Chapter 17
Hannah’s father let out a derisive snort, his weathered face twisting with contempt.
“You’d better hope you’re right. Remember what I said–if you can’t land yourself a rich husband, I’ll find a buyer for you myself. Plenty of old men would pay good money for a pretty young thing.”
The casual cruelty of his words hung in the cold night air. He turned to leave, muttering curses under his breath, when he suddenly froze, spotting Jason standing at the entrance to the alley. The man’s face transformed instantly from menacing to frightened, his eyes darting between his daughter and Jason like a cornered animal.
Hannah followed her father’s gaze and saw Jason too. The color drained from her face instantly, leaving her porcelain–pale in the dim light. For once, the unflappable Hannah Russell looked genuinely terrified, her carefully constructed world crumbling before her eyes.
“Jason?” Her voice was barely a whisper, stripped of its usual confidence and calculation.
Jason made no attempt to hide or pretend he hadn’t heard everything. He stood motionless, feeling oddly detached from his body, as though watching the scene unfold from a distance. His voice was rough with emotion as he asked, “So, Hannah, it was all a lie?”
The question hung between them, simple yet devastating in its implications.
Hannah trembled visibly, utterly speechless for perhaps the first time since he’d known her. The perfect dancer who never missed a step had finally stumbled, and there was no choreography to follow, no practiced routine to fall back on.
Her father, however, recovered quickly.
“Mr. Stan! Sir!” he stammered, instantly shifting into a sycophantic tone, his earlier menace replaced by obsequious panic. “This whole scheme was my daughter’s idea, nothing to do with me at all! Please don’t hold it against me, sir! I’m just a concerned father!”
With that, he turned and fled, his footsteps echoing down the alley, abandoning his daughter to face the consequences alone–a pattern, Jason suspected, that had played out many times before.
The silence that followed was suffocating. Jason looked directly at Hannah, asking again with quiet intensity, “So you never actually cared about Juilliard? Any of it?”
Each word felt like it was being dragged from somewhere deep inside him, heavy with the weight of his own hypocrisy. Who was he to judge her deception when his own had been equally calculated?
Hannah finally regained her composure, straightening her shoulders with the same poise she showed on
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Chapter 17
stage. The vulnerability was still there in her eyes, but her dancer’s discipline reasserted itself.
“No,” she admitted, knowing there was no point in further deception. “I didn’t.”
Something hardened in her expression–not defiance exactly, but a refusal to apologize for her survival.
“I did it because I was obsessed with you. I used whatever tactics I needed.” Her voice was steady now, almost clinical in its honesty.
“I know you probably think I’m despicable, but what choice did I have?” Her voice took on an edge of desperation, fractures appearing in her composure. “You saw my father. If I don’t find a way out, if I don’t secure my future, who will?”
For the first time, Jason saw Hannah–really saw her–not as the school’s perfect dancer or as his ex–girlfriend, but as someone shaped by cruelty and necessity.
“But Jason…” Her voice softened, a last attempt to salvage something from the wreckage. “My methods may have been calculated, but my feelings for you are real. So… can you forgive me?”
The proud, beautiful Hannah Russell–who had never begged for anything in her life–was now pleading with him, vulnerability etched into her features. There was genuine fear in her eyes, the fear of someone who had played their last card and lost.
But Jason barely seemed to register her words. He was lost in his own thoughts, murmuring almost to himself, “So this is what it feels like to be deceived.”
The hollowness in his chest expanded with each breath, cold and vast.
Hannah stared at him, confusion replacing fear. “What?”
Jason’s voice was barely audible, his gaze unfocused as though seeing something–someone–far away.
“I wonder if this is how Kelsey felt when she found out I was lying to her.”
The last hint of color drained from Hannah’s face, her lips parting slightly in shock.
She had not expected this–that in the moment Jason discovered her true nature, his thoughts would turn not to their relationship, but to Kelsey. In that instant, she knew she had lost him in a way far more final than their staged breakup had been.
Jason finally focused on Hannah again, really looking at her for the first time since the confrontation began. There was no anger in his eyes, only a profound sadness and something else–a clarity that hadn’t been there before.
“Hannah, I don’t blame you,” he said quietly. “But…”
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He trailed off, seemingly unable to find the right words, his thoughts still with a girl thousands of miles.
away.
Hannah gave a bitter smile, finishing his thought for him, experience having taught her to recognize defeat when she saw it.
“But you’ve realized you don’t actually love me. Is that it?”
The words hung in the air between them, a truth neither could deny.
