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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







