LOGINVincent POV“Graymark Capital?” I asked, arching a brow. “Yes, sir,” Cyril nodded.I kept my face pleasant and blank, the way I had trained it to be, but my mind was already moving, because I had heard of Graymark Capital. Not through Hayes Acquisition. Through the other channels. Graymark was old, quiet money that did placement work for families who did not like their names in filings. It had come up months ago in one of Theo's briefings, flagged in passing, an institutional player circling the Green Valley development. Circling Bennett Holdings.Circling Evelyn."The second thing?" I asked, and my voice came out steady."The invoices from Halloway. The billing software leaves metadata in the PDF files. Author fields, template names, that kind of thing. Whoever generated them stripped most of it, but they missed the template registry on two of the early ones." He pointed. "The invoice template was originally created under a company profile. The profile name is 'WFO — do not use.'""
Adrian POVI'd been sitting in my car outside Evelyn's house for forty minutes before Belle Nelson opened the front door in pyjama bottoms and a silk bonnet and looked at me the way a bouncer looks at someone who's shown up to the wrong club."Give me one reason why I should let you in," she said."I hate to see Evelyn in pain, and I brought bread""One actual reason, Adrian."I held up the bag from Carmichael's. Sourdough, still warm, wrapped in paper. Behind it, two bags of groceries. Onions, garlic, fresh thyme, celery, carrots, chicken stock. Everything I needed to make my grandmother's soup, which was the only recipe I'd ever learned, taught to me by a woman who believed that feeding people was the most honest form of apology.Belle looked at the groceries. Then at me. Then at the groceries again."She's asleep," Belle said. "She's been up since four-thirty, and she's been crying for most of it, and I just got her to close her eyes ten minutes ago. If you wake her up, I will end
Evelyn POVI woke up with a gasp, my hand clutching the blanket, my body hot and slick and pulsing with the residual aftershocks of a dream so vivid I could still feel phantom hands on my skin.My bedroom was bright with afternoon light. The clock on my nightstand read two-fifteen. I'd slept for nearly eight hours. My hair was plastered to my forehead with sweat, and my t-shirt was twisted around my torso, and the ache between my legs was very real, just like it had been in the dream. Did I have a wet dream? Involving the three men in my life?I lay there for a full minute, staring at the ceiling, breathing hard, waiting for the heat to subside.Then I got up and walked to the bathroom.The mirror showed me exactly what I expected. Flushed cheeks. Dilated pupils. Lips that looked bitten even though nobody had bitten them. The face of a woman who had just had the most intense experience of her life, and it had happened entirely inside her own head.I gripped the edge of the sink and s
Evelyn POV"Are you sure?" I sobbed. "Can you really fix this?""Watch me."She got me off the ground and got me inside. Guide me up the stairs and into my bedroom, where Biscuit greeted me with frantic yips and a tail that wouldn't stop wagging. She sat me on the edge of the bed and pulled off my shoes, one at a time, then guided me backwards until my head hit the pillow."Sleep," she said."I can't sleep. The investors. The launch. I need to call—""You need to sleep. You've been running on fumes for three days, and you look like death warmed over, and I say that with love." She pulled the blanket up to my chin with tenderness, and I knew she wouldn't mind pinning me to the ground to make sure I stay in bed. "I'm going to call my team. We'll analyse the article, trace the source, assess the market damage, and build a response strategy. By the time you wake up, I will have a plan. That's what I do, Evelyn. I make plans, and I execute them, and I don't lose."She put her hand on my fo
Evelyn POVI drove home with my jaw clenched so tight my teeth ached.The streets of Crescent Harbour were starting to wake up around me. Early commuters, delivery trucks, a jogger crossing at an intersection, a bakery with its lights already on and its doors still closed. The world going about its Tuesday morning as though nothing had changed, as though Bennett Holdings' stock hadn't just cratered by twenty-seven per cent and Grace's face wasn't splashed across every financial news site in the country.I gripped the steering wheel and tried to organise the chaos inside my head into something I could manage.For three days now, my life has been in disarray and in the history of how my life has been in shambles, this was by far the shittiest.Three days ago, I'd been on a rooftop terrace with Adrian, drinking my mother's wine and talking about paintings and butterflies and another universe where we were lovers. Then the wine had done something to my blood, and Adrian had done somethi
Vincent POVI looked down at her face.Her eyes were swollen, her cheeks were blotched with tears, and I felt my heart squeeze with pain. I’d caused her part of this pain, and somehow, I regretted it.I reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. The gesture was so familiar, so wired into my muscle memory, that my hand did it before my brain had agreed to let it. She closed her eyes at the touch, and a small breath escaped her, shaking and thin."You haven't lost me," I said.She opened her eyes. They were bright and wet and full of hope.Before I could see through the action, she rose on her toes and kissed me.It was tentative at first, her lips barely brushing mine, a question rather than a statement. I held still, letting her ask it, letting the choice be entirely hers. Her mouth pressed against mine, soft and warm, tasting salty and sweet at the same time.For a moment, I wanted to push her back and extricate myself, but desire coursed through my body, and I kissed her
Evelyn POVIf Isabella wanted to humiliate me, she had chosen the wrong woman to do it quietly.Evelyn Bennett did not do quiet, humiliation anymore.I took a deep breath in the back of my car, looking at my reflection in the compact mirror one last time.Isabella wanted to humiliate me. She wanted
Evelyn POVThree days.It had been three days since I woke up in the hospital with no memory of how I got there. Three days since I learned about the video. Three days of damage control and media spin, and trying to piece together what had actually happened to Belle and me.Now I sat in my office w
Gabriel POVI parked at the hotel and led Evelyn inside. The restaurant was visible from the entrance, and I could see Rowan sitting at a table near the window, eating lunch alone.I guided Evelyn to a position where she could see him clearly without being obvious about it. I kept my hand on the sm
Gabriel POVI arrived at my compound and immediately began preparingRowan was part of the top 10 hit men in Bangria. If he showed up at my house, then I would take it as a sign that he wanted to do two things. Number one: kill me and take over. Number two: make peace, and things would go back to n







