Chapter Two

Serena made it as far as her apartment before the first tear fell.

It slid hot and humiliating down her cheek while she stood inside the locked door with her purse still hanging from her shoulder. She wiped it away immediately, only for another to follow.

“Seriously?”

Her laugh came out wrong.

Serena dropped her purse onto the console table and kicked off her heels as Damian’s voice returned with vicious clarity.

I’ve grown tired of you, Serena.

She could survive that. At least, that was what she told herself.

People got tired of people. People changed their minds, arrangements ended, and theirs had always carried an expiration date. Three months from now, Serena would have been required to face the possibility of Damian ending things anyway.

It was everything else he had said that lodged somewhere much deeper.

I won’t risk tainting her innocence if any of this ever comes out.

Serena closed her eyes before walking toward her bedroom, reaching behind herself for the zipper of her dress.

Cecilia Arden was innocent. Cecilia deserved better, while Serena seemed to be the thing capable of tainting her, a stain Damian needed scrubbed from his life before presenting himself to the woman worthy of becoming Mrs. Taylor.

Serena pulled down the zipper and slipped the dress from her body. Black silk pooled between her fingers as she stared at something she had bought two months ago for no better reason than Damian liked black on her.

Idiot.

She had arrived at his penthouse wearing it tonight, and he had looked at her for all of three seconds before pulling her against him. He had kissed her in it, taken it off her and made love to her knowing that afterward he intended to stand beside that bed and tell her he had grown tired of her.

Serena’s fingers tightened around the fabric.

She walked past her closet and the hamper, continuing through the glass doors that led onto her terrace. Night air swept across her bare skin as she crossed to the firepit, turned on the gas and pressed the ignition.

Flames leapt to life.

Serena stood before them in her underwear for several seconds before dropping the dress into the fire.

The hem caught first. Flames moved along the silk, curling the fabric inward until black swallowed black and the edges glowed orange before collapsing. Serena watched the dress burn without looking away, even when her vision blurred and another tear slipped down her cheek.

Only when there was almost nothing left did she finally breathe.

She loved him.

That was the truth beneath everything else, and admitting it here, alone on her terrace, was somehow worse than hearing Damian say he was tired of her.

Serena had fallen in love with Damian Taylor despite knowing exactly what she had agreed to. There had been no promises of a future and no expectation that either of them would turn an arrangement into something it had never been intended to become.

She had broken the only rule that had actually mattered, and Damian would never know.

Serena wiped her cheeks and turned away from the fire. He could marry his innocent Cecilia and have the perfect future he had chosen, but Serena would never give him the satisfaction of knowing he had broken her first.

◇ ◇ ◇

By nine the next morning, Serena had received three emails from Damian Taylor’s attorneys.

Efficient bastard.

She sat at her kitchen island in a white robe, her coffee cooling beside her while she stared at the latest email on her laptop. Her eyes felt gritty from a night without enough sleep, but concealer could handle that later. The headache was going to require stronger negotiations.

She opened the document.

TERMINATION AND RELEASE AGREEMENT

Nothing said good morning quite like legal confirmation that a man had paid an obscene amount of money to remove you from his life.

The document ran twelve pages, naturally, and the language was as clinical as Serena expected. It detailed the original agreement, its effective date, the early termination, existing confidentiality provisions and a mutual release of future obligations. There would also be no acknowledgment of any relationship beyond the terms contained in the original agreement.

Serena’s mouth twisted. How romantic.

She continued reading until she reached the signature page and saw Damian’s name already there.

That stopped her longer than she wanted it to.

Damian Taylor.

Clean black strokes crossed the signature line, offering confirmation of something Serena should already have understood. He hadn’t waited until this morning to decide what he wanted. By the time he entered that bedroom last night, he had already known exactly how it would end.

Serena scrolled farther.

The remaining three months of their agreement would be paid in full. Beneath that provision came the additional consideration.

USD $30,000,000.00

Seeing the number written into a legal document somehow made it worse.

Thirty million dollars, not to sleep with him or remain available whenever he wanted her, but to leave.

Her phone rang beside her.

“Morning, Claire.”

Her attorney skipped the pleasantries. “Please tell me you haven’t signed anything.”

“I haven’t.”

“Good. I just received their copy.”

Serena reached for her coffee. “And?”

“And I’m reading it.”

“So am I.”

“Stop.”

A reluctant smile touched Serena’s mouth. “You do remember I’m capable of reading?”

“I also remember that you’re paying me an unreasonable hourly rate specifically so you don’t have to read twelve pages of wealthy men finding complicated ways to say simple things.”

“Fair.”

“Give me twenty minutes.”

The call ended, and Serena closed the document.

She lasted eleven minutes before checking her bank account.

The contractual payment was already there, along with another pending transfer large enough to make her stare at the screen.

Damian hadn’t been bluffing.

For one irrational second, Serena wanted to send every cent back and let him choke on it. The impulse disappeared almost as quickly as it came.

Absolutely not.

She had honored their arrangement, and Damian had terminated it. The remaining compensation belonged to her by contract, while the additional thirty million had been entirely his idea. If Damian Taylor wanted to make rejecting her this expensive, Serena saw no reason to interfere with his financial decisions.

Her phone rang again.

“Well?” she answered.

Claire sighed. “You can sign.”

“That exciting?”

“The confidentiality terms remain essentially unchanged. The noncontact provision is aggressive, but narrow. You can’t deliberately initiate personal contact with Taylor or use intermediaries to do it, but it doesn’t restrict your business activities, travel, social life or attendance at public events merely because he might be present.”

“Good.”

“The thirty million is additional consideration for executing the termination and release.”

“I saw.”

Claire went quiet for a moment. “Serena, do you want me to negotiate?”

Serena looked through the glass doors toward the terrace, where a charred scrap of black fabric remained in the firepit.

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Completely.”

“You could ask for changes to the language.”

“I don’t need changes.”

Claire knew Serena well enough not to push questions she hadn’t been invited to ask. “All right. I’ll send you the final execution copy.”

“Thanks.”

“Serena?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t sign while you’re angry.”

Serena looked again at Damian’s name on the document. “I’m not angry.”

It was almost true.

The final copy arrived six minutes after the call ended. Serena opened it and went directly to the signature page, but her cursor hovered over the box.

Nearly a year had been reduced to twelve pages.

She remembered Damian’s mouth against hers, his hand at the back of her neck and the nights he had called at impossible hours because he was still working and, somewhere along the way, she had become the only person permitted to tell Damian Taylor he was being an insufferable ass.

Then she remembered his voice from last night.

I’ve grown tired of you, Serena.

Her jaw tightened as she signed her name.

Serena Ellis.

She submitted the document, watched the confirmation appear and closed the laptop.

“That was easy,” she murmured, although her voice sounded strangely unlike her own.

Her phone rang almost immediately. The number was unfamiliar, and Serena considered ignoring it before answering.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Ellis?”

She recognized the voice. “Good morning, Natalie.”

There was the slightest hesitation from Damian’s executive assistant. “Good morning. I hope I’m not calling at a bad time.”

“Not at all.”

“I’m contacting you regarding several personal belongings remaining at Mr. Taylor’s penthouse. There are clothing items in the dressing room, shoes, toiletries and several other personal effects. I can have everything inventoried and delivered to your residence today, if that’s convenient.”

Serena’s gaze drifted toward the terrace. “No.”

“Would another day be better?”

“I don’t want them.”

Natalie paused before continuing more cautiously. “There are quite a few things, Ms. Ellis. Some appear to be valuable.”

“I know.”

“Would you prefer that we place them in storage until—”

“Dispose of them.”

This time the silence lasted longer.

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

“Are you certain?”

Serena picked up her coffee and discovered it had gone cold. There was nothing in Damian Taylor’s penthouse she needed badly enough to have brought to her door.

“Yes.”

“Understood.”

“Thank you, Natalie.”

“Of course.”

Serena ended the call.

◇ ◇ ◇

Natalie waited until eleven forty-three to tell Damian.

He was behind his desk on the thirty-sixth floor of Aella Group headquarters, halfway through a report on Street Nation’s quarterly projections, when she appeared in his doorway.

“The Ellis termination has been executed.”

His eyes remained on the screen. “Good.”

“No amendments were requested, and the transfer has been completed as well.”

Damian scrolled farther down the report. “Fine.”

Natalie remained where she was.

Damian eventually looked up. “What?”

“Ms. Ellis still has personal belongings at the penthouse.”

“Have them sent to her.”

“I offered. She declined.”

His hand stopped on the mouse, and this time Natalie had his full attention.

“What do you mean, declined?”

“She said she doesn’t want them.”

A moment passed before Damian asked, “What did she tell you to do with them?”

Natalie hesitated. “Dispose of everything. I asked whether she’d prefer storage, but she was very clear.”

Damian said nothing.

The instruction should have made things easier. Serena wanted nothing returned, which meant there was no delivery to arrange and no lingering reason for his staff to contact her after today.

“Then do what she asked.”

“All right.”

Natalie turned toward the door.

“Make sure anything important isn’t thrown away.”

She stopped and looked back at him. “Important to whom?”

Damian’s eyes lifted.

Natalie corrected herself immediately. “I’ll have the staff check.”

“Good.”

After she left, Damian returned his attention to the Street Nation report. Numbers and projections filled the screen, orderly and predictable in a way the last twenty-four hours had not been.

He reached the bottom of the page before realizing he hadn’t absorbed a word of it.

Serena had taken the money without negotiating, signed the agreement without requesting a single amendment and instructed his staff to throw away everything she had accumulated in his home over the better part of a year.

Exactly what he had demanded from her.

Damian returned to the first line of the report and began reading again, but the words still refused to settle into anything meaningful.

He had wanted Serena to leave without creating complications.

It seemed she intended to do exactly that.