All Chapters of Hearts at the Helm:A Billionaire's Gamble on Love: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

The boardroom door hissed shut behind Jonah Jones, shutting him and shutting Clarkson Roberts off in their own vacuum of creation. The silence was immediate, a stark contrast to the fiery confrontation that had just been fought. The air itself seemed charged, vibrating with the echoes of Jonah's defiance.Clarkson stood motionless at the head of the obsidian table, his knuckles resting on the cool, polished surface. The ghost of Jonah’s final, searing indictment hung in the room. “You’re not building a legacy; you’re building a monument to your own fear!”The words should have been water on stone. His name was Clarkson Roberts. He was protected by billions, by a lifetime of oppression and suits of corporate armor. But the words had found a crack, a hairline fracture in the unbreakable foundation he'd believed existed.He could still see it: the angry, unrelenting light in Jonah's blue eyes, the obstinate thrust of his jaw, the way his passion seemed to fill out his physique in the roo

The dining salon aboard the Andromeda was a scene of restrained chaos. The sleek, contemporary room, all chrome and low-slung leather, had the ambiance of the inside of a precision timepiece just as its mainspring was about to burst. The subdued, tense undercurrent of the Roberts Global board was a grating hum beneath the rising keen of the gale outside. Beyond the broad panoramic windows, the Manhattan skyline was being eaten by a bruised, purpling dusk. The first heavy drops of rain began to streak the glass like frantic, silver tears, and the gentle, reassuring rock of the yacht developed into a stomach-plummeting sway.Jonah felt the motion of the deck beneath his feet, a bodily echo of the uncertain ground on which he stood. He faced the head of the obsidian table, a lone figure in front of a tribunal of suited suits and calculating eyes. Their collective skepticism was a physical force against his chest. On the other side of the room, propped against the bar with an infuriating,

The New York Maritime Preservation Society charity gala was a sea of sparkly gowns and tailored tuxedos, a clinking soundscape and whispering small talk. Jonah hovered beside a towering ice model of a schooner, feeling like a fake in the borrowed finery of Clarkson's universe. He'd swapped his architect's boots for shiny Oxfords, but the quiet of the lavish ballroom was more claustrophobic than the din of his basement server room.Standing imperial in the corner of the room, a king unto himself, Clarkson moved through the crowds with smooth ease, his handshakes, his smiles never reaching his eyes. Magnetic, powerful, totally in control. Ideal mask.Jonah was about to retreat into the relative safety of the open balcony when a man with a kindly, weather-creased face and crinkled edges to his eyes walked towards him. He held a glass of champagne but his grasp was that of one more accustomed to a ship's wheel than to a crystal flute.“You’re the Jones boy, aren’t you?” the man said, his

The penthouse was a glass cage suspended above a city of judgment. Jonah stood against the floor-to-ceiling glass, and he observed the lights of Manhattan twinkling like a bed of cold diamonds. The silence that followed the SEC's abrupt departure was more burdensome than any noise. Clarkson had ushered them away with a chilly, clipped command that would not be denied, but the damage was already done. The specter of Aether Maritime was now an official probe.He heard the ring of crystal behind him. He turned to find Clarkson behind the bar, pouring two large measures of a rich, amber whiskey into heavy cut-glass tumblers. The CEO's actions were economical, restrained, but the tension in his shoulders was a live wire."Sit," Clarkson said, without a glance. He bore the glasses over to a low-slung leather sofa set facing the breathtaking, accusatory view.Jonah didn't budge. "You really think drinking is going to fix this?""No," said Clarkson, expressionless. He set one of the glasses o

The air in the Roberts Global investor mixer, sixty floors above Manhattan, was a reeling mix of designer cologne and supporting prices, cigar smoke, and low, growling thrum of dealmaking. The party was in full swing, a carefully choreographed ballet of power and influence. Clarkson pushed through the crowd with all the ease in the world of a shark moving through familiar waters—courteous, charming, but utterly inaccessible, a granite fortress thrust up out of a sea of sycophants and rivals.Jonah stood next to a fern in a pot which probably cost him more than his rent for a month, a specimen from a natural history museum of curiosities. He had been instructed to appear, to be "seen but not heard," a breathing prize for Clarkson's supposed commitment to creativity. Having made it through the boardroom triumph, his presence was sufficient evidence.From across the room, he observed Harper Lane walking a man in the direction of Clarkson. The man, Gerald Hopkins, was a Boston old money l