You miss me don’t you

Larry laughed—loudly, almost mockingly, the sound echoing off the marble-paneled walls of the now-empty boardroom.

“You think you can make me pay?” he scoffed, stepping forward. “Pay for what, exactly, huh? Tell me.”

June’s posture remained rigid, arms crossed over her chest, her face composed. But inside, something twisted rage, confusion, and something else she hadn’t felt in years: that old, maddening pulse of heat.

Larry leaned in slightly, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Is this about me saying I didn’t want a woman like you?” he asked, his voice low, taunting. “Is that why you’re bitter, June? Or do you…” he took another step forward—“…do you miss the way I used to treat you in bed?”

He bit his lower lip with a grin, that old confidence rearing its head, dangerous and disarming. “Every night,” he added softly, “I remember the way you sounded.”

June’s jaw tightened.

She hated him. She hated how easily he could slip into this this version of himself that always knew how to get under her skin. She had buried that part of her past deep, paved over it with cold ambition and hard-won success.

But now here he was, smirking, swaggering, the same arrogant bastard he had always been.

And still, God help her, her pulse was racing.

“What are you doing, Larry?” she said sharply, trying to keep her voice steady.

“What exactly do you think I’m doing, June?” he replied, his tone teasing. “You come in here all high and mighty, waving your little victory flag like some corporate goddess, and yet look at you.”

He moved closer, enough that she could smell the faint trace of his cologne familiar, infuriatingly so. “You’re trembling,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper.

June stepped back instinctively, her eyes narrowing. “Don’t confuse anger with arousal, Larry.”

His grin widened. “Why not both?”

She turned her back to him, trying to put distance between them, trying to think. But her body betrayed her skin was flushed, her breath unsteady. How could this man, after everything, still have this

effect on her?

“This doesn’t change anything,” she said coldly. “You still signed control over to me. I own you now. Your company, your board, your reputation it’s all mine.”

Larry chuckled. “You think I care about reputation anymore? June, I lost that when I lost you.”

She froze. That she hadn’t expected.

He moved again, this time more slowly, his voice softening. “You think this is revenge,” he said.

“But if you really hated me, you wouldn’t be here trying to save this mess. You would’ve let me drown.”

“I didn’t do this for you,” she snapped, turning to face him. “I did it for me. To win. To finally take back what you stole from me.”

He tilted his head, studying her. “And what if I said I regret it?” he asked. “Pushing you away. Letting my ego get in the way. I was scared of how much I needed you.

That’s not an excuse but it’s the truth.”

June stared at him, her walls trembling under the weight of those words.

For a second just one she saw the man she used to love, not the arrogant executive, not the manipulator, but the man who once whispered dreams with her in the dark, whose touch had made her feel like the world could burn and she’d still be safe in his arms.

“No,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Don’t do that. Don’t pretend this is about love now.”

“I’m not pretending,” Larry said. “I don’t know what this is anymore. But I know what it was. And I know that right now, looking at you powerful, brilliant, furious I want you more than I ever have.”

She didn’t move when he closed the final distance between them. His hand brushed hers lightly, almost reverently.

“You hate me,” he said, his voice deep, velvet. “But you still want me. Just like I still want you.”

For a moment, the air between them crackled with unspoken tension. Her heart thudded in her chest. Every part of her screamed to shove him away, to remind him that she had already won. But her body betrayed her. Again.

She let him linger there, mere inches away, her lips parted, breath shallow.

“I could ruin you,” she said, her voice low, warning.

“You already have,” Larry murmured.

The silence that followed was electric. And then finally she stepped back, reclaiming her composure like slipping into armor.

“This changes nothing,” she said, eyes like steel. “You’re still under my control. Don’t mistake a flicker of memory for something real. Whatever we had? It’s dead.”

She turned and walked toward the door, her heels clicking like gunshots on the marble floor. Just before stepping out, she paused.

“But next time you try to get in my head, Larry,” she said without turning around, “make sure you’re not giving me more power than I already have.”