جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 74

The conference room is immaculate in that very specific, pre-audit way — chairs aligned to surgical precision, screens glowing with frozen dashboards, water glasses placed as if someone measured the distance with a ruler. The air smells faintly of coffee and ambition. At exactly 8:30 a.m., the doors open. The Board of Directors enters as a unit — dark suits, tablets tucked under arms, expressions carefully calibrated to serious. No wasted movement. No unnecessary smiles. This is the kind of entrance meant to remind everyone that today is about governance, compliance, and consequences. Sebastian steps forward to greet them. He does it perfectly. Firm handshakes. Calm eye contact. A voice that lands somewhere between reassuring and commandingly precise. The kind of tone that makes people trust him with money they’ll never personally see again. “Good morning. Thank you for being here. We’re ready when you are.” Several heads nod in approval. Then — because the universe ha

Morning doesn’t rush in.It slips through the tall windows slowly, pale gold stretching across the bare floorboards, softening the sharp edges of the empty rooms. The house feels different in daylight — less mysterious, more honest. The walls don’t echo as loudly. The space doesn’t feel unfinished.It feels quiet.They are still on the floor.No blankets. No furniture. Just the cool expanse of wood beneath them and the warmth they created sometime between dusk and midnight.Katherine wakes first.Not fully at once — just enough to realize where she is. The unfamiliar ceiling above her. The slant of sunlight touching the far wall. The steady, grounded rise and fall beneath her cheek.Her head is resting on Sebastian’s chest.His arm is wrapped around her waist — not tightly, not possessively. Just there. Like it settled there hours ago and never considered leaving.The position looks accidental.It isn’t.She stays still for a moment, listening.His heartbeat is slow. Deep. Calm in a w