MasukAlicia's POV His arm was across my waist when I woke. The room was grey with early light, the city outside still quiet, the type of quiet that belongs to the hour before a place fully commits to its day. I lay still for a moment. The weight of his arm. The warmth of the room. The dress lying acros
Her hands moved from my shoulders to my face, her palms cupping my jaw, her thumbs stroking my cheeks. It was a gesture of such unexpected tenderness it nearly undid me. Her eyes, dark and dazed, locked onto mine. In them, I saw not the woman I had wronged, but the woman I was with, in this moment,
Her hand anchored hard against the back of my head, fingers tangling in my hair, holding me exactly where she needed me. For a moment, I wasn't the man who had failed her. I was just a man giving her pleasure. She said my name once, twice, the third time broken completely, and her whole body arched
Edward's POV Her mouth was on mine when I got the door open. I walked her backward into the room, the city lights filtering through the window in thin strips that barely illuminated the space. Her hands were already at my collar, working open the buttons of my shirt with an urgency that sent a jol
Alicia's POV The restaurant Edmund had not arranged. Edward had seen it from the car on the second day and remembered it. No assistant. No agenda attached to the table. We walked there. He asked about Lily before we reached the first corner. "Is she still seeing the cardiologist every three mon
I ordered wine. The work wasn't finished. The room was quieter. She took the glass without comment. Drank. Set it down and kept writing. She spoke about the eastern corridor communities directly, without framing or adjustment, as if they existed in the room with us. Her hand moved as she talked, m
The silence extended. Longer. No one defended her. No one spoke. Mitchell leaned back in his chair, someone who'd heard enough. Catherine's attention had already moved elsewhere. Edmund wouldn't even look in Margaret's direction. It was over. Whatever Margaret had tried to claim, whatever po
Edward's POV Your name is on the door. Mine is in the foundation. My chest tightened at the thought. Her words from the bar still sat in my throat like broken glass. Richardson was talking beside me. Singapore expansion. Quarterly projections. His mouth moved through numbers that should have mat
Edward's POV I stepped back into the hall. Every head turned. Not the polite acknowledgment of a CEO returning to his seat. Something else. Something that made the air feel thin. The room had gone silent. Too silent. Margaret stood near the table. Her posture rigid. Face unreadable. Vivienne'
The sound of the door closing was flat and absolute. I stayed in my chair, listening to the silence settle back into the room. I didn’t get up to check if Edward was really gone. I didn't go to the window to watch him leave. The air in the studio felt different now that he wasn't taking up any o







