Lucian

I stared at my phone for the hundredth time, watching my calls go to voicemail. Lexi wasn't just avoiding me, she was shutting me out completely. And with every unanswered call, every ignored text, I felt her slipping further away.

"Sir?" Marcus appeared in my doorway, looking as exhausted as I felt. "The board is requesting another meeting."

"Tell them to go to hell."

"Sir, with respect, that's not going to solve anything."

I looked up at him, seeing the concern in his usually impassive face. Marcus had been with me for eight years. He'd seen me through hostile takeovers, failed deals, and media scandals. But he'd never seen me like this.

"She's gone, Marcus." The words tasted like poison. "I finally found something that mattered more than this company, and I lost her because of it."

"You haven't lost her yet."

"She resigned. She moved out. She won't take my calls." I laughed bitterly. "What part of that suggests I haven't lost her?"

"The part where she cried when she walked out of here tonight."

I looked at him sharply. "What?"

"I was waiting outside your office. I saw her leave." Marcus sat down across from my desk, abandoning his usual formal posture. "Sir, in all the years I've worked for you, I've never seen you as happy as you've been these past three weeks. And I've never seen a woman look at you the way she does."

"The way she did," I corrected. "Past tense."

"Is it? Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like a woman who's terrified that loving you is going to destroy you. That's not the same as a woman who doesn't love you anymore."

I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to believe him. But the memory of Lexi's face when she walked out, broken, resigned, final, told a different story.

"It doesn't matter how she feels if she won't fight for us."

"Maybe she needs to see you fighting for her first."

Before I could respond, my phone rang. For a split second, hope flared in my chest. But it was Harrison Webb's name on the screen, not Lexi's.

"Lucian, we need to talk. Tonight."

"It's after ten, Harrison."

"I don't care what time it is. The situation has escalated. I'm in the lobby with three other board members. We're coming up."

He hung up before I could respond. Marcus and I exchanged looks.

"How bad do you think this is going to be?" I asked.

"On a scale of one to ten? Probably a fifteen."

He wasn't wrong. When Webb, Hayes, Morrison, and Clark filed into my office, their faces were grimmer than I'd ever seen them.

"Sit down, Lucian," Webb said without preamble.

"I prefer to stand."

"Sit. Down." His voice carried a weight I'd never heard before.

I sat, feeling like I was about to be executed.

"We've been fielding calls all evening," Hayes began. "From investors. From clients. From the media. The consensus is clear: this scandal is damaging Cross Media Entertainment's reputation beyond repair."

"The scandal will blow over," I said, but even I could hear how weak it sounded.

"Will it?" Morrison leaned forward. "Because we just lost the Hartwell account. Twenty million dollars in annual revenue, gone because they don't want to be associated with what they called 'unprofessional leadership.'"

My stomach dropped. The Hartwell account was one of our biggest clients.

"And that's just the beginning," Clark added. "Meridian Industries is threatening to pull out of the Henderson project. That's another forty million."

"Sixty million dollars in lost revenue in one day, Lucian," Webb said quietly. "Because you refused to handle this situation appropriately."

"By 'appropriately,' you mean throw the woman I love under the bus."

"We mean put the company first, like you've always done before."

The accusation stung because it was true. For fifteen years, Cross Media Entertainment had been my everything. I'd sacrificed relationships, friendships, personal happiness, all for the company. And now, when I'd finally found something worth more than profit margins and stock prices, they wanted me to sacrifice that too.

"What exactly are you asking me to do?"

The four board members exchanged looks. Webb cleared his throat.

"We're asking you to step down as CEO."

The words hit me like a physical blow. "What?"

"Temporarily," Hayes added quickly. "Until this situation resolves itself."

"You want me to step down from the company I built because I fell in love with an employee?"

"We want you to step down because your personal decisions are destroying shareholder value," Webb said coldly. "The board has lost confidence in your judgment."

I stood up slowly, rage building in my chest. "My judgment built this company from nothing into a billion-dollar enterprise. My judgment has made every person in this room rich beyond their wildest dreams. And you want to question it now?"

"Your judgment in business has always been sound," Morrison said. "But this isn't business. This is you thinking with your heart instead of your head, and it's costing us millions."

"So what's the alternative? Clark Morrison steps in as interim CEO while I what? Disappear until the gossip dies down?"

"That's exactly what we're suggesting," Clark said.

I looked around the room at these people I'd considered allies, some of them friends. People I'd made rich. People who owed their careers to me. And now they were willing to throw me away the moment I became inconvenient.

"No," I said simply.

"Lucian, be reasonable..."

"No." I walked to the window, looking out at the city lights. Somewhere out there, Lexi was probably crying herself to sleep, thinking she'd done the right thing by walking away. "I won't step down. I won't apologize for loving her. And I won't let any of you destroy what we have."

"Then you're forcing our hand," Webb said sadly.

I turned back to face them. "What does that mean?"

"It means we're calling for a vote of no confidence. Tomorrow morning, nine AM."

The room went silent. A vote of no confidence required a majority of the board to remove me as CEO. With twelve board members, they needed seven votes. Looking at the four people in my office, plus the allies I knew they had, the math wasn't in my favor.

"You'd really do this?" I asked quietly. "After everything we've built together?"

"You're doing this to yourself," Hayes said. "All you have to do is end the relationship and this all goes away."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then tomorrow morning, you'll no longer be CEO of Cross Media Entertainment."

They filed out of my office, leaving me alone with Marcus and the ruins of my professional life.

"Sir?" Marcus's voice was gentle. "What do you want me to do?"

I thought about Lexi, probably lying awake in Mia's apartment, convinced she'd saved me by walking away. I thought about the company I'd spent fifteen years building, about to be taken from me by people who'd forgotten that loyalty was supposed to flow both ways.

And for the first time in my adult life, the choice was crystal clear.

"Call the lawyers," I said. "All of them. And then book me a flight."

"A flight to where, sir?"

I smiled for the first time all day. "Wherever Lexi is. Because I'm about to prove to her that some things are worth fighting for.”