Chapter 3

The city below was a jagged landscape of glass and light, but from the sixty-fourth floor, it looked like a cold world I had finally mastered. I stood at the window of my office, a glass of scotch in my hand, watching the news ticker on the building across the plaza. My name was crawling across the LED screen in a neon loop.

​Calder Scandal. The Mystery Woman. Merger at Risk.

​I took a swallow of the peat-heavy liquid, the burn in my throat the only thing anchoring me to the room. My legendary restraint was a lie I sold to the world. In reality, my chest felt like it was being hollowed out by a dull blade.

​I turned away from the window and looked at my desk. Her old sketchbook sat exactly where it had been for four years. Frayed and worn. A personal thing she’d left behind, yet I had moved it across three office renovations. It was a fragment of a life I wasn't supposed to miss.

​The door opened, and Marcus stepped in. He looked like he’d aged a decade since breakfast.

​"The Sterling board is on line two," he said, his voice tight. "They want a formal statement. They’re using words like 'unstable' and 'character concerns.' If we don’t kill this by noon, they’re going to pivot to the rival family deal."

​"Let them wait," I said. I didn't look at him. My eyes were fixed on the security feed on my second monitor.

​A black sedan was pulling into the private basement garage. A woman stepped out. Even through the grainy, gray-scale footage, I recognized the tilt of her chin. Ellie. She was wearing a trench coat that looked too thin for the New York wind, her shoulders set in a line of rigid defiance.

​"Damien, did you hear me?" Marcus pressed. "We need a PR strategy. We need a denial."

​"We’re not denying it," I said, finally setting the glass down. "We’re leaning in."

​"What does that mean?"

​"It means you need to clear my schedule for the next hour. And tell the legal team to send up the draft I requested this morning."

​Marcus blinked. "The marriage filing? Damien, you can’t be serious. That was just a backup backup backup plan, not a—"

​"Get out, Marcus."

​He left. The silence that followed was heavier than the noise. I sat behind my desk, adjusting the cuffs of my shirt. My heart was thudding against my ribs with a violence I hadn't felt since the night I woke up in an empty penthouse and found her key on the counter.

​When the door opened again, the air in the room changed.

​Ellie didn't walk in; she drifted, as if she were bracing for an impact. She looked smaller than I remembered, or perhaps the office was just too large. The dark circles under her eyes were a testament to the night I had caused her.

​"You look like hell," I said. It wasn't what I meant to say. I wanted to tell her that I had spent fifteen hundred nights wondering if she was warm enough, if she was eating, if she ever thought about the way the light hit the Vermont blueprints.

​"Thank you, Damien. Always so charming," she snapped. She didn't sit. She stood in the center of the room, her laptop bag gripped in front of her like a shield. "You told me you’d fix this. Instead, you sent a car and a threat."

​"I sent a solution."

​I stood up and walked around the desk. I stopped three feet away from her. The distance felt like a canyon. Up close, I could see the fine tremor in her hands. The scent of her hit me—something floral and soap-clean, a sharp contrast to the expensive, artificial world I occupied.

​The silence between us grew, thick and charged. I didn't speak. I wanted her to feel the weight of it. I wanted her to realize that the four years she’d spent running had ended right here, in this room, under my roof.

​I watched her eyes move to the sketchbook on my desk. Her breath hitched, just a tiny catch in her throat, but I felt it in my own lungs. She looked back at me, her gaze locking onto mine.

​For a long moment, neither of us moved. The chemistry was still there, an invisible wire pulled taut between us, vibrating with every second of eye contact. It was raw and frustrated, a mixture of memory and current resentment.

​"Why did you keep it?" she whispered, her voice losing its edge.

​"It's just a sketchbook."

"That's not an answer."

"I know."

​"You have a thousand-dollar leather set in the drawer, Damien. Don't lie to me."

​"Don't do that, Ellie."

"Do what?"

"Look at it like it means something.” 

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the folded document. I didn't hand it to her. I held it between us. "You lost your Brooklyn project ten minutes ago. I found out before you did. I spent the last ten minutes trying to buy enough time to stop it."

​Her face went pale, then a furious, blotchy red. "You spied on me?"

​"I kept an eye on you."

"Four years doesn't erase everything, Ellie.”

 "If you’re going to be my wife, I need to know where you are hurting."

​"I am not going to be your wife."

​"Then they're going to tear apart everything you've worked for," I said, stepping closer. I was well within her personal space now. I could see the gold flecks in her irises. "Sign this, and the debt vanishes. The Brooklyn project returns, with a tripled budget. You get the main account. You get to be the designer everyone wants to hire."

​"And what do you get?" she breathed. Her eyes were searching mine, desperate for a crack in the armor.

​"I get breathing room."

"I get everyone off my back."

"I get one year where nobody can use you against me."

​I didn't tell her that I wanted to see her at my table every morning. I didn't tell her that the thought of her struggling in some damp basement while I lived in a palace was a slow-acting poison in my blood.

​"It’s a business deal," I continued, my voice dropping to a low, rhythmic cadence. "Twelve months. Separate bedrooms. No physical expectations. We appear at the gala next week, we do three interviews, and we sign the main papers. On day three hundred and sixty-six, we file for a quiet split. You walk away with enough money to build your own business from the ground up."

​I watched her chest rise and fall. She was thinking. She was calculating.

​"You’re asking me to sell myself," she said.

​"I’m asking you to let me protect you." I leaned in, my face inches from hers. The air between us was electric, the kind of tension that usually ended in a collision. "You left because you didn't want to be a shadow in my world. But look at you, Ellie. You’re drowning. And I’m the only one holding a rope."

​"You're the one who threw me in the water."

​"Maybe I did," I said quietly.

"But I'm still the one trying to pull you out."

​I set the contract on the edge of the desk and tapped a pen beside it. The silence returned, heavy and expectant. I watched her struggle. I watched the pride fight against the reality.

​She looked at the pen, then at me. Her gaze was fierce, beautiful in its anger.

​"I want a clause," she said. "No interference in my design work. You don't get to touch my sketches. You don't get to alter my plans."

​A ghost of a smile touched my lips. "Agreed."

​"And I want my own office. Not in this building."

​"Fine."

​She reached for the pen. Her fingers brushed mine, and the contact was like a jolt of high-voltage current. She froze, her eyes snapping to mine. I didn't pull away. I let the heat of the moment sit there, a reminder of what we were both pretending didn't exist.

​She signed her name in a quick, jagged scrawl.

​"Done," she said, dropping the pen. It clattered against the wood.

​"Welcome back, Ellie," I said.

​I reached out, my hand hovering near her jaw. I didn't touch her, but I saw her pulse jump in the hollow of her throat. I had never moved on. I had spent four years building everything except the one thing I actually wanted.

​"Don't," she whispered, though she didn't move away.

​"The stylist is waiting," I said, pulling my hand back. "We have a press conference to win."

​As she turned to leave, I felt the first real breath enter my lungs in four years. The deal was safe. My reputation was secure. And the only woman who had ever left was standing in my life again.

​Even if she planned to leave the moment the contract expired.