LOGINDamien's POV By the time the rain began tapping against the windows, most of the executive floor had emptied.I liked the office better after everyone left. During the day, there were too many voices, too many footsteps, too many people appearing beside my desk with questions they could have answered themselves if they had bothered to read the emails I sent them. At night, the glass walls reflected the lamps and the city lights until it became difficult to tell where the office ended and the darkness outside began.Damien was still working.His office door stood open, and every so often I could see him moving behind the glass. He had taken off his jacket and loosened his tie, and there was something almost painfully familiar about the sight of him like that. I had known him in expensive suits and formal dinners, under wedding lights, in airports and hotel rooms, in the quiet hours after arguments when neither of us knew what to say next.I had known him before Claire or at least, I h
Damien's POV I waited until the penthouse was quiet before opening Tiffany's employment file.Claire had gone to bed nearly an hour earlier. I could hear the faint movement from the bedroom whenever she turned over, followed by long stretches of silence. I had learned to recognize the difference between her sleeping peacefully and the restless nights that sometimes followed a difficult memory, and tonight she seemed calm.I wanted to leave it that way.The conversation we'd had earlier kept returning to me, particularly the detail she had remembered about Tiffany watching us across a room. Claire had been careful not to turn an incomplete memory into an accusation, and I respected that. She had told me exactly what she remembered and, just as importantly, what she didn't.That left me with something I could work with.Facts.I opened the personnel system on my laptop and pulled up Tiffany's employment record.Her file was shorter than I expected.I had appointed her myself.That fact
Claire's POV The memory came back while I was looking through the photographs Emma had left on the coffee table.I had been sorting through them without any particular purpose, pausing over faces I recognized and others that belonged to people whose names still meant nothing to me. The photographs had become strange little windows into a life I had once inhabited without thinking about it. Sometimes I could look at one and feel absolutely nothing. Other times, something as small as a dress, a room, or the expression on someone's face could pull at a thread buried somewhere in my mind.I turned over another photograph. Tiffany was standing in the background.My fingers stopped.I had seen her face before, in photographs from the gala and in the memories other people had given me, but this time something changed.The room around me seemed to fall away.I was somewhere else.I recognized Laurent Group immediately, although I couldn't remember the exact date. The reception area outside o
Damien's POV The police report arrived just after nine in the morning, and I knew from the expression on Detective Reynolds's face that whatever was inside the folder had changed the investigation.He had asked to meet me at Laurent Group rather than discuss it over the phone. That alone was enough to make me cancel the meeting I had scheduled with two investors and ask my assistant to clear the next hour.When he entered my office, he carried a thin evidence folder beneath one arm and a tablet in the other. He didn't sit immediately. He stood beside the chair opposite my desk, looking toward the windows for a moment before turning back to me.“We received the technical analysis from the laboratory,” he said, setting the folder down. “The damage to the component wasn't consistent with an ordinary mechanical failure.”I leaned back in my chair.“We already knew someone interfered with it.”“We knew the component had been deliberately altered. We didn't yet know how precise the alterat
Claire's POV By the time Olivia and Emma arrived, the dining table had already become the subject of an argument.It wasn't a serious argument, although Damien had the particular ability to make even harmless disagreements sound like matters requiring a board meeting. He was standing beside the table with one hand resting on the back of a chair, looking at the plates Maria had arranged while Olivia inspected the place settings with the suspicion of someone who had been personally offended by the number of forks.“You have four forks,” Olivia said.Damien glanced at the table. “I can count.”“I know you can count. I'm questioning why.”“For dinner.”Olivia looked at me. “You see what I have to deal with?”I laughed as I came into the room. “You invited yourself.”“I was invited.”“By me.”“Exactly. Which means you have excellent judgment.”Emma followed her into the dining room carrying a bottle of sparkling water and immediately looked at the table.“I think Olivia is upset about the
Tiffany's POV By the time Damien returned to the office, the announcement had already changed the atmosphere inside Laurent Group. People were trying to behave as though nothing had happened, but their phones kept lighting up on desks, conversations stopped whenever someone important walked past, and every few minutes another employee found an excuse to mention Claire's name. I heard it from the reception area, from the assistants gathered near the elevators, and from two senior managers who were discussing the announcement in voices they probably believed were discreet. I kept my expression neutral while I worked through Damien's schedule. There were interviews requesting his comment, requests for photographs, questions from investors who wanted reassurance that the announcement would not affect the company, and invitations from news programs hoping he would appear on air. I sorted what needed his attention and sent the rest to communications, but I found myself staring at hi
Claire's POVThe problem with Tiffany Morgan was that she never did anything obvious because if she had openly flirted with Damien, I could have been angry if she had insulted me in front of other people, I could have defended myself and if she had behaved like the villain I wanted her to be, at le
Claire's POVBy noon, I had accomplished almost nothing. On paper, my morning had been productive. I had answered emails, approved schedules, finalized travel arrangements for three executives, and reorganized next week's board meeting agenda.In reality, I couldn't have told anyone what half of th
Claire's POVI barely slept again but the difference was that this time I wasn't staring at an empty side of the bed. Damien had eventually come upstairs sometime after midnight. I knew because I heard him moving quietly through the bedroom while he assumed I was asleep.Neither of us had spoken an
Claire's POVDamien stood in the foyer for a moment as though he wasn't entirely certain he wanted to be there and the sight alone told me more than I wanted to know.His suit jacket was gone. His white shirt was creased in places that suggested he had been wearing it far longer than intended. Dark







