Twisted intentions

June’s heels echoed down the long corridor outside the boardroom. Her posture was perfect, her stride sharp, but inside, her thoughts were a mess a cyclone of fury, heat, and unsettling memories. She didn’t want to feel anything for Larry. That was the plan. That had always been the plan. But her body remembered. Her heart, damn it, remembered.

“Tell me you don’t miss me, June.”

His voice rang out behind her like a shot. It was low, steady… daring.

She froze mid-step.

June closed her eyes for a second, inhaling slowly. “I don’t miss you,” she said, but her voice faltered at the end, the last syllable barely holding together.

Larry was already walking toward her.

“Oh really?” he said, his tone heavier now. “Then why can’t you look me in the eyes and say it?”

She turned around slowly, lifting her chin. Their gazes locked. He looked… worn, but not weak. There was a fire in his eyes she remembered too well. And behind it, that edge of recklessness that used to both excite and infuriate her.

“I don’t miss you, Larry,” she said again, more forcefully. “I don’t even care about you. So just go.”

He didn’t move at first. Then, without a word, he stepped forward.

One slow, deliberate step at a time.

June instinctively backed away, until her legs bumped against the edge of the polished conference table. Larry didn’t stop. He followed her until she had nowhere else to go.

He didn’t touch her not yet but the space between them shrank to a whisper. His presence consumed the air, and her breathing grew uneven, her pulse pounding in her ears.

“I remember this look,” he murmured, his voice like velvet wrapping around steel. “When you used to challenge me like you wanted to win but part of you didn’t want me to stop.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she snapped, but her voice cracked slightly, betraying her.

Larry’s hand finally reached out, his fingers brushing the back of hers not forcefully, not possessively, just… gently. And somehow, that light contact was more intimate than anything she’d felt in years.

“I miss my ex-wife,” he whispered, leaning in. “I miss the way you used to laugh when you were half-asleep. I miss the way you touched me like you were memorizing me. And yeah…” He leaned closer, his breath brushing the shell of her ear. “…I miss how you used to scream my name when you couldn’t take it anymore.”

June’s breath caught in her throat. Her legs trembled slightly, enough that she instinctively sat on the table behind her to steady herself.

She hated this.

She hated him.

And yet her body betrayed her again, reacting with instinct, with memory, with desire that refused to die.

His hands were now on hers still light, still not crossing a line, but warm and steady, caressing her like he knew every nerve beneath her skin.

“This doesn’t change anything,” she whispered, trying to convince herself more than him.

“It already has,” he said. “You’re not here because of business. Not anymore.”

She turned her face slightly, forcing herself to meet his eyes. What she saw there wasn’t just lust it was something raw, tangled, deeply unresolved. And, to her dismay, she knew the same storm lived in her.

“Larry…” she warned.

“Tell me to stop,” he said, his voice low.

She opened her mouth, but the words didn’t come.

“I’ve never stopped thinking about you,” he said, the words coming out in a rush now, like a truth he’d been burying for years. “You think this was all just desperation? Maybe it was at first. But when I heard it was you behind Williams Holdings… I didn’t pull out. I should have. Any sane man would’ve walked away.”

He stepped in even closer, their foreheads nearly touching. “But I didn’t. Because a part of me wanted this. Wanted you. Even if it destroyed me.”

June’s eyes shimmered, not with tears, but with something deeper conflict. She should walk away. She needed to. She had spent years building this moment, preparing for it like a general before war.

But war wasn’t supposed to feel like this. Like longing. Like something unfinished.

“You made me hate you,” she said quietly, her voice trembling. “You broke me. You tossed me aside like I was nothing.”

“I was afraid,” he admitted, finally. “You were the only thing in my life that made me feel like I wasn’t hollow. And I didn’t know how to handle that.”

Silence hung between them like smoke.

And then… June leaned back slightly, looking down at his hands on hers. Her lips parted, then closed again.

“I should fire you,” she said, voice barely audible.

He smiled, the kind of smile that came from a place of knowing someone too well. “You’re not going to.”

“Why not?” she asked, breathless.

“Because you don’t just want revenge anymore.”

His hand rose slowly to her face, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

“You want answers,” he said softly. “Closure. Or maybe just a reason to forgive me.”

Her eyes darted away. “Don’t be so sure of yourself.”

“I’m not,” he said. “But I am sure of this…”

He leaned forward, almost touching his lips to her cheek but stopping just short.

“I’m not done fighting for you, June,” he whispered. “Not by a long shot.”

And with that, he stepped back.

Leaving her sitting there powerful, brilliant, and completely shaken.

Alone in the silence, June exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She stared at the door he walked out of, her pulse still racing.

Damn you, Larry.

Because for the first time since this all began…

She didn’t know if she still wanted to destroy him.

Or save him.