Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 11 - Chapitre 20

The locks sealed with a soft, final click that sounded louder than any alarm.Victoria froze halfway across the blacked-out office, one hand already on the drawer handle. A massive arm locked around her waist from behind. Another hand clamped over her mouth before the first curse could leave it.“Don’t scream.” The voice was low, rough, close enough that the heat of it touched her ear. “You’re already trespassing. Screaming only makes it worse.”She bit the palm hard. He didn’t flinch. The arm around her waist lifted her clear off the floor and carried her three steps to the desk. Her hip hit the sharp mahogany edge. She kicked backward. Her heel connected with solid muscle. The impact earned her nothing but a short, almost amused exhale against her neck.“Feisty. Good.”Silk—thick, cold—dropped over her eyes. He tied it tight before she could twist free. Absolute dark. The last thing she registered was the faint gleam of city lights through the glass and the size of the hand that had

The fluorescent lights in the top-floor office felt like knives.Victoria stepped out of the elevator with her spine locked straight and her high-necked silk blouse buttoned to the throat. Every step sent a dull, deep ache through her hips and the insides of her thighs. The bite marks along her collarbone throbbed under the fabric. She had checked them in the bathroom mirror before leaving her apartment—purple-red, unmistakable, still tender when she pressed a fingertip against the skin.She refused to limp.The open-plan floor was already half-full. Keyboards clicked. Someone laughed near the coffee station. The air smelled of printer toner and cheap roasted beans. Clean. Bright. Ordinary. Nothing like the dark penthouse that still lived behind her eyes—the cold mahogany under her cheek, the wet sound of skin, the low voice telling her she belonged on that desk for the night.She walked to her glass-walled office without looking at anyone. Her heels struck the floor harder than neces

The penthouse door unlocked for her the moment she reached it.Victoria stepped inside and the locks engaged behind her with the same soft finality as the first night. Pitch black. No city glow through the windows. No residual light from the hallway. Just the heavy, expensive dark and the faint scent of leather and cologne that already lived under her skin.She did not call out.A hand closed around her upper arm from the side—large, hot, unyielding—and turned her. Silk settled over her eyes before she could twist free. He tied the blindfold tighter than last time. Absolute black. Then the soft slide of another length of silk around her wrists. He pulled them behind her back and knotted the tie hard enough that her shoulders strained.“What the hell—”“Quiet.”The word was low and rough. Not the measured control of the first night. Something colder sat under it.He walked her forward until the backs of her knees hit the heavy leather sofa. One hard push and she dropped onto it. The co

The locks engaged the moment the door shut.Victoria did not wait for the dark to settle. She stood just inside the threshold, spine straight, pulse steady for the first time in days. The silk blindfold dangled from Damien’s fingers in the black. She could just make out the pale shape of it.“Put it on,” he said. The voice was already low, already the one that belonged to the night.She stepped forward instead of back.“Hello, Julian.”Silence.It stretched long enough that the city noise outside the glass became audible. Then fabric shifted. Footsteps moved toward the wide window. A hand found the control panel on the wall. Soft ambient light rose from the recessed fixtures—low, warm, enough to see by.Damien stood in it without the oversized shirt, without the thick glasses, without the curved shoulders. The tie was already loose in his hand. He pulled it free and let it drop. One by one he undid the remaining buttons of the white shirt he had worn under the disguise, then shrugged

Damien’s real office occupied the entire north corner of the top floor. Floor-to-ceiling glass on two sides. A desk large enough to stage a hostile takeover on. A black leather sofa that looked like it had never been used for sitting.Victoria stood in the center of it with her arms crossed, still tasting the residual fury from the afternoon. Her family’s lawyers had called three times. The last message had been clear: either she delivered the old documents by morning or they would leak enough selective history to tank the company’s upcoming acquisition and bury her name with it.She had come here to tell Damien the threat was real.She did not expect him to already know.He stood behind the desk in the same black suit from the morning, sleeves rolled once, watching her with the calm focus of a man who had already moved the pieces.“They contacted you,” he said. Not a question.“They contacted everyone. They’re threatening the acquisition. They’re threatening me.”Damien opened the bo