Chapter 62

The weight of Drew’s presence was instant and the moment Drew’s voice cut through the office, the air seemed to shift.

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t even particularly sharp. But it carried that kind of authority that didn’t need volume, the kind that made people freeze in mid-step, heads turning toward the source before they even realized they were moving.

It didn’t matter that Max was already standing there, chest puffed and voice raised, the second Drew stepped out of his office, the balance shifted.

It was like someone had just dropped a live wire in the middle of the room. All that fury Max had been projecting suddenly had to contend with something colder, sharper… and infinitely more dangerous.

He stepped out of his office slowly, unhurried, like a man walking into a room he already owned. The soft click of the door behind him might as well have been a gavel striking.

Every line of him was controlled, shoulders squared, jacket perfectly in place, eyes fixed straight ahead on Max. But it wasn’t just the way he looked that made the room still. It was the weight in his gaze, the deliberate way he didn’t blink, didn’t flinch.

“Who the hell,” Drew asked again, his voice low and even, “is disrupting business in my company?”

The hum of the air conditioning was suddenly too loud.

Max straightened, his posture shifted, just slightly, like the force of it had landed somewhere deep. But he recovered quickly, squaring his shoulders, lifting his chin in defiance.

His chest was still rising and falling too quickly. His eyes narrowed into slits. “You,” he spat, his tone thick with contempt. “You think you can just come out here and...”

“Why are you here, Max?” Drew cut in, his words crisp, unbothered, almost bored and it left no space for stutters. “You’re not a client, neither are you an investor and you are most certainly not welcome here.”

Max’s lips pulled back in something between a sneer and a smile. “Why am I here?” His voice pitched upward with contempt. “I’ll tell you why. I'm here because I want to know what gives you the right to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. What gives you the right to interfere in my business? How dare…”

Drew didn’t even let him finish. “Everything you did,” he said, stepping forward once, “became my business the moment you thought you could sabotage my launch.”

The way he said “my” was heart piercing like he was staking a flag into the ground right there between them.

Around us, the rest of the office was pretending to be invisible. Pretending to type, to make notes, to check emails but the air was too taut, the silence too watchful. You could feel the curiosity pressing in from every angle.

But Drew wasn’t finished.

“You had the guts to plan with Kimberley to sabotage my launch, something I have spent time, energy and money planning. And you thought I would let you walk away scot free, well you must be joking. No one messes with me and gets free with it.”

“Also” he continued, his tone edging toward lethal calm, “for someone who thinks he is so wise, you have been played by Lila for such a long time now without even realizing it.”

My stomach dropped. The words landed between them like a small, controlled explosion.

Max’s head jerked toward me so fast I thought he might give himself headache. “What is he talking about?”

I could feel every pair of eyes in the room pulling at me, waiting. My pulse thundered in my ears. I wanted to shrink into the floor, but I forced my chin to stay up.

My throat tightened. My instinct was to look away, to step back into the safety of shadows, but Drew’s eyes flicked to me, steady and waiting.

I swallowed hard. “I knew, Max,” I said, my voice steady but quiet. “I knew you were trying to use me to get information about the launch. I kept you close because I… ehm, I was playing you at your own game.”

The silence after my words stretched long enough to make my palms sweat.

Max’s expression didn’t shift right away. It was almost blank, the way someone looks when they’ve been hit with news their brain hasn’t caught up to yet. Then, slowly, disbelief began to carve lines across his face.

“Wow,” he breathed, a humorless laugh slipping out. “I can’t believe this.”

He shook his head, his eyes narrowing further. “After everything I’ve done for you, after everything we have been through together, you have been working with him? With Drew Sinclair? To take me down?

He paced around for a while and came back to face me

“This is truly outrageous. Lila how could you? You have been feeding him information about me all these while? You and Drew Sinclair?”

His voice was sharper now, each word cutting deeper.

He stepped toward me.

My instinct took over before thought could, I stepped back.

“Max…”

His hand moved toward my arm, fingers curving like they intended to close around me.

But they never got the chance.

Drew was there in a flash, one fluid, controlled movement, his arm coming up, his palm pressing flat against Max’s chest. Max’s eyes darted down to where Drew’s palm pressed into his suit, then back up to meet his stare.

The push wasn’t aggressive enough to send him stumbling, but it was firm enough to set the boundary without question.

“Touch her again,” Drew said, and his voice was so calm it sent a shiver down my spine, “and you’ll regret it.”

It wasn’t a threat in the usual sense, no shouting, no posturing. Just a fact, spoken in the same tone someone might use to tell you it was going to rain tomorrow.

Max straightened, his jaw clenched, and his eyes darted between us before settling on Drew. Then his lips curved in something that could almost pass for a smile if it hadn’t been so bitter.

“Well,” he said, his tone shifting into something mocking, “isn’t this cute. Drew Sinclair playing the gallant protector. His gaze slid over me, deliberate, unkind. “Defending the woman who just admitted she has been stabbing me in the back.”

He let the words hang there, like bait.

Drew didn’t take it. His posture didn’t change, his gaze didn’t waver.

Max tilted his head, studying him for a moment. Then his eyes slid toward me again, slower this time, deliberate.

“Tell me something,” he said, his voice lowering just enough to make the hairs on my arms stand on end. “Would you still protect her if you knew her precious little secret?”

Something in Drew changed then. It wasn’t obvious, no raised voice, no visible flare of temper. But the air around him seemed to tighten. His shoulders squared just slightly, his chin angled down in a way that made his gaze even more cutting.

“What secret?” he asked.

The question felt like a weight in the air.

Max’s eyes didn’t leave mine. He didn’t look at Drew when he spoke next, but his voice carried clearly enough for everyone nearby to hear. “So…” he said slowly, almost lazily, “you haven’t told him.”

Every muscle in my body went rigid.

Drew’s head turned toward me, a flicker of something like suspicion passed through his eyes as he glanced at me. the look in his eyes sharp and assessing.

Max’s voice softened into something almost mocking. “You’ve been working so closely with him. Sharing late nights, sharing strategy, whispering details in his ear and yet…” He let the pause linger until the silence almost hurt. “…you’ve been hiding something very important from your dear partner here.”

I could feel the blood rushing in my ears, my heartbeat too loud, too fast. My lungs seemed to forget how to work, my palms were damp and my throat bone dry.

Max took a step closer not to me this time, but toward the invisible line between us all, the place where his words could hit both of us at once.

“It would be my pleasure,” he said, his voice low and dangerous, “to tell him your little secret. To tell him exactly what the woman he’s so eager to protect is hiding from him.”

The office seemed to shrink around us, the world narrowing to Drew’s sharp, assessing gaze, Max’s smirk curling like smoke around the secret I had promised myself I would tell before anyone else could.

This was exactly what I was trying to avoid. The heavy bomb that I feared the most was now hanging between us, ready to detonate.