Visiting grandma Elena.

Lyra's Pov

Three days since Killian's surprise visit, and my phone was basically a horror movie in my pocket. Unknown numbers. Anonymous threats. Someone who knew way too much about my life and seemed determined to make me paranoid as hell.

Mission accomplished, asshole.

"Nice dress today. Blue really is your color."

"How's the bound wolf treating you? Still feeling incomplete?"

"Does your husband know what you did? What you really are?

Each message was worse than the last. Each one made my hands shake and my stomach twist. I couldn't eat not could I sleep. Spent every moment looking over my shoulder, wondering who was watching me, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And now I was sitting in the most important client meeting of the quarter, barely holding my shit together.

"—which brings the projected ROI to approximately thirty-seven percent over the fiscal year," I said, pulling up the wrong slide on the presentation. Shit. "I mean, forty-seven percent. Sorry, wrong slide."

Mr. Hashimoto, our potential Japanese client, frowned slightly. Damien's expression was absolutely murderous from his seat at the head of the table.

I fumbled with the laptop, my hands shaking as I tried to find the right presentation slide. Come on, Lyra. Focus. This meeting could make or break a twenty-million-dollar deal.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. Another text. Another threat. I could feel it like a physical weight.

"Ms. Blackthorne?" Mr. Hashimoto's voice was patient but confused. "The market analysis?"

"Right. Yes. The market analysis." I clicked through slides, each one seeming to blur together. Where the fuck was the market analysis? I'd spent hours preparing this presentation. Why couldn't I find anything?

"Perhaps we should take a short break," Damien said, his voice carefully controlled in that way that meant he was absolutely furious. "Give everyone a chance to regroup."

Translation: Give Lyra a chance to get her shit together before she torpedoes this entire deal.

"That would be appreciated," Mr. Hashimoto said politely.

The moment the clients filed out, Damien turned to me. "My office. Now."

Oh, I was so fucked.

I followed him down the hallway, my heart hammering against my ribs. My phone buzzed again. I ignored it, but barely.

His office door closed behind us with a decisive click. He turned to face me, and the cold fury in his eyes made me want to shrink.

"What the hell was that?" His voice was quiet, dangerous. "You just embarrassed both of us in front of one of our most important potential clients."

"I know. I'm sorry. I just—"

"You just what?" He moved closer, and I could see the tension in every line of his body. "You forgot how to do your job? Forgot that we've been preparing for this meeting for weeks?"

"I didn't forget—"

"Then what? Because that performance in there was completely unacceptable. You were unprofessional, unprepared, and frankly incompetent."

The word hit me like a slap. Incompetent. After everything I'd done, all the hours I'd put in, he thought I was incompetent.

Something inside me snapped.

"Oh, I'm so sorry my performance didn't meet your impossibly high standards," I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm. "Thank you so much for your overwhelming support. Really feeling that marital unity right now."

"This isn't about being married—"

"Isn't it though?" I laughed, the sound harsh. "Because I seem to recall you being the one who insisted I work here, who put me in this position, who made me your employee and your wife and apparently your punching bag when things don't go perfectly."

"You're being dramatic—"

"And you're being an asshole!" The words exploded out of me. "I made a mistake, okay? I fucked up. But instead of asking if I'm alright, if something's wrong, you just jump straight to tearing me down."

"Something is wrong." He crossed his arms. "You've been distracted for days. Constantly on your phone, making errors, unable to focus. So yes, I'm asking now. What the hell is going on with you?"

I wanted to tell him. Wanted to show him the texts, explain the paranoia, admit that someone was threatening to expose everything about my past. But the words stuck in my throat, trapped behind years of learning not to trust, not to be vulnerable.

"Nothing I can't handle," I said finally.

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one you're getting." I grabbed my bag, suddenly desperate to escape this conversation, this building, this whole mess of a life I'd created. "If you want to fire me for one bad meeting, go ahead. But don't pretend you actually care about what's wrong. We both know this is just a business arrangement."

I was out the door before he could respond, my eyes burning with tears I refused to shed in front of him.

---

I ended up at Elena's place without really meaning to. Damien's grandmother lived in this gorgeous brownstone in the old part of the city, the kind of place that smelled like lavender and old books and something comforting I couldn't quite name.

She opened the door in her usual elegant way, took one look at my face, and simply said, "Tea or whiskey?"

"Is both an option?"

"Always." She ushered me inside, her hand warm on my shoulder. "Come. Sit. Tell me what my grandson has done now."

"How do you know it was Damien?" I sank into her impossibly comfortable couch.

"Because you have that particular look of someone who's been dealing with a Blackthorne man." She disappeared into the kitchen, returning with two cups of tea and two generous glasses of whiskey. "They're exhausting, aren't they? All that pride and control and emotional constipation."

I snorted, nearly choking on my whiskey. "Emotional constipation. That's... actually perfect."

"I've had seventy years to perfect my observations." She settled into her chair, studying me with those sharp eyes that seemed to see everything. "Now. What happened?"

And somehow, with this woman I barely knew, the words came pouring out. The texts. The paranoia. The meeting disaster. Damien's cold fury and my explosive response.