Fake Date, Real Fate-Chapter 176: EVE... Betrayed

Clara’s declaration hit me like a misplaced note in a symphony of chaos. Love? The word tasted like ash in my parched mouth.

"Get away from me," I grated, the words thick and slurred, betraying the urgency I felt. I tried to step back, but my legs felt weighted, like they belonged to someone else. My hand, still on the mantelpiece, slipped, and I almost went down. The room pitched violently this time, a full swing of a pendulum.

Clara didn’t flinch. She took another step, her eyes wide and luminous in the dim light. "You’ve been so cold to me... but I know you, Adrien. I know you better than anyone. I know what you need."

My hand tightened on the mantelpiece until my knuckles ached. The heat coursing through me wasn’t just warmth anymore—it was wildfire, licking at my nerves, threatening to burn down every wall of discipline I’d built over years of calculated control.

She took another step closer, her perfume flooding my senses—sweet, cloying, wrong. My mind knew it, but the stuff blurred the edges, twisting it into something I wanted desperately to believe. Something that smelled like home. Like her.

Isabella.

Clara’s eyes glistened. "You don’t have to fight me anymore. You don’t have to pretend you don’t feel it too. I’ve waited for this—" her hand rose slowly, trembling just enough to seem vulnerable "—for you. Always for you."

I shook my head slightly, trying to clear it. My muscles refused to obey, leaden and weak. My breath came faster, uneven. The need clawing inside me wasn’t mine—it was chemical, a foreign hunger dragging me under.

"I said..." My voice cracked like dry ice breaking. "Stay away."

But Clara only smiled softly, as if I’d whispered a secret meant only for her. Her fingers brushed my chest, light as silk. The sensation shot straight through me, hot and sharp. My body leaned into it, traitorously desperate for more.

"You’re burning up," Clara murmured, her other hand sliding down my abdomen. "I can help with that." She leaned in, her lips grazing my ear. "I’ve dreamed of this for so long. Adrien Walton, finally letting go... for...me."

The chandelier’s light warped, halos bending around her figure. And for a flicker—a cruel, fleeting heartbeat—she wasn’t Clara anymore.

It was Isabella standing there, her dark hair tumbling over bare shoulders, that teasing glint in her eyes as she looked at me like I was the only man in the universe. My chest constricted, heart slamming against my ribs.

"Princess..." The word rasped out of me before I could stop it.

Her smile widened in quiet triumph. "Yes," she breathed, stepping closer. "I’m right here. I’ve always been here for you."

She was so beautiful tonight. Her dark hair glittered under the room light, and I felt a familiar pull toward her, a deep-seated desire that even the dizzying fog in my head couldn’t extinguish. She smiled, a slow, predatory curve of her lips that was a little more intense than her usual playful grin, but my brain was too syrupy to care.

Then, I heard a sound. A soft, deliberate zzzzip.

My eyes focused on her as she reached behind her back and pulled down the zipper of her gown. The expensive fabric pooled around her waist, revealing a scandalous black lace lingerie set that left almost nothing to the imagination. Wasn’t it an open back gown she was─

"I’ve been dreaming of this," she purred cutting off my thoughts as she is now stepping closer until her knees were almost touching mine. "Of you finally touching me the way you mean it."

I blinked, confused. Her words didn’t make sense. "Isabella, baby, I’m your boyfriend," I said, my words thick and slow. "I’ve touched you plenty of times."

She ignored me, placing a hand flat on my chest. I could feel my heart hammering against her palm. Her fingers were hot, tracing the line of my shirt. "You’re hard for me, aren’t you?" Her fingers ghosted over my belt. "Your boner must hurt. I can help you with that."

Her words slithered through my fogged brain, wrong yet intoxicating. Every instinct screamed to shove her away, but my limbs felt foreign, sluggish, betraying me.

She leaned in, lips brushing my ear. "I’ll make it better. I’ve always wanted to make it better for you."

Her words hit a snag in the thick fog of my mind. They were coarse, a shard of glass in a velvet curtain. Wrong. Utterly, fundamentally wrong.

Isabella would never say that. Not like that. Her seductions were a dance, a teasing whisper, a challenge wrapped in a smile. She played symphonies on my nerves, she didn’t just bang a drum.

I tried to focus, to anchor myself in reality. Isabella’s touch had weight, warmth, a familiarity that grounded me. This felt... off. My body burned, yes, but not with the comfort I knew. It was a feverish, artificial blaze, clawing at me from the inside out.

Clara’s hand slid lower, teasing the edge of my belt. "You need this," she whispered. "We need this. It’s always been us, Adrien."

"Always..." My own voice sounded far away, hollow. I swayed slightly, grasping the edge of the chaise for balance. Through the dizzying haze, I caught movement—golden strands spilling over her shoulders as she pulled pins from her hair.

Golden.

Not dark. Not Isabella’s dark waves that I’d run my hands through a thousand times.

The zipper.

The thought was a lightning strike in the storm. Isabella’s gown. It had an open back with chains connected by a single golden serpent that slithered down her spine which I had fantasized about undoing all evening. Not a zipper. A zipper was easy. Quick. Impersonal.

The face before me, so soft and beloved a moment ago, sharpened. The features resolved themselves, like a lens snapping into focus. The curve of the jaw was too severe. The glint in the eyes wasn’t playful affection; it was a desperate, hungry triumph. It wasn’t Isabella. Not my little feisty bunny.

My breath turned jagged.

The golden strands mocked me.

Not Isabella.

Not even close.

My fingers clenched the edge of the chaise like a man surfacing from drowning. Every inch of my body still ached for release—but not like this. Not with her. Not because of this.

Clara was still talking. Still touching.

"You don’t have to pretend anymore," she whispered, one knee now on the cushion beside me, her hand skimming my belt buckle. "Just feel. Let it happen. I’ll be good for you—better than she ever was—"

I grabbed her wrist.

She froze.

"Get. Off. Me." My voice was gravel, raw and deadly.

The confusion in her eyes flickered. "Adrien—baby—"

"I’m not your fucking baby." My voice was gravel, venom. "Where is Isabella?"

She blinked rapidly, trying to mask the flash of fear with another soft smile. "Adrien... baby, it’s me. I’m right here."

"Wrong answer."

"Adrien, you’re just... confused—"

I slammed her wrist against the mantel. Wood cracked under my grip, her cry sharp and high. "Confused?" My teeth bared in a predator’s snarl. "I could pick Isabella out of a thousand strangers in a blackout." My eyes burned into hers, wild with restrained violence. "Her scent. Her voice. The way her fingers twitch when she’s holding back a laugh. I know every inch of her. And you think..." I leaned closer, my voice dropping to a deadly whisper, "...you think a cheap imitation, a pathetic, cloying perfume, and some whore’s lingerie could ever feel like her?"

Clara’s lower lip trembled.

Tears welled in her eyes. "She doesn’t deserve you!" Clara spat suddenly, her facade cracking. "I’ve loved you my whole life! I’ve been there for you since we were kids. When your father buried you in silence, when you shut the whole world out—I stayed. I’ve loved you longer than she’s even known you! I have been training my whole life to be a Walton too! She’s a child playing at being a woman! I am a woman! I know what a man like you truly craves!"

"You don’t know a damn thing about me," I snarled. My grip tightened until she whimpered. "And you sure as hell don’t know what I crave. If you did, you’d know I only burn for her." My voice dropped to a deadly whisper. "You’ve already proven you’d hurt her just to get to me. Those cucumbers at the spa? That wasn’t an accident." My gaze was molten steel, unblinking. "And now this—drugging me, dragging me away from her—you think that’s love? You think that’ll make me look at you?"

Clara’s tears spilled now, unchecked, streaking her flushed cheeks. "You’ll see one day," she whispered, voice shaking but clinging to some desperate faith. "When she breaks you like everyone else has, when you’re left with nothing—you’ll come back to me."

I leaned in, my breath a lethal promise against her ear. "If Isabella breaks me..." My hand curled into a fist, knuckles white. "...I’ll crawl to her on shattered bones before I ever look at you."

Her breath caught, panic flashing in her tear-filled eyes.

"And you think you know me?" I pulled back enough for her to see the blaze in my stare. "If you really knew me, Clara... you’d know what happens to people who lay a finger on what’s mine."

Her face drained of color. She trembled.

I shoved her back against the wall, my grip on her jaw iron. The room still tilted, heat roaring through my blood, but rage burned hotter. It burned enough to cut through the fog, to hold me upright when my knees threatened to buckle.

"You’re going to tell me where Isabella is," I said, my words slow, deliberate, each one carved from stone. My vision swam, but my focus on her didn’t waver. "And if you lie..." My breath sawed through my teeth, my pulse a war drum in my ears. "...you’ll wish you’d never followed me into those gardens as a child."

Clara whimpered, her lips parting—

The door slammed open.