Chapter 67

Lila’s POV

The days leading up to the launch were a blur of motion.

Emails stacked up like towers threatening to collapse, phones rang off the hook, and every conversation in the office seemed sharper, quicker, like everyone was running out of time. I wasn’t just busy. I was consumed.

But my exhaustion had layers.

It wasn’t only the workload. It was the way my nerves lived on edge, the way I walked through each day bracing for something to strike.

Because Max was still out there.

I had not heard from him since that awful day in Drew’s office when he stormed in like a hurricane, spewing venom and nearly shattering everything I had tried so carefully to hold together. Security had thrown him out, but silence didn’t mean safety. Not with Max.

He was the type who thrived on lurking and waiting for the right moment to sting.

And so I looked over my shoulder all the time.

On the train, in grocery store aisles, walking down my block in the evening. Even inside the office, the one place where I should have felt secure, my eyes darted instinctively to the elevators each time the doors opened.

Paranoia was my constant shadow.

Yet, so very often, I felt something else.

There were nights I would get home and pause on my doorstep, the faintest sense prickling at my skin that I had not been alone on the walk there. Not in a bad way exactly, but I felt the presence.

I would tell myself I was imagining things. That stress and lack of sleep were making me jump at shadows.

But sometimes, the sensation carried weight.

Like someone was watching. Not to harm me but to guard.

It was foolish, dangerous even, but a piece of me wondered if it was Drew. If somehow, in his own silent way, he had extended his reach beyond the walls of his company, placing me under a protection he would never admit out loud.

It was ridiculous to think. And yet…

The thought burrowed under my skin anyway.

Drew himself was no easier to untangle.

Since that night at my apartment, the almost kiss incident, he hadn’t mentioned a word.

Not a look, not a hint, not the faintest acknowledgment that the air between us had nearly cracked open into something dangerous.

He was Drew Sinclair, after all. A master of control, I don't know why I expected more from him.

But ignoring something didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

If anything, the silence made it worse.

Because every now and then, I caught him looking at me.

Not the way a boss looks at an employee, not the detached precision he used on most people. No. With me, his gaze lingered longer than it should, carrying weight I couldn’t decipher.

Like in that meeting last week.

We were seated in the sleek glass conference room, everyone tense with the countdown to the launch. The air hummed with nerves as charts and slides clicked past on the screen.

When it was my turn, I stood, projecting my voice as best I could, breaking down the final creative pitch. I had rehearsed, refined, triple checked every word.

But Drew…

His eyes were on me, yet he wasn’t listening.

I could tell it.

Because while my words filled the room, his expression was distant, somewhere far away. His jaw was tight, his focus not on the presentation, but on me, not me speaking, but me existing.

I faltered, heat crawling up my neck.

Was I saying the wrong thing? Had I missed a line, or gotten a detail wrong?

It was his assistant who leaned in and murmured, “Sir?” snapping him back.

He blinked, cleared his throat, and said, “Repeat the last part.”

So I did. Pretending my voice hadn’t just cracked with nerves, pretending I hadn’t noticed the way his stare lingered like he was seeing something no one else could.

When I sat down, my pulse was still skipping, my stomach still knotted.

I told myself I didn’t care. That it meant nothing.

But the truth was messier.

Because I did care. Too much.

And the fact that he had rejected me before and cut me down cold after that night in my apartment made the confusion burn sharper. What game was he playing now? Or worse… was it not a game at all?

I shook the thoughts away at my desk, forcing myself back into the flood of work.

The launch was only days away. Just a little longer and this would all be over.

The thought should have been relief, but it landed heavy.

Because once this was done, my tie to Drew Sinclair and his company would be cut. I would no longer need to balance between his piercing gaze and Max’s chaos. I would no longer need to walk into an office filled with whispers I pretended not to hear.

And then… I would face the truth I had been carrying quietly for months.

My baby.

The secret that curled tighter inside me each day, the one thing I had somehow managed to hide from everyone.

It hadn’t been easy. Wearing baggy sweaters over my blouses and if someone asked I would claim the weather was too cold for me. I made up excuses about skipped lunches, wore makeup thick enough to cover how drained I felt some mornings. The bathroom mirror had become my enemy, showing me changes I was desperate to keep hidden.

So far, no one noticed the changes in my body. Or if they noticed, they kept their thoughts to themselves.

But the time was running out.

After the launch, I wouldn’t take another job right away. I would disappear for a while. Rest, prepare and finally breathe without the fear of someone piecing it all together.

I would raise my child without Max’s poison anywhere near.

That had to be enough.

It was all I could give right now.

The office buzzed around me as I worked, keyboards clacking, printers humming, colleagues trading hushed updates over cubicle walls.

I stared at my computer screen, the words on the page blurring together. My thoughts drifted despite my best efforts, circling back again and again to Drew, to Max, to everything waiting just beyond the fragile surface of this week.

I reached for my phone to check the time.

That was when I saw it.

A notification banner across the top of the screen.

There was a text message from an unknown number.

My heart jumped into my throat.

With fingers suddenly clumsy, I unlocked it.

Two words glared back at me in sharp black letters:

Hey, Traitor.

And just like that, the air vanished from the room.

My vision tunneled, the buzz of the office dimming into nothing but a hollow roar in my ears.

The phone felt heavy, like it had doubled in weight, like those words had sunk into the glass and branded me with them.

Cold rushed through me, but beneath it, panic surged hot and merciless.

Max.

It had to be him.

No one else would write those words. No one else would know the exact blade to press into me with only two syllables.

My grip trembled, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the screen.

Because those two words weren’t just a message.

They were a promise.

And whatever came next, I knew it wouldn’t be quiet.