Arlen looked down at his gripped wrist, then up at her furious face. He didn’t pull away. He just stood there, perfectly docile.
"You said no dry towels," Arlen explained, his voice melodic and entirely reasonable. "And you said you wanted to see your reflection. My sleeve is dry. I am only following your instructions, Ms. Mika."
Mika let go of his wrist as if it had shocked her. She stepped back, her chest heaving as she stared at him. She had wanted to humiliate him by making him do manual labor, but he was bypass-filtering her cruelty with a level of literal-mindedness that defied logic. He was ruining his own expensive clothes just to fulfill her petty demands, and he was doing it without a single shred of resentment.
"You are unbelievable," she whispered, her voice trembling with a mix of anger and sheer exhaustion. "Get inside. Just... get inside before you ruin the rest of your wardrobe."
"Okay," Arlen said. He stepped past her into the living room, carefully holding his damp sleeve away from his body so he wouldn’t get water on the hardwood floor. "Is the glass acceptable now?"
Mika looked at the balcony door. The spot he had rubbed with his cashmere sleeve was indeed spotlessly clean, gleaming under the afternoon sun. It was so clear it looked almost invisible.
"It’s fine," she spat, refusing to give him any satisfaction. "Go back to your room."
"Thank you," Arlen said politely. He walked quietly down the hallway, leaving Mika alone in the center of her vast, empty living room, feeling more defeated than she ever had in her life.
***
Next day, the sleek, glass-walled conference room of the talent agency hummed with the quiet murmur of executives, managers, and high-profile artists. At the head of the long mahogany table, a marketing director was projecting a slideshow of upcoming promotional campaigns, pointing at graphs and demographic charts.
Normally, Mika would be at the center of this meeting, commanding the room with her sharp insights and demanding perfection from her team. But today, she sat near the middle of the table, her chin resting in her hand, her gaze fixed blankly on the projection screen. Her fiery red hair was styled in a sleek, high ponytail, and her sharp eyes were narrowed in deep, silent frustration.
Under the table, her fingers tapped a rapid, impatient rhythm against her knee.
She couldn’t stop thinking about the balcony. She couldn’t stop thinking about the cashmere sleeve, the sparrow, and the absolute, maddening lack of friction Arlen presented. It was like trying to punch water.
Driven by a sudden, simmering irritation, Mika slid her phone out of her designer handbag and held it beneath the edge of the table. She needed ammunition. She needed proof that this docile, "brain-dead" act was just a facade. No young billionaire’s heir in this day and age lived without leaving a digital footprint of excess. He had to have a social media account filled with yacht parties, expensive sports cars, VIP clubs, and high-society models.
With a fierce scowl, she opened her social media apps and typed his name into the search bar.
*Arlen Adelaide.*
She pressed search.
Nothing.
Mika’s brow furrowed. She tried a different platform. She searched for variations of his name. *Arlen_Adelaide. AdelaideArlen. Double-A Batteries.* She even tried searching his grandfather’s name, Julius Adelaide, hoping to find tagged photos of the family. While there were plenty of dry, official business articles about the Adelaide conglomerate and Julius’s massive real estate holdings, there was absolutely nothing personal.
No personal accounts. No private profiles. No tagged photos at elite parties. Not even a dormant, empty page.
It was as if Arlen Adelaide did not exist on the internet.
Mika’s grip on her phone tightened until her knuckles turned white. *’Is he serious?’* she thought, her paranoia flaring to life. *’A complete digital blackout? He must have scrubbed his accounts before coming here. Or he uses a highly classified burner account under a fake name to hide his real, degenerate lifestyle.’*
"Mika? What do you think about the proposed venue for the album launch?"
The sudden voice of her manager, standing near the projector, snapped Mika out of her spiral. She blinked, her commanding, professional mask instantly sliding back into place as she locked her phone and slipped it into her lap.
"The venue is too small," Mika said smoothly, her voice carrying an effortless, icy authority that made the room instantly quiet down. "The acoustics in that hall are atrocious, and the VIP section doesn’t have a private entrance. I am not having my guests hounded by paparazzi before they even sit down. Find somewhere else."
"Of... of course, Mika. We’ll look into other options immediately," the manager stammered, quickly making a note.
Mika nodded curtly, but as the meeting resumed, her gaze drifted back down to her lap. She stared at the dark screen of her phone.
The lack of information didn’t soothe her; it only made her more suspicious. A man with no digital footprint was a man with something massive to hide. If Arlen was this careful, it meant his grandfather had trained him well for this trial.
*’You think you’re a ghost, Adelaide,’* Mika thought, her teeth grinding in silent frustration. *’But everyone has a weakness. And I have four and a half months left to find yours.’*
As soon as the meeting was adjourned, Mika was the first to stand. She swept her tablet and phone into her bag with a sharp, fluid motion, her heels clicking aggressively against the floor as she exited the conference room.
Carly, who had been sitting quietly at the back of the room taking notes, quickly fell into step beside her. She had to double her pace to keep up with Mika’s furious stride down the sleek, minimalist hallway of the agency.
"Whoa, easy there, tiger," Carly murmured, glancing around to make sure they were out of earshot of the other managers. "You looked like you were ready to fire the entire marketing department during that presentation. What’s wrong? Still thinking about that roommate of yours?"
Mika didn’t answer until they reached her private dressing room. She pushed the door open, stepped inside, and threw her bag onto the plush velvet sofa. Turning to Carly, her eyes flashed with a mixture of triumph and sheer irritation.
"He doesn’t exist, Carly," Mika declared, crossing her arms.
Carly blinked, closing the door behind them. "Who? Arlen? Did he evaporate?"
"On the internet. He has absolutely no social media footprint. No socials, no private accounts, nothing. I searched every platform under the table during the meeting," Mika explained, her voice dropping to a fierce whisper. "It’s a complete digital blackout. Do you know what that means?"
Carly walked over to the vanity table, picking up a bottle of hairspray and examining the label. "It means he doesn’t care about posting aesthetic photos of his coffee? Honestly, Mika, some rich kids are just extremely private. Or maybe his grandfather keeps a tight lid on the family’s public image."
"No, it’s too clean," Mika insisted, pacing the small room. "In our circle, everyone has a footprint. Even the most reclusive heirs have some leaked photo from a gala or a charity event. But Arlen? Nothing. It’s a calculated scrub. He’s hiding his true nature. He probably had his family’s PR team delete everything before he moved in, just so I couldn’t find any dirt on him."
Carly sighed, leaning against the vanity with a faint, amused smile. "You are turning this guy into a supervillain. Yesterday he was a brain-dead martyr, today he’s a digital ghost with a black-ops PR team."
"Carly, I need to find something on him. If I can’t find anything online, I’ll have to find it in the penthouse."
"Are you going to snoop through his stuff?" Carly asked, her eyebrows rising in mischievous delight. "The single suitcase you told me he brought? What do you think you’ll find? A secret diary written in invisible ink?"
"Whatever it takes to break his resolve," Mika muttered, her jaw tightening. "He thinks he can just slide under the radar by being quiet and obedient. But I’m going to find the crack in his armor."
***
By the time Mika returned to the penthouse later that afternoon, her irritation had simmered into a cold, calculated focus. She let herself in quietly, deliberately avoiding making any noise. She wanted to catch him. She was convinced that the moment her back was turned, Arlen’s docile, saintly act dropped, and he would be lounging on her Italian leather sofa, raiding her high-end pantry, or talking on some secret phone to his grandfather.
She crept down the hallway, her heart rate spiking with a mix of anticipation and spite. She reached the door of the far guest room and, without a single breath of warning, threw it open.
"Aha!" she snapped.
The room was exactly as she had left it.
Instead of catching him in some devious act, Mika was met with a scene of absolute, quiet domesticity.