Chapter 25

Matteo's POV

The moment my office emptied, the silence fell thick and syrupy, dripping from the ceiling like the weight of every word I’d swallowed instead of saying what I felt.

The screen glared up at me, not with numbers or strategy projections, but with a still frame of a photo of her lips against his, captured in a moment too perfect to ignore.

I’d received it anonymously, probably from the same venomous source who once fed me Isabelle’s half-truths and made me believe I could ever control the wildfire I’d set between us.

Her hand curled around his forearm in the photo like it belonged there soft, possessive, familiar nothing like the way she’d touched me with equal parts fire, fear, and unanswered longing.

His body leaned toward hers without hesitation, no tension in his posture, just ease the kind of ease I had spent months denying I ever craved for myself.

The ice in my glass had melted completely, my scotch diluted and forgotten on the table, but I didn’t move to replace it—I couldn’t move at all, trapped in that still frame.

The way she tilted her chin.

The half-smile on her lips.

It wasn’t for me.

And somehow, that realization hurt more than any betrayal I could’ve prepared myself for.

I should have been above this untouchable, detached, cold but instead I sat there like a man unraveling in silence, watching a woman I once dismissed become someone else’s entire gravity.

The room felt too warm, the shadows too close, my breath too shallow like guilt had taken the form of oxygen and now poisoned everything I had left unspoken between us.

The soft hum of city traffic below filtered through the glass like static noise, meaningless against the war inside my chest, where silence had replaced the beating I once trusted.

I leaned back in my chair, fingers steepled beneath my chin, watching the image of them burn on my screen like it had been placed there by fate just to remind me I’d lost.

Her eyes weren’t even fully closed in the photo, just lidded in that blissful, intoxicated kind of way people only wear when they’re finally where they want to be.

Not with me.

He held her like she was his home.

I had only ever held her like she was a mistake.

A temptation.

Something dangerous and not meant to stay.

Now he had the softness she once offered me like a secret, and I’d buried it under sarcasm, power games, and a cruel kind of professionalism that no longer felt impressive.

My fist tightened around the armrest, nails digging into leather, as if that would ground me, as if I could stop the ache by pretending I still had control over anything.

I’d lied.

To myself.

To her.

To everyone.

Pretending I didn’t care, pretending her presence didn’t scrape at something tender I’d long since buried beneath Armani suits, cold meetings, and people who feared me more than they respected me.

And yet… she never feared me.

She challenged me.

She looked me in the eyes like I was something she could survive, even love, even fix and I resented her for that more than I should have.

I pushed her away because I thought that was what I was supposed to do protect her from the mess that is my family, my ex, my reputation, my darkness.

But watching her kiss him?

That wasn’t protection.

That was punishment.

And the wrong person was paying for it.

She should hate me by now.

She probably does.

And still, all I want is to rewind everything to kiss her again, sober this time, awake this time, and without a damn lie waiting in my throat.

The sound of my phone vibrating snapped me from the spiral, but I didn’t check it, didn’t care because if it wasn’t her, it didn’t matter, and if it was… I wouldn’t know what to say.

The light from the screen dimmed, faded to black, but the image stayed burned in my mind like a scar I would carry longer than I had any right to deserve.

I sat in the dark for a long time, the only light coming from the streetlamps outside, casting long shadows across my floor like ghosts I had invited but never confronted.

The photo still burned behind my eyelids, even after I closed the laptop and slid it aside, like grief doesn’t wait for your permission to settle into the softest parts of you.

I could hear the sound of her laughter if I stayed still enough the one she only gave to people who earned her trust, the one I’d never really deserved, but still took like it was mine.

I told myself she was replaceable.

I told myself this was control.

But every time I look at her, I feel like a man holding an umbrella in a hurricane, pretending he isn’t already soaked through to his soul.

And now… she’s gone.

Not physically.

But emotionally.

And she’s never coming back to the version of me that thought distance was safer than desire, that cruelty was cleaner than vulnerability, that I could want her and still push her away.

I poured myself another drink, but it didn’t burn enough not like her voice does when she tells me I’m impossible, when she rolls her eyes and calls me out.

My phone buzzed again three times, four but I ignored them all, because if it wasn’t her calling to scream or cry or say goodbye, then it wasn’t worth answering anymore.

What would I say if she did call?

Sorry, I let you go?

Sorry, I kissed you once and made you think it mattered.

Sorry, did I make it matter?

The truth is, I miss her.

Not just her scent or her laugh or the way she walked into a room like she was trying not to be noticed but the fire she made me feel.

She made me want to be better.

She made me forget I was supposed to be cold.

And now she’s probably lying in bed with him, whispering secrets into his chest, giving him the version of herself I only ever got in fleeting, stolen moments.

I stood and walked to the window, letting the city’s pulse remind me that everything keeps moving, even when your heart is sitting shattered at the base of your goddamn ribcage.

I thought I could ignore it.

Thought I could bury it.

But wanting her… it never stopped.

It just got quieter every time I let someone else lie to me about what power looks like.

The worst part?

I don’t blame her.

Not for moving on.

Not for choosing kindness.

Not for kissing someone who makes her smile instead of shutting her down with clipped words and cold silences wrapped in tailored suits and broken boundaries.

I saw her happiness and it broke me.

Because I could’ve been that for her.

But I chose pride.

And now all I have is scotch, silence, and the echo of a woman who once looked at me like I was worth loving.

***

Morning came like punishment, sunlight spilling into my office before I was ready, slicing through my exhaustion like it knew I hadn’t slept, hadn’t moved, hadn’t forgotten what she did.

I sat at my desk, fingers tapping against the wood with no rhythm, no purpose just restless energy coiling like smoke in my chest, waiting for something to strike or snap.

He knocked at exactly 8:47 a.m. punctual, polite, irritatingly perfect, and walked in like he belonged here, like I hadn’t spent the entire night watching him in my mind, smiling at her.

“Ryan,” I said without looking up, voice clipped but calm, the kind of calm that hides teeth, that makes people lean in closer even when they know something dangerous is buried underneath it.

He paused halfway to the chair, uncertain, sensing the shift in air, the subtle threat that always lingered in my tone when I was preparing to do something I couldn’t undo.

“I wanted a word,” I said, standing slowly, walking to the bar like I was hosting, not interrogating, pouring two glasses of water instead of whiskey because this wasn’t a negotiation it was control.

He sat down carefully, eyes watching me, not nervous exactly, but alert, like he wasn’t sure if this was a meeting or a warning but he’d already walked through the door.

“I saw the photo,” I said simply, handing him the glass, watching his fingers tighten around it just slightly before he set it down untouched, as if to prove something unnecessary.

His jaw flexed.

Then relaxed.

He nodded once. “Alright.”

That was it.

Alright.

No apology.

No defense.

No defiance.

Just acceptance like he wasn’t surprised, like he didn’t care if I knew, like he wasn’t afraid of me anymore.

“You two seem close,” I said, stepping closer, not sitting, looming just enough to make my presence feel heavier than it needed to be, like oxygen thickened around my shadow.

“We are,” he replied, voice steady, clear, grounded and something in me hated how easy it was for him to say it, how true it sounded coming from his lips instead of mine.

I let the silence hang for a moment, let it stretch and tighten, waiting to see if he’d flinch, if he’d fold, if he’d give me a reason to strike harder.

He didn’t.

Instead, he looked at me like he knew exactly what I was doing and didn’t care.

“She’s not your property,” he added, quiet but sharp, every word aimed like a blade between my ribs.

I clenched my jaw, took a step back.

Sat down slowly.

“You think I don’t know that?” I asked, voice lower now, more bitter than loud, the kind of tone I only used when I couldn’t trust myself with the truth.

Ryan didn’t look away when I stared at him, didn’t shrink under the weight of my position, my name, my control he just sat there with maddening stillness, unbothered by tension.

“She’s not your property,” he had said.

And those words still echoed through my head, scraping bone, because he wasn’t wrong but hearing it aloud made something inside me crack in protest.

“I’m not trying to control her,” I lied, because even I didn’t believe it anymore, and the bitterness in my voice betrayed just how deeply I resented his place in her heart.

He didn’t argue.

He didn’t need to.

His silence said everything, said that he knew I’d lost something I never dared to fully claim, said he pitied me more than he feared me.

“Whatever you think this is,” I said, pacing slowly, “you should understand one thing office relationships bring consequences, and some people don’t survive them, no matter how good their intentions might be.”

I let that hang like smoke in the air.

But he didn’t flinch.

Instead, he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, voice calm. “Are you threatening me, or are you warning yourself?”

I froze.

Just for a breath.

He saw it.

And that was the worst part not that he challenged me, but that he saw through me, past the arrogance, past the tailored suits, straight to the part that bled.

“I care about her,” he added. “Not because she’s convenient. Not because I need her. But because I want her to feel chosen. Always.”

That hit harder than it should’ve.

Because it was honest.

Because it was everything I never said and everything I couldn’t give her when she needed it most.

“She deserves better,” Ryan finished quietly. “And I think you know that.”

I swallowed hard.

Didn’t reply.

Just stood there, fists clenched at my sides, heart pounding in a way that made me feel seventeen again stupid, reckless, and too proud to admit I was wrong.

After a long pause, I turned toward the window, hoping distance would dull the sting of hearing someone else say all the things I should’ve said to her first.

“You’re right,” I said finally, voice low, hollow, barely there. “She does.”

Ryan stood slowly, gathering nothing but his silence, his dignity, and whatever satisfaction comes from winning a war I hadn’t even been brave enough to fight.

But before he reached the door, I stopped him.

“Don’t hurt her,” I said, not as a threat but as a man who knew what it felt like to watch her walk away and regret every wasted second.

He paused.

Looked back.

And said, “Then don’t make me clean up what you already broke.”

The door clicked behind him, too loud, too final, echoing through the silence like judgment I couldn’t outrun not from Ryan, not from Sarah, and not from the part of me still in love.