All Chapters of Hearts at the Helm:A Billionaire's Gamble on Love: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

The dining room at The Pierre was a golden age trainwreck of opulence, a stage backdrop for the money moguls to break bread and stare down each other. Crystal chandeliers glimmered, silverware clinking on bone china, and the soft hum of chatter was a language in and of itself—deals spoken in hushed tones, alliances tried, blood in the water.Julian Clarkson sat at the center of everything, king on his throne, his presence a gravitational pull that bent the room into curves around him. Tonight, though, a new planet had entered his orbit, and the other planets were watching.Jonah Miles sat to Clarkson's right, a spot once occupied by Arthur Finch. It was a subtle but seismic shift in the power dynamic, a statement that every person at the table had instantly decoded. Jonah adjusted restlessly in his bow tie, his spine too stiff, his gaze sweeping the vertiginous display of money with a distrust bordering on disdain. He was an interloper, a grain of dirt in the impeccably greased machin

The stillness in the Rolls-Royce was oppressive, thick and luxurious as velvet. It silenced the purr of the engine, the muffled whoosh of tires across rain-soaked roads, the distant breath of the city they'd left behind. Jonah sat immobilized in the plush seat, his body humming from the after-shock of the last ten minutes. He could still feel the searing pressure of Clarkson's hand on his back, a mark that had taken him and set him apart from the ball.He risked a glance. Clarkson sat facing forward, his profile a thin white slash against the black window. The cold fury that had seemed to seethe from him on the ballroom floor was gone now, replaced by a quiet, vibrating calm. His own fists, normally so restrained, were clenched on his knees, the knuckles white. He did not normally lose control. And yet he had lost it, gone out in public to burn down a rival's company and his own good name over a single, caustic remark.The vehicle bullied through the slick streets, heading uptown. Nei

The stillness in Jonah's apartment was not to last. It was first shattered by the angry, furious buzzing of his cell phone, careening across the kitchen counter like a trapped insect. Then came the shouts from the street outside, muted by glass but unmistakable in their aggressive tone. A flashbulb flared, its cold, hard light searing the outline of his window frame into the wall opposite it even though his blinds were shut.He was surrounded.He did not have to look out the window to know what was waiting for him out there. A phalanx of paparazzi, drooling at the prospect of a second bite. The "Mystery Man" stepped out into the light, wrinkled and agitated. That was what they desired. He stood frozen in the center of his living room, a statue in a bargain suit, the electronic aura of that accursed photograph burned behind his eyes.He did get up, though, not to the window, but to his computer. He popped open a new page on his browser, his fingers rigid and insensitive. He didn't go t

The lull after Clarkson's shattered confession was thicker than the teak on the desk between them. The gory, raw reality of his words—"That was my heart. Outside my body."—hung there in the air, a thing holy and horrible. Jonah's own well-built defenses, his plan for a chivalrous withdrawal, were destroyed around him. He had braced for a battlefield and been confronted with a wake.He stood there as Clarkson literally dwindled before him, the enraged energy that had fueled him dissipating to leave him a shell of a man. He turned his back again, leaning heavily on the desk, his shoulders rolled up into a gesture of total defeat. He was waiting, Jonah realized, for something to occur. For Jonah to confirm his worst fear: that the weakness had been a mistake. That the heart, having been laid open, might only meet with pity, retreat, or worse, strategic advantage.The air conditioning hummed. On the muted screens, another talking head silently mouthing voiceless speculations, their arm fl

The days immediately following the collapse were not days of noise, but silence so dense it was a presence unto itself in the halls of Clarkson Consolidated. It was a heavy, suffocating blanket tossed over the customary buzz of drive, a communal, uneasy sorrow that everyone experienced and nobody so much as spoke out. The heart of the quiet was the penthouse office. The door stayed shut.The broken shards of the crystal paperweight lay untouched. They still lay there where they had fallen, a scattered, perilous starfield on the dark blue rug, a shockingly bare witness to the earthquake within. Eleanor would slip to the door, listen, then withdraw, her face a mask of professional care that did small things to hide her personal care. The cleaning staff was strictly excluded. Inside, Julian Clarkson became a ghost in his own fortress. He worked out of the small, private study to one side of the main office, a room more normally reserved for truly clandestine meetings.He made his way int