LOGINMERET
Well... There were a thousand ways to lose your job. Hiding under your boss's desk after accidentally watching him masturbate had never made my list. Was this the end? I didn't move. If I stayed perfectly still, maybe he'd think he'd imagined me. If I stopped breathing... "Meret." My name rolled off his tongue with quiet impatience. "Don't make me ask twice." I bit down hard on my lower lip. "Get out from under my desk before I come down there and pull you out myself." My stomach sank. Slowly, I crawled out from beneath the desk, feeling every bit as pathetic as I must have looked. As I rose to my feet, I smoothed the wrinkles from my skirt and did my best to keep my eyes fixed on his face. I failed. My traitorous gaze drifted downward. The low-slung towel clung tightly to the hard outline beneath it. He hadn't even bothered to hide the unmistakable evidence of what I'd interrupted before stepping out of the bathroom. Adrian caught my wandering gaze and let out a low, arrogant hum. "Find what you were looking for?" he asked softly. "Mr. Beaumont," I began, my voice tight and painfully thin. "I... I was just organizing the files on your desk. I dropped my pen and—" "Save it, Meret." His interruption cut straight through my excuse. "You were standing in my doorway watching me." "I wasn't staring!" I lied, heat searing my cheeks. I really wasn't... right, friend? My eyes had just... happened to land on him, right? "I heard water running, and I came to check, but I turned around immediately—" "Of course," Adrian murmured, taking a slow step toward me. The distance between us disappeared, bringing with it the clean scent of fresh soap and the darker, richer notes of his cologne clinging to his damp skin. "Yet you didn't take your eyes off me while I was stroking my cock, did you?" Those words coming out of his mouth were just so... "No! That's—that's not what happened—" "You wished it," he cut in, his dark eyes locking onto mine with ruthless precision. "Excuse me?" My voice cracked. "You wished it was you," he repeated, lowering his voice until it became a dangerous, velvet purr. My eyes narrowed as I instinctively took a step back. He followed, closing the distance between us once again. "You wished your hands were wrapped around my cock, taking over for me." He took another deliberate step closer. "You've been wishing it, haven't you, Meret?" God help me. He was right. Less than an hour ago, I'd touched myself to the thought of him in the bed I shared with my husband. I was filthy. Hypocritical. Completely exposed. The worst part wasn't that he'd caught me staring. It was that he'd seen straight through me. He knew I was starving for him, and the humiliation of it sent a fresh wave of heat pooling between my thighs. "That's—that's completely out of line, Mr. Beaumont," I stammered, my voice trembling as I pressed myself flat against the edge of the desk. "I am a married woman." I was married. That should've been the end of this conversation. It should've made him step back. Instead... he smiled. A dark, lethal smile curled at the corner of his lips. He took a slow half-step closer before planting both hands on the desk, effectively trapping me between the polished wood and his towering frame. "A married woman who couldn't pull her eyes away while I had my hand on myself," he murmured, his voice dropping to a gravelly rasp that seemed to vibrate against my skin. "I've watched the way you look at me in meetings, Meret. The way your breath hitches whenever I stand behind your chair. You've been begging for this without saying a word." My breath caught. "Adrian—" "I'm a generous boss," he cut in, his dark eyes never leaving mine. "I think it's about time I start granting your wishes." Before I could draw another breath, his hand reached for the knot of the damp towel around his waist. With one smooth flick, the terrycloth slipped to the floor. An audible gasp escaped my lips. He stood before me completely naked, his cock stiff, heavy, and thick, jutting proudly toward my stomach. My eyes widened despite every instinct screaming at me to look away. It was bigger than anything my imagination had ever conjured, its sheer size leaving me frozen where I stood. A sharp rush of heat swept through me. Adrian didn't give me a chance to recover. He stepped closer, erasing what little distance remained between us. "Your fantasy is standing right in front of you," he growled, one hand sliding to the nape of my neck, holding me in place. He tilted his head, his gaze never leaving mine. "Reach out." My pulse stumbled. "Grab my cock." His thumb brushed lightly against the back of my neck. "And stroke it like you've been dying to."VALENTINAApex Secure Solutions.The number one security empire in the country.A company worth billions.And apparently, it belonged to Roman Calloway.I sat there, trying to absorb the information, but the more I thought about it, the more painfully obvious it became.I didn't know the man I thought I'd spent months slowly understanding.Not really.Not at all.I almost laughed.Nothing came out.Not even a breath of amusement made it past the tightness closing around my throat. I was too stunned to manage even that."Are you... mad at him?" Summer asked carefully.I lifted my eyes to hers.Mad didn't even begin to cover it.What I felt was closer to humiliation. The particular, sickening kind that came from realizing you'd been played quietly and completely by someone who had somehow allowed you to believe you were the one in control the entire time.And beneath that was something worse.A question I no longer knew how to answer.Who exactly had I fallen for?Because sitting in that
VALENTINAStay.One word shouldn't have had the power to undo me the way it did.Yet standing there in Roman Calloway's living room, with tears still drying in salty trails down my cheeks, I felt something inside my chest loosen.It was like a knot I hadn't even realized I'd been carrying until that moment, finally beginning to unravel.He wanted me to stay.I nodded, unable to stop the small smile that threatened to spread across my face despite everything.Roman exhaled, a breath that sounded almost like relief. The tension in his features softened, and a faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.For a moment, neither of us moved.We simply stood there, looking at each other in the quiet of his living room.Then Roman finally broke the silence."Let's sit." He gestured toward the couch."What did you want to tell me?" I asked as I followed him."Something you should know about me."He lowered himself onto the couch, and I sat beside him, close enough to feel the warmth still rad
ROMANThat evening, standing in the hospital garage, I told Valentina Rhodes I quit.What I didn't tell her, or what she probably never considered, was that I wasn't just talking about the job.I was talking about her.About whatever this thing was that had taken root in me somewhere between the first month and now. Somewhere between watching her tear a room apart with nothing but her words and watching her hands shake afterward when she thought no one was looking.Technically, the promise I'd made to her late grandfather had ended months ago.But I stayed because I wanted to.Because somewhere along the way, I'd stopped being able to imagine handing her over to someone else and walking away.The problem was that Valentina Rhodes was complicated.One minute, I understood her completely.The next, she'd say something so cutting that I'd wonder if I'd ever understood her at all.Maybe that was the problem.Maybe I'd let myself get too attached. Too invested. Too quick to step in where I
VALENTINAI kept asking myself the same question over and over until it stopped sounding like a question and started sounding like an accusation.Why Roman?Why did one man take up so much space in my chest?Why did I think about him so often that it had stopped feeling like longing and started feeling like an irritation I couldn't scratch away from beneath my skin?Why were my fingers hovering over his name in my contacts right now, at eight o'clock at night, for no reason I could justify to myself?Why did I want so badly to call him?I flipped my phone face down against the sheets and exhaled sharply, as if that alone could force the feeling back down where it belonged.I lay back and stared at the ceiling.By tomorrow, I would be legally married to Charles.My uncles would have nothing left to threaten me with. Everything I'd spent the last week fighting for would finally, finally be secure.I should have felt calm.Instead, something restless and wrong seemed to crawl beneath my
VALENTINAI had spent my entire life making sure no one had the power to hurt me.I built walls around myself, brick by brick, until they stood so high that even the people closest to me rarely caught a glimpse of what existed behind them.Roman Calloway had walked straight through those walls without so much as breaking stride.And yesterday, with my own hands, I had pushed him back out.I told myself it had been necessary.I told myself I didn't need him. That I'd never needed anyone. And I certainly wasn't about to start with a bodyguard who had overstepped every boundary I'd spent years drawing.For a few hours, standing in my kitchen with my chin held high, I almost believed myself.Then I stepped outside.The driveway was empty.No black Maybach idling at the curb. No tall, impossibly composed man standing beside the door in a suit that never seemed to wrinkle, waiting for me with that maddening patience I had never once thought to appreciate.Just gravel.Morning light.Silence
VALENTINA The silence in the room felt like a physical weight crushing my lungs.My grandfather’s empire. My legacy. My name.All of it flashed before my eyes, tethered to the cold, sterile tiles at the foot of Charles Thorne’s bed.Kneel before me and beg, Valentina.The words echoed relentlessly in my head.Just do it.A desperate voice whispered from somewhere in the back of my mind.Kneel. Secure the votes. Save the company. Ruin him later.Against every instinct screaming at me to preserve what little dignity I had left, I slowly unclasped my white-knuckled fists.My heart pounded violently as I pushed myself out of the velvet armchair.Charles and his parents watched me in silence.My legs felt almost numb as I took a single step toward the bed, my eyes fixed on the floor as I prepared to lower my knees onto the cold tile.Charles's smirk widened into a triumphant sneer.Before my knees could bend, the doors swung open.My head whipped toward the entrance.Roman stepped into th







