LOGINNever in my fucking life had I taken a girl on an actual date.
If my mother could see me now—sitting across from someone who actually challenged me instead of just agreeing with everything I said—she’d have a goddamn stroke.But it was nice. Freeing, even. Floris didn’t perform for me. Didn’t try to be what she thought I wanted.She just… existed. Sharp-tongued, unpredictable, completely herself.I’d never said that about anyone before. Any other girl would’ve been a performance, a calculation. This felt real.The feeling lasted exactly fourteen hours.My phone buzzed at 6:47 AM with alerts that made my blood run cold. Another breach. Bigger this time. Someone had accessed our most classified European contracts.“Fuck,” I muttered, scrolling through the security logs. “Fucking amateur hour.”Except it wasn’t amateur. This was surgical precision.“We have a problem,” I announced when Sia and Floris walPOV Anaise "You're going out again tonight?" Maya asks, that knowing smirk spreading across her face like she just cracked the world's most obvious code. "Ooh, is it serious?"I give her my best lopsided smile, the one that usually gets me out of explaining my messy life choices. "It's just dinner."Maya's grin widens, but she doesn't push. Just nods and grabs her laptop bag. "I'll be working late anyway. Another all-nighter at the studio.""Have fun creating art while I get lectured about my life failures," I call as she heads for the door.The second she leaves, my phone buzzes. Dad. Again.This morning he'd called demanding another "discussion" about my future, and when I'd said no, he'd gone full Roberto Martinez intimidation mode.Dad: I'll come pick you up at work, Isabella. Make a scene. Your choice.I'd caved faster than a house of cards. Me: Fine. I'll be there.Now here I am, standing on Dad's yacht like some trust fund princess, w
POV Anaise The elevator ride to the forty-seventh floor feels like ascending to my own personal hell.My phone buzzes with missed calls from Dad—probably preparing lecture number forty-seven about "family obligations" and "suitable marriages" while I'm over here trying not to have a complete mental breakdown.Alexander sounded stressed on the phone. More stressed than usual, which is saying something since the man's default setting is "controlled panic with a side of existential dread."I find him in the conference room, surrounded by what looks like the aftermath of a presentation explosion. Papers everywhere, laptop open to dozens of tabs, and that specific brand of CEO frustration radiating off him in waves."Where were you?" he asks without looking up.His fingers flying across the keyboard like he was composing the world’s most important angry email."Having lunch." I set my purse down and survey the chaos. "What's the crisis this time?""B
POV Anaise "I hate that apartment.""Mother, please." I take another sip of coffee, trying to pretend this conversation isn't happening at one of Manhattan's most exclusive restaurants."No, Isabella, I've seen the pictures Marcus sent. That shoebox downtown with the broken air conditioning and the neighbor who practices trumpet at midnight."Well, she's not wrong about the trumpet situation.My mother, Valentina Martinez, sits across from me looking like she stepped out of Vogue Italia. Dark hair swept into perfect chignon, diamond earrings catching marina lights, red lipstick precise enough to perform surgery with.Looking at her is like staring into a mirror twenty-five years into the future. Same bone structure, same stubborn chin, same eyes that could cut glass when pissed off.Which she currently is."Isabella, darling—""Mom, it's Anaise. Has been for nine years."She makes this loud, disapproving sound that could probably shatter wind
POV Alexander “Who are you currently fucking, Alexander?”I choke on my own spit so hard I’m pretty sure I just coughed up a lung. My grandfather sits behind his mahogany desk like some kind of corporate mafia Don, crystal tumbler in hand, watching me have what’s definitely the most undignified moment of my adult life.“Christ, Harold,” I rasp, grabbing his water glass because apparently nearly dying from shock doesn’t warrant basic hospitality. “Could you maybe ease into the interrogation next time?”“No.” His blue eyes are colder than a fucking glacier. “You’re thirty-two. You run a billion-dollar company. And the closest thing to a romantic relationship anyone’s seen you have is with your quarterly reports.”The walls of his study close in like they always do. Same mahogany torture chamber I’ve been summoned to since I was sixteen and suddenly orphaned. Same dead Coleman ancestors glaring down from oil paintings, j
POV Anaise “So this man took your coffee and made you his personal coffee maker? What the hell?” Maya’s voice cut through our apartment like a hot knife through butter, her dark eyes flashing with indignation. “He never notices you, never even tells you ‘good job’, and now he appoints another job to you? The one he paid his assistant to do?”I dropped my purse on the kitchen counter and shrugged, trying to look way more casual than I felt. “Well, it doesn’t really matter.”“You’re so down bad for him.”“I am not.”Maya snorted, crossing her arms over her oversized sweater. “Bullshit, Ana. Complete and utter bullshit.”Maya Patel had been calling out my lies since freshman year at college. We’d been randomly assigned as roommates. Me, the uptight finance major with color-coded everything, and her, the free-spirited art student who painted at three AM and left coffee rings on every surface.
POV Anaise “You shouldn’t be here.”The words hissed out of me like steam from a broken radiator. My heart was hammering so hard I could feel it in my throat, in my fingertips, in the space behind my eyes.He looked exactly the same. His black leather jacket hung loose over a white t-shirt, and he was leaning against the reception desk like he owned the fucking place.“Isa.” “Don’t.” I stepped closer, lowering my voice to a murderous whisper. “Don’t you dare show up at my workplace to Isa me.”He straightened up, that crooked smile spreading across his face like oil on water. “He wants to see you.”“I know.” The words came out sharper than I intended. “But not here. I’ve told you this a thousand times—do not come to my work. Ever.”“Isa, listen—”“No, you listen.” I was practically vibrating with rage now. “I don’t care what he wants. I don’t care how urgent it is. You do not show up here and make me







