All Chapters of You Chose Her, I Took Your Empire: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

Elena's POV‎"Mom," I said, my voice flattening as the quiet grocery aisle settled between us. "What are you still doing in the city?"‎She stiffened, pulling her hand back from the coffee shelf and clutching her purse against her ribs.‎"I have business here, Elena," she said defensively, her chin coming up with that familiar, prickly pride. "I don't need to clear my travel plans with my own daughter."‎"I bought you a train ticket back home two weeks ago," I reminded her, keeping my tone crisp and unbothered. "You told me you were leaving on Friday."‎"Things came up," she snapped, her fingers fumbling with the zipper of her handbag as she tried to pull out a compact mirror.‎In her haste, a small folded piece of paper slipped from the side pocket of her bag and fluttered to the polished linoleum floor.‎I leaned down and picked it up before she could grab it. It was an appointment confirmation slip from the downtown medical center—a direct referral to an oncology specialist on Fift

Julian's POVThe Bloomberg terminal on my desk chirped with a low, persistent tone, flagging an SEC Form D filing and an exchange entity registration that had just cleared pre-market processing.I didn't look up immediately. I leaned back in my leather chair, swirling cold espresso in a paper cup while my junior analyst—Elena’s former assistant—stood nervously by the glass door of my office. I still believed Elena was sitting in her apartment, waiting for my ring, waiting for me to concede the small domestic arguments we used to have over breakfast. She was brilliant, yes, but she had always been tethered to me by the quiet rhythm of our shared life. Women like her didn't just vanish into the cold vacuum of the market without looking back."Julian," the analyst said, holding a tablet out with stiff, trembling fingers. "You need to see the entity registration for the twenty-fourth floor down at the Plaza Tower.""I told you, I don’t care about whatever boutique fund is leasing space do

Julian's POVThe penthouse was dead silent.Marie had slammed the front door ten minutes ago, her heels clicking a sharp, furious rhythm down the hallway before the elevator swallowed her up. I didn't chase her. I didn't even look up from the leather armchair where I sat in the dark, staring out the floor-to-ceiling glass at the faint, glowing lights of the Plaza Tower across the street.Ten million dollars.Every muscle in my jaw was locked so tight it ached. She thought she had won. She thought walking out of my bed and taking Marcus Jenkins' dirty money made her untouchable. She built her algorithms under my roof, using my resources, feeding off my success, and the moment she thought she had an excuse, she ran straight into the arms of the one family that wanted my head on a spike.My phone vibrated against the polished walnut coffee table.I didn't move for three seconds, listening to the low, rhythmic buzz. I reached out, picked up the receiver, and pressed it to my ear without c

John's POVThe glow from the dual monitors was the only light left on the twenty-fourth floor.I sat back in my chair, the leather groaning under my weight, and pinched the bridge of my nose. My eyes felt like they were coated in sand. Across the open-plan bullpen, the rhythmic, relentless clicking of Elena’s keyboard hadn't stopped in six hours.Most people in our position would have been popping uppers or staring down the barrel of a panic attack. Elena just typed. Her spine was locked straight, her shoulders pulled back like she was daring gravity to break her. She had this way of biting the inside of her cheek when the code got stubborn, a tiny tell that almost nobody else would notice.I noticed everything about her. That was my first mistake, and probably my best one.I stood up, the movement heavy and deliberate in the suffocating quiet of the office. The central air had shut off twenty minutes ago, leaving the room warm and thick with the smell of cold black coffee and stale p

Elena's POVThe heavy glass doors of Plaza Tower hissed shut behind us, cutting off the hum of the central air and dropping us straight into the suffocating, humid weight of the city at midnight.My boots clicked against the concrete, the sound unnaturally sharp in the deserted plaza. My arms were wrapped tight around myself, holding my wool coat closed against a chill that wasn't actually in the air. Every nerve ending in my body felt raw, stripped bare by the quiet gravity of what had just happened on the twenty-fourth floor. He had touched my hand. He had closed my laptop. And for the first time in six months, I hadn't fought back with a spreadsheet or a razor-sharp counter-argument.I walked beside John toward his sedan parked near the curb, my mind racing in frantic, useless circles. This wasn't how the equation was supposed to run. We were partners. We were two fractured pieces of capital and intellect huddled together in an office, keeping the wolves at bay. We weren't supposed