LOGINI lowered my gaze to my notes. "The subsidiary formation," Edmund said. "Legal wants thirty minutes before the end of the week." "Thursday morning," I said. "I'll need to be included," Alicia said. She turned toward Edmund. "Thursday morning works." "Both of you," Edmund said. Harlan looked at
Edward’s POV The term sheet was in my inbox at seven forty-three. Edmund had forwarded it with a single line. As expected. Your call on timing. I read it at my desk before anyone else arrived. Four pages. Precise. Volkov's committee had come back with exactly what the projection had asked for, th
Alicia'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 I was at my desk when she walked in. Helen's liaison. The one who had been shadowing me since yesterday. Clipboard. Tight smile. Heels that clicked too loudly. She stopped in front of my desk. "Alicia. Good morning." I did not look up. "Morning." "I wanted to check in. See how yo
Alicia's POV The floor was cold under me. I didn’t remember sitting down, but the folder had already been open in my lap for minutes, pages shuffled, my hands moving almost on instinct. Smoothing the fourth page again, flattening the crease down the center, trying to make sense of something that h
I leaned over her. My chest pressed against her back. My hand wrapped around her throat. Not squeezing. Controlling. Guiding. “This is what you came here for?” “Yes… God… yes…” I straightened, gripped her hips harder, and gave her what she asked for. The sound of skin against skin filled the room
Edward's POV I sat rigid at the glass table, shoulders locked, the numbers on the screen cutting through the room like steel. Goldman’s conference floor was always cold: marble, chrome, the hum of money moving in currents you couldn’t see. Across from me, Marcus Greene tapped a spreadsheet, each t







