logistics team from Tokyo,” Jennie stammered, her usual polished voice completely breathless. She didn’t look at Lisa. She couldn’t. “I… I have to take this in my wing.”

“Yeah,” Lisa cleared her throat, rubbing the back of her neck as her brain tried to reboot itself from the sudden shock. “Yeah, go. Go do the… Tokyo things. Don’t let them bankrupt us.”

Jennie turned and practically sprinted down the hallway toward Wing A, her silk jacket fluttering behind her like a cape. The heavy double doors shut with a soft, definitive click, leaving Lisa entirely alone in the massive kitchen.

Lisa stood there for a full minute, staring at the empty space across the counter. Her hand was still warm from where she had held Jennie’s wrist.

“Screwed,” Lisa muttered to the empty room, dropping her head onto the cool quartzite counter. “I am so completely, systematically, historically screwed.”

The 10:00 p.m. Delivery

By the time the sun went down and the city turned into that glowing neon grid of light, the penthouse had settled into a weird, silent standoff. Jennie hadn’t come out of her wing since the Tokyo call, and Lisa had spent the last four hours pretending to look at camera lenses on her laptop while actually just staring at the same paragraph of a photography blog over and over again.

At 9:45 p.m., Lisa’s phone buzzed.

Jennie (10:01 PM): Are you hungry?

Lisa stared at the screen. It was the first text Jennie had sent her since the kitchen incident. It was short. It was practical. It was classic Jennie Kim trying to pretend she hadn’t almost melted Lisa’s soul over a piece of midnight-blue silk.

Lisa (10:01 PM): I am currently considering eating the foam pellets from the beanbag. So yes. Very.

Jennie (10:02 PM): Don’t be disgusting. I ordered the Thai place. It will be here in five minutes. Meet in the kitchen.

Lisa smiled, a real, stupid, helpless grin that made her face hurt. She closed her laptop, kicked off her sweatpants (she had changed out of the Mugler suit the second Jennie left), and walked out into the shared space.

When Lisa reached the kitchen, the delivery bags were already on the counter. Jennie was there, too, but the cream power suit was gone. She was back in her natural habitat—the oversized cream cashmere sweater and a pair of simple black leggings. Her hair was down, falling over her shoulders in soft, dark waves. She looked small again. She looked like Nini.

“I got the extra spicy noodles for you,” Jennie said without looking up, handing Lisa a wooden pair of chopsticks. “And the spring rolls. Don’t touch the chicken satay, it’s mine.”

“Wow. Dictating the protein distribution already. Very authoritarian,” Lisa said, sitting down on a barstool.

They ate in silence for the first few minutes, the burn of the chili noodles finally waking Lisa’s brain up from its high-fashion coma. The tension from this afternoon was still there, but it had softened into something comfortable, like an old blanket that had been left out in the sun.

“My mother sent over the preliminary guest list for the engagement party next month,” Jennie said quietly, stirring her rice with her chopsticks. “Minho Park’s name isn’t on it.”

Lisa stopped chewing. She looked up, surprised. “Really? I thought his dad was the big stakeholder in the merger.”

“He is,” Jennie said, her chin lifting slightly as she looked at Lisa. “But I told the PR team that having him there would create ‘negative brand alignment’ after his behavior at the housewarming. I told them it would look bad in the candid photos if he was standing too close to us.”

Lisa stared at her, her heart doing that slow, heavy thud again. “You kicked him off the list?”

“I optimized the guest matrix, Lisa. It was a business decision.”

“Liar,” Lisa murmured, a slow smile spreading across her face. “You did that for me. Because of Rule Five.”

Jennie’s eyes narrowed, but there was no real venom in them. She set her chopsticks down and leaned back, looking at Lisa across the empty takeout boxes. “I did it for us, Manoban. We’re a team, remember? Rule Seven. If someone threatens the stability of the team, they get removed from the portfolio.”

“The portfolio,” Lisa repeated, leaning forward, resting her chin in her hand. “You have a very romantic way of saying ‘I’ve got your back, wifey’.”

“Don’t call me that when we’re alone,” Jennie whispered, but her voice didn’t have any strength behind it. She looked at Lisa’s mouth, her eyes lingering there for a long, agonizing beat before rising back to Lisa’s eyes. “It’s… it’s bad for the data.”

“The data is fine, Jen,” Lisa said softly, reaching out across the counter.

This time, Lisa didn’t touch her skin. She just laid her hand face-up on the white stone, an open invitation in the middle of their cage.

Jennie looked at Lisa’s open palm. She hesitated for three long seconds, her breathing slowing down, her expression turning into that soft, vulnerable look that she only ever showed Lisa when the rest of the world was locked outside the glass walls.

Slowly, deliberately, Jennie reached out and slid her hand into Lisa’s.

Jennie’s fingers were cool against her skin, but as soon as their palms touched, that deep, internal warmth snapped right back into place. It was the same heat from the park walk, the same heat from the couch, the same heat that was currently burning down every single legal defense Lisa had left.

They didn’t say anything else. They just sat there in the dim light of the kitchen, fifty floors above the river, holding hands over a pile of spicy Thai takeout containers.

The architects were building a wedding. The families were building a merger. The public was building a narrative.

But here, in the dark, with Jennie’s fingers laced tightly through her own, Lisa realized the truth.

The “Billionaire Aquarium” wasn’t a prison anymore. It was a fortress. And the girl holding her hand wasn’t just her fake fiancée. She was the only thing in this entire city that felt real.

“September,” Lisa whispered into the quiet room.

“September,” Jennie agreed softly, her thumb gently tracing the back of Lisa’s hand.

They had five months. Five months of lies, five months of cameras, five months of Jean-Luc and low-rise trousers.

But as Lisa squeezed Jennie’s hand and felt Jennie squeeze back, she knew one thing for sure.

She was going to spend every single one of those five months falling completely, hopelessly, and historically in love with her. And there wasn’t a single rule in the world that could stop her.

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                                                                      thank you for reading 

and I’m so sorry for not posting early i had exams and didn’t finish them until  last night