CHAPTER TWO

Arian's POV

I was ten minutes late by the time I returned to my car.

The chaos of the shop — the screams, the woman on the floor, the two men who regarded me as if I'd just wandered into an intimate conversation — lingered long enough in my mind that I almost expected to see them waiting when I returned. I didn't know why I'd stopped. My car had been caught in the commotion, true, but I could have waited it out from the back seat. It was what I'd done countless times before for other inconveniences of the city. Instead, I had gotten out.

I told myself it was efficiency. A blocked street wasted time, and I hated wasting time. It was the only explanation I could think of, one I repeated to myself over and over again on the drive to the office until I almost believed it. And yet, somehow, the image of her, on her knees, shaking, refusing to give in to the two burly men towering over her, haunted the recesses of my mind every time the road ahead required me to slow down.

By the time I walked into Z Corporation, I'd nearly forgotten about the whole ordeal. Nearly.

"You're late," Killian said, falling into step beside me as I walked past reception.

"I'm aware."

"There was a call for you. Twice. Your father."

Of course there was.

I didn't bother to sit before returning the call, and for a moment, it was good that I hadn't. Some conversations were best had standing up, ready to end the moment they became unbearable.

"Finally," my father said, cutting straight to the chase. "Where have you been?"

"Dealing with a matter on the way in. What is it?"

"The board met this morning. Early meeting, you weren't there, which didn't help your case."

My jaw tightened. "What case?"

"Arian." His voice dropped to a lower range, the tone he favored when he wanted me to understand it wasn't just him he was talking to, but the entire board. "They've made a decision. If you are not in a serious, public relationship within the next week — engaged, married, something they can put a name to — they intend to remove you from the position of CEO. Temporarily, they're calling it. We both know what things like that tend to become."

I said nothing. The silence on my end must have unsettled him, because he continued. "This isn't me anymore, Arian, this is the board. Lucas Valmoria has been feeding them the idea that you're unstable, too focused on control, without any real ties, nothing that gives them confidence you'll still be steady a year from now. Unfortunately, they're listening to him."

"A week," I said flatly.

"One week."

I looked out the window at the city below, the same streets I'd just driven through, still half-thinking about a woman on a shop floor and a stranger's blanket-wrapped mother, and wondered distantly how two completely unrelated problems could fall on the same morning.

"And if I don't?"

"Then I can't protect you from what happens next. I've done what I can. The rest is on you."

The call ended before I could say anything else — he'd never liked lingering on the line unnecessarily, especially after he'd delivered the part that mattered. I set the phone down slowly, already running the impossible math of it through my mind. One week. Not a month, not enough time to properly court anyone, not enough time for anything that even looked real. The board didn't want real. They wanted evidence. A ring, a name, a photograph they could show the shareholders and call stability. I'd spent years building this company into something that didn't need my life to justify itself, and now apparently, none of that mattered without a woman standing beside me in the right photos.

Killian knocked once and walked in before I responded. He must have seen the look on my face, because he didn't waste time with pleasantries.

"That bad?"

"One week," I said. "One week to convince the board I'm not a liability, or they push me out."

He whistled low, settling into the chair opposite my desk. "That's insane, even for them."

"It's Lucas Valmoria's doing. He's been whispering in their ear for months, and apparently they've decided to listen now, of all times."

"Do you have anyone in mind? Anyone real, I mean — someone this wouldn't blow up on you the second she's asked one question in public."

I almost laughed. Real. As if I had time left for real.

"No," I said. "But I need someone. Fast."

"Fast as in—"

"Fast as in I don't have the luxury of dating anyone properly before this week is out, Killian. I need something the board will believe, and I need it before they vote again."

Killian said nothing else for a moment. He didn't have to. We both knew what "fast" meant when it came from me — it meant I'd already be looking, and whoever I found wouldn't get the luxury of being asked twice, let alone courted the way anyone would want to be.

I thought, unbidden, of the woman from that morning. The way she'd fought two grown men without flinching, the way she hadn't once looked like she was waiting to be rescued, even while in the middle of being exactly that. I didn't know her name. I didn't know anything about her beyond the fact that her mother needed a hospital and that she'd looked at those men like she'd rather die than let them win.

I did, however, still have her mother's blanket practically memorized down to the stitching, because somewhere between crouching down to check a stranger's pulse and getting back in my car I'd managed to lose my card.

I patted my jacket down out of habit and found nothing. Gone.

"Looking for something?" Killian asked, watching as I checked my pockets a second time.

"My card. Must have dropped it back at that shop."

He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Killian had learned a long time ago which of my moods were worth questioning and which weren't.

Wherever it had ended up, someone was going to come looking for me eventually to return it, or use it, or both. Either way, it meant this wasn't over — not the shop, not the woman, not whatever weird thread had tied itself between us in the middle of that chaos.

One week.

I picked up my phone and stared at it for a long moment before putting it back down, my mind already circling back to a face I'd only seen for a matter of minutes.

Whoever found that card first was about to become very important to me — one way or another.