MasukThe elevator doors closed on the most pivotal moment of Aurora Vale’s life, sealing her inside the descending steel box with the man she had spent five years running from.But this time, the air wasn't heavy with fear. It was charged with something new. Something dangerous.A partnership.Liam stood next to her. He wasn't invading her space. He wasn't looming. He was simply... there. A solid, warm, quiet presence that felt less like a threat and more like a gravitational pull.He didn't speak. He didn't try to touch her. He just let the silence stretch, a truce woven from the thin, fragile threads of their new agreement.Co-parents. Co-CEOs.It sounded like a business plan. It felt like a tightrope walk over a canyon.Ding.The elevator doors opened into the lobby. The chaos of the morning had subsided, but the energy of the city was still frantic."My car is waiting," Liam said, gesturing to the glass doors where his black Maybach idled at the curb."We can take mine," Aurora suggest
The office was silent, save for the steady, rhythmic thrum of the city fifty floors below. It was a sound Aurora had once found terrifying, a mechanical monster waiting to devour her. Now, it was just noise.Inside the room, however, the silence was a living thing. It was heavy with the weight of five years, of secrets kept and lies told, of a love that had been burned to ash and was now, impossibly, trying to spark again.Liam Cross stood by his desk, his hand resting on the phone he had just used to buy a bank.He looked at her.His eyes were gray. Not the cold, slate gray of the CEO who had crushed her supply chain. They were the gray of a storm that had finally broken, leaving the air clear and sharp. They were raw. They were open."The records are sealed," he repeated, his voice low. "You are safe."Aurora stared at him. She was still holding the ring, her fingers curled around the cold, hard diamond. It dug into her palm, a physical anchor in a room that felt like it was spinnin
The invitation was not printed on heavy cream cardstock. It did not come with a wax seal or a courier.It was a single, digital line, blinking on Aurora's phone screen.From: Liam Cross To: Aurora Vale Subject: CollaborationMy office. Tomorrow. 10 AM. Alone.Aurora stared at the message. It was 9 PM. Ethan was asleep, safe in the "fortress" of Liam's guest suite, surrounded by guards he thought were "knights."She was sitting in the living room of the suite, a glass of water in her hand, her knees drawn up to her chest.Collaboration.It was a code. A lie. A trap.He wasn't asking for a meeting about fabric or distribution. He was asking for a confession.She had been living under his roof for forty-eight hours. Forty-eight hours of polite, agonizing distance. He had kept his promise. He had protected them. He had hunted down the leak—Sophia's "fixer"—and he had silenced Vanessa.But he hadn't come to see her.He had sat in the hallway outside her door at night—she had seen the sha
The Cross Empire tower was quiet, a silence that felt less like peace and more like the held breath of a storm.Liam sat in his office, the lights dimmed, a single glass of amber liquid untouched on the desk beside him. The "Anonymous Tip" from the last chapter—the text about Sophia, the betrayal, the footage—had sent Aurora running into his arms.It had been a victory. A tactical win.But it hadn't solved the puzzle. It had only deepened the haunting.She’s running to me because she has nowhere else to go, he thought, staring out at the rain-streaked skyline. Not because she forgives me.He turned away from the window. He walked to the safe hidden behind a panel in the mahogany wall. He punched in the code.Inside, there was a small, velvet box. Not the one with the thimble.This one held a ring.The engagement ring he had given her. The one she had left on the vanity table in the bridal suite, next to the pearls he had given her father.He took it out. The diamond was cold, heavy, a
The truce was fragile, built on sugar and silence.The "shirt incident" in the AVA flagship had not been a declaration of peace. It had been a pause in the hostilities. A moment where two enemies stood on opposite sides of a canyon and acknowledged that the other was... armed.And attractive.Aurora sat in her office, the morning after Liam’s visit. The white shirt he had bought—the one she had designed for him, even if she hadn't admitted it—was gone. But his presence lingered.She touched her wrist, where he had grabbed her at the gala. The skin still felt warm.Stop it.She stood up, shaking off the phantom sensation. She was not a teenager with a crush. She was a CEO with a target on her back.The "Fortress" collection was a success. The public was on her side. But the industry... the industry was a shark tank, and blood was in the water.Her phone buzzed.It wasn't Elias. It wasn't Sophia. It wasn't even Liam.It was a blocked number.She hesitated. Since the scandal broke, she h
The morning after the livestream, the world looked different from the eighty-first floor of the Cross Empire tower. Liam Cross stood by the window, his back to the room, a cup of coffee cooling in his hand. The rain had stopped. The sky over Manhattan was a brilliant, piercing blue, the kind of clarity that usually follows a storm. Below, three blocks away, the siege at the AVA flagship had broken. The paparazzi army had retreated, replaced by a line of customers that wrapped around the block. They weren't there for scandal anymore. They were there for The Fortress. He watched them. Women in coats, women pushing strollers, women in suits. They weren't buying gossip. They were buying a piece of Aurora’s strength. "Sales are up 500%," Adrian said from the doorway. "The 'Fortress' capsule sold out in ten minutes. The secondary market prices are insane. A scarf is going for three thousand dollars." Liam didn't turn. "She didn't just survive the trap, Adrian. She dismantled it." "And







