The Glass Ultimatum
Ethan Montgomery
Singapore’s humidity didn’t stop at the bulletproof glass. It clawed beneath my skin, thickening my blood into a heavy, electric pulse.
Sixty stories up, the city-state sprawled like a glowing circuit board under the indecent glare of the sun.
The triple-paned windows killed the street noise, but I felt the city’s vibration thrumming through the soles of my feet. A constant, jagged reminder of the machine I ran.
My eyes didn’t linger on the perfect geometry of the Marina Bay skyscrapers.
I looked south. Toward the horizon blurred by a haze of heat. Out there, Bali breathed in the shadows.
Bali. My obsession. My primal sin.
The Serenity Silk wasn’t just a resort. It wasn’t another real estate play to fatten the Montgomery accounts.
It was a body I had sculpted. Stone by stone. Wood by wood.
Those infinity pools? They weren’t concrete and salt water. They were the languid curves of a woman surrendering to the sun. A silent invitation to drown.
I’d designed every villa to nestle into the jungle’s lap like a secret whispered against a shivering neck.
The earth there was dark, fertile, and damp. It clung to your skin until you lost your mind.
Bali demanded total surrender. In return, it promised a power more visceral, more raw, than any chemical high.
It was my only truth in a world of fakes.
“You’re not listening, Ethan. As usual. You’re lost in that tropical delusion.”
Alistair’s voice sliced through my trance like a blade of ice.
I swiveled slowly in my white leather chair. The friction of the material against my black silk shirt sent a sharp, unwanted shiver down my spine.
I hated reality. Especially when it wore my older brother’s austere face.
On the massive wall screen, Alistair was all cold edges and judgment.
Behind him, my father’s London office exhaled its scent of old wood and dusty privilege. The world I’d been running from since I was twenty.
Alistair was the perfect heir. Three-piece suit. Tie cinched like a noose. Eyes devoid of a spark.
With a flick of his wrist, he tossed a digital copy of theDaily Mailinto the frame. He zoomed in.
The image was a punch to the gut.
Bangkok. Three nights ago. Outside the Sky Bar.
I was stumbling out, skin slick with sweat, shirt hanging open. I’d lost the buttons to some frantic struggle—romantic or alcoholic, I couldn’t remember.
A model hung off my neck. I remembered the cloying scent of her gardenia perfume. Her lips had hunted mine wildly under the predatory flashes of the paparazzi.
I recalled the sting of her nails in my nape. The scorched taste of vodka on her tongue.
A necessary distraction. A dopamine hit to silence the aching void that gnawed at me every time I left my construction sites.
The headline screamed in bold, black ink:
The Montgomery Heir: The King of Debauchery Strikes Again.
“It was an opening, Alistair,” I said.
My voice came out low, heavy with the quiet arrogance that drove him insane.
“We sell dreams and heat. I’m the ambassador. People don’t come to us to sleep. They come for the kind of filth they’re too scared to imagine at home.”
“You’re a loose cannon, Ethan. A threat to our stock price.”
Alistair leaned toward the camera, eyes flickering with a cruel triumph.
“The board is done. They’re tired of the stock dipping every time a girl half your age crawls out of your bed.”
He paused, letting the silence burn.
“You have six months to stabilize your image. No more starlets. No more tabloid queens.”
“What are you saying?” I ground my teeth, my jaw locking tight.
“Find a woman of substance. Someone to reassure the banks for the Asia branch launch. An alliance, Ethan. An engagement... a marriage. I don’t care what you call the contract.”
The blow landed physically. My gut cramped; the air vanished from my lungs.
“You’re joking,” I snapped. “That’s nineteenth-century bullshit.”
“We don’t care,” he cut in, his tone flat. “You sold the press an image of debauchery? Fine. Use that same talent to sell them a redemption arc.”
He leaned back, his face a mask of stone.
“Six months. If you aren’t standing next to a woman capable of holding her rank—and holding you back—we’re stripping you of your operational control.”
The screen went black.
The silence was more suffocating than the Singapore heat.
I stood abruptly, ripping my tie off in one frantic motion. My suit jacket felt like a straitjacket, pinning back muscles coiled with fury.
I marched to the crystal bar and downed a whiskey in one go. The liquid seared my throat, but it wasn’t enough.
No one was taking my crown jewel.
The Serenity Silk was my sweat. My blood. My breath.
I’d rather burn every villa to the ground than leave them to those old men in gray suits.
The office door swung open without a knock.
Adrien and Santiago strolled in. They had that relaxed air that made my blood boil. They’d heard everything.
“So, the wolf has to play sheep?” Adrien flopped onto the sofa with a smirk. “Looking for a Mrs. Montgomery? I know a few candidates who’d kill for the job.”
“You think this is funny?” I growled, my fists clenched against the mahogany desk.
“I need an ally. A woman who sees this as a business strategy. A contract where both parties win.”
Santiago crossed his legs, his dark eyes challenging. “A woman who isn’t impressed by your name or your cash? Good luck, Ethan. In this world, they can smell power from a mile away.”
I turned back to the window. My reflection stared back—a man whose ambition consumed everything. A man backed into a corner.
I didn’t want love.
Love was a flaw. A bug in the system.
I wanted a woman who could wear my diamonds by day and endure my darkness by night. No questions asked.
If I had to sell my soul to keep Bali, I’d make damn sure the devil wore a designer dress.
And I’d sign that contract in blood.
