Chapter 5

CASSIUS POV

I cancelled my gym membership that morning for one reason: to avoid a woman named Olivia.

"Would you like me to move you to our other branch, sir?" the receptionist had asked.

"No. Cancel it."

Three hours later, my driver slowed at my father's gate, and I was still irritated that I'd had to.

"Drop me here," I said. "I'll walk the rest of the way."

I needed the air. Walking up that long drive was the only way I could face my father without already feeling like I'd lost.

I had barely taken ten steps when something small and fast slammed into my chest. A bag hit the pavement. Keys scattered across the stone.

"Watch where you're going, Miss," I said coldly.

She looked up.

Bronze eyes. Red. Swollen. Wet with tears. Strands of ash-brown hair clung to her cheeks, and her hands were shaking so hard she dropped her keys twice.

Olivia.

For one second, neither of us moved. My body remembered exactly how she felt against me. I hated that.

"You," she breathed.

My jaw tightened. "Me."

The woman from the bar. The woman who had stared at me across a gym. The woman who had made me cancel a membership I'd paid a year for.

Her lips parted like she wanted to say something. Then her face crumpled.

"Sorry," she choked. "I'm sorry. I didn't see..."

I had no idea what to say. I had never known what to do with a crying woman, and this one was shaking like the ground had split open beneath her. She dragged her sleeve across her face and crouched to snatch up her keys, furious at herself for being seen like this.

I caught her wrist before she could run. "Are you hurt?"

She flinched, like I had burned her.

"Don't," she whispered. "Please. Not today."

Then she pulled free and bolted down the road without looking back.

I stood there like a fool.

A stranger, I reminded myself. A one-time mistake.

She was crying.

Bar. Gym. Now this. Three times in three days. I didn't believe in fate. I believed in patterns, and I didn't like this one.

I pushed her out of my head and kept walking.

It lasted until I reached my father's front door.

The Lance estate looked the same as always. Cold marble. Iron gates. Too many paintings, hung like trophies, because my father believed beautiful things were only worth owning when other people couldn't have them.

A maid was carrying a tray out of his study as I walked in. Two cups. One empty. The other untouched, the tea gone cold and untouched.

My father didn't entertain.

"Who was here?"

"A business associate. Close the door, Cassius."

I let it go. His business had never been mine.

Mr. Lance sat behind his desk, hands folded, face like stone. He was in his sixties and still carried himself like a man who had never lost an argument.

I sat. Not because he told me to. Because I chose to.

As a boy, this room used to turn my stomach every time its door opened. The paintings. The silence. The weight of his eyes. It had been designed to make people feel small, and once, it had worked.

It didn't anymore.

"I reviewed the promotion list," he said.

"Then you saw that Mr. Frank is the strongest candidate in his department. His sales rose twenty percent this year."

"Take him off."

He slammed the file onto the desk hard enough to make his pen jump.

"Promote the finance governor's son."

"Mr. Frank has worked for us nine years."

"The other boy has the right surname."

"I am the CEO."

"Of my company." His eyes went cold. "Don't confuse the title I gave you with authority you earned. Do what I say. Don't question me."

My nails dug into the armrest. Ten years of building that company. Ten years of being reminded whose name was on the deed.

"Yes, sir."

The words tasted like metal. I had learned to swallow a lot of things in this house.

I stood to leave.

"Are you seeing anyone?"

I stopped.

He knew the answer. Years ago, in this very room, I had made him a promise through clenched teeth. No heir. Not now. Not ever.

A faint smirk tugged at my mouth. "You know I'm not."

He gave a small, dry cough. "Stay for dinner. The chef made an extra dish."

He hadn't asked in years. I wasn't in the mood to find out why.

"I've eaten."

I was at the door when he spoke again.

"Cassius. Your housekeeper resigned last week."

"I'm aware. My assistant is handling it."

"No need. I've taken care of it."

I frowned. Why would my father involve himself in something as small as my housekeeper?

But my father did what he wanted, and I had stopped asking why a long time ago. A new housekeeper was just another of his whims. I would meet whoever it was when I met her.

I walked out, down the long marble hallway, past all those cold, expensive paintings, and into the evening air.

My assistant's message was waiting on my phone.

Board meets at nine. They expect Mr. Frank's name on the list.

I typed back with a steady thumb.

Keep him on the list.

Then I stood there beside the car, staring down the road where a crying woman had run. I told myself I wasn't looking for her. I was just looking at the road.

I called my assistant instead.

"Find out everything you can about a woman named Olivia. She works at the gym I just left."

"Her surname, sir?"

"That's your job."

A pause. "May I ask why?"

I looked back at the iron gates.

"Because I don't like loose ends."

That was all it was. Not curiosity. Not worry. Just a loose end that happened to have bronze eyes.

I told myself that all the way home.

And for the first time in years, I knew I was lying.