LOGINNadia POV I was in the middle of reviewing fabric samples with two of my assistants when Vivienne walked in. I didn’t hear the door open because I was occupied with work. She just appeared, like the rules of basic courtesy simply didn’t apply to her the way they applied to everyone else. I looked up from the table. My assistants both went completely still beside me, sensing immediately that whoever had just walked through our door was not a client. Vivienne stood in the middle of my studio, her coat perfectly pressed, her eyes moving slowly around the room in disapproval. She looked at the fabric swatches. The dress forms lined up near the windows. The logo on the wall. Then she looked at me. “We need to talk,” she said. I set the fabric sample down carefully on the table. I turned to my assistants. “Give us a minute please.” They both moved away quickly, disappearing toward the back of the studio, though I was fairly certain neither of them went far enough not to hear what c
Callum’s POV “You ruined good things for people your whole life,” I said, keeping my voice completely level, “because you couldn’t stand watching anyone around you get something you had decided they didn’t deserve.” “I was only protecting my family—” “Just like you destroyed your best friend’s life? Was that also protection?” I asked. The words landed exactly the way I intended them to. I watched her face go very still. “You know what I’m talking about,” I said. “I was young when it happened. I was young enough that nobody thought to explain it to me properly. But I wasn’t so young that I couldn’t understand what I was seeing.” Vivienne said absolutely nothing. “Richard was in love with someone else,” I said. “You knew that. Everyone knew that. He was going to marry her. He was genuinely happy with her, and she was your best friend.” Silence. “A friendship,” I continued, “that you were apparently perfectly content with right up until the moment she stopped staying in the pla
Callum POV I had been running on work and nothing else since the morning I walked out of Nadia’s apartment. Deliberately, with full awareness of exactly what I was doing and why. The hotel’s soft launch follow-up needed attention. Expansion planning needed attention. New investor meetings needed scheduling, then rescheduling, then scheduling again when timings changed. I stacked everything back to back, leaving no gaps anywhere in my days where my mind could drift somewhere I had no intention of letting it go. Mara noticed. I could see it in the way she looked at me sometimes, a half second longer than she needed to, clearly deciding whether to say something about it. But she never pushed. I appreciated that more than I knew how to tell her. ~~~ I was in the middle of a call in my penthouse that evening, standing near the window with my phone pressed to my ear, when the intercom buzzed. I ignored it. Whoever it was could wait five minutes. It buzzed again. Longer this time.
Nadia’s POV The heavy click of the lock closing behind him resonated through the apartment. The exact second the door shut completely, I fell apart. It wasn't a loud, dramatic crying fit. There was no screaming. It was just a sudden, total collapse. My legs gave out entirely beneath me, sliding down against the face of the kitchen counter until I was sitting flat on the hardwood floor, my knees pulled up to my chest, my coffee mug still somehow clutched tightly in my shaking hand. The hot liquid sloshed over the rim, burning my fingers, but I didn't care. I pulled my knees tighter and whispered, “I’m sorry,” to the completely empty apartment. Nobody answered. There was nobody there to answer me. I was entirely alone, exactly the way I had engineered it to be. ~~~ I sat there on my kitchen floor for a very long time after that. The morning progressed, the pale strips of light shifting across the wood. My coffee had long gone completely cold, a dark skin forming over the top, but
Nadia’s POV Not because anything about it was funny. He laughed because he simply didn’t believe me, not for a single second. The sound was dry and incredulous. “No,” he said, taking another step closer until he was nearly touching the edge of the counter separating us. “It wasn’t a mistake, Nadia. And you know it wasn't.” I braced myself, pulling my robe tighter around my neck. “I don’t want you walking away from this apartment this morning with the wrong impression. Whatever had happened between us last night was just a momentary lapse in judgment, and it can’t become something bigger than it already is.” I needed him to understand that the boundary was back up. That’s when he finally said everything he’d clearly been holding deep inside his chest for months. “I’ve spent months pretending I didn’t miss you,” he said, his voice cutting through the space between us. I stayed completely quiet, my chest already tightening so hard it felt like my ribs were snapping. “I did,” he co
Nadia POV I woke up first the next morning, the early light coming through my curtains in soft, pale strips across the ceiling. For a few seconds, in that hazy space between sleep and being fully awake, I genuinely forgot where I was. My mind was floating in a warm, heavy fog, and my body felt completely relaxed in a way it hadn't in a very long time. Then I felt the massive radiating warmth beside me. I turned my head slowly, the fabric of the pillowcase scraping softly against my cheek. Callum was still asleep. He was lying on his stomach, one large arm stretched completely across the mattress toward my side, his dark hair a complete, wild mess from the night before. His face looked calm in a way I hadn’t seen in months. It was unguarded. He looked completely at peace. I allowed myself a few seconds to just look at him. I watched the steady rise and fall of his broad back, breathing in the scent of him that now completely covered my sheets… champagne, clean sweat, and that disti
Ethan sat at the dining table in the Cross mansion, pushing his food around his plate without much interest. His mind was elsewhere, racing with a thousand thoughts about Ariel. She hadn’t spoken to him properly all day, and he hadn’t even been able to reach her on the phone. Each passing hour with
She pictured Luther’s face… not the professor in a suit, but the man in his apartment, the man whose eyes held such a fierce, protective spark. He’d hate her forever if he found out she betrayed him like this.“But if I don’t…”She pictured the alternative: the explicit photos of them together plas
Ariel stared at him, her mouth slightly agape, completely taken aback. “Are you serious?” she breathed, unable to fully process the magnitude of his sudden change of heart. “Yeah. Invite him over for dinner or something. I’ll play nice. I promise.” A faint smile touched his lips. “Wow. That’s… I d
Ariel's POV Stacy sat across from me in the noisy cafeteria, she had just returned from a long trip. I couldn’t contain my joy. Her presence was like watching the sun rise after a week of relentless rain. We sat across from each other, our lunch trays forgotten, laughing like we were the only two







