Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 21 - Chapitre 30

A heavy silence followed. Someone shifted in a leather chair. Someone else cleared their throat and then thought better of speaking.Richard Langford, the oldest member of the board and the man who had known Derrick’s father in the years before the collapse, was the first to break. He opened the folder, scanned the first page, and looked up with carefully measured concern.“The exposure was… public, Derrick. Unnecessarily so. There are quieter ways to remove a compromised executive. Ways that do not invite the kind of press attention we are already seeing this morning.”Derrick’s gaze settled on him like frost forming across glass. “Quieter ways leave room for rumor. Rumor leaves room for doubt. Doubt is a liability I no longer tolerate. Marcus sold this firm’s position for the promise of a seat that was never going to be his. He did it while smiling across this table and calling himself loyal. The public nature of his remova

The private elevator carried them downward in charged silence. City lights rose past the glass like a slow, indifferent tide. Derrick’s hand remained at the small of Rica’s back the entire descent, fingers splayed in that same proprietary claim he had worn all day. She could still feel the residual heat of the boardroom the weight of every recalculating gaze, the echo of Liam’s broken voice on the speaker, the quiet detonation of power when he had placed her in Marcus’s chair. Yet beneath it all ran a quieter, more dangerous current. Something she had not allowed herself to name until the doors opened onto the penthouse foyer and the night closed around them once more.No staff. No lights beyond the soft glow filtering through the vast windows. The skyline glittered beyond like a thousand silent witnesses. Derrick shrugged out of his jacket with deliberate care and set it aside. When he turned to her, the winter calm was still in place, but the edges had softened into something darker

“Because you are useful. Because you are lethal. Because you helped me destroy two careers in twelve minutes and then stood in a room full of men who underestimated you and reminded them that the woman wearing this ring is not decorative. Because we are compatible in the only ways that matter for the duration of this arrangement.”The words landed like a blade between the ribs.Rica felt the exact moment something inside her chest cracked. She kept her face carefully blank. She had learned long ago how to hide the hurt—how to smile through quiet humiliations, how to count pennies while the man she loved spent money on someone else, how to walk out of an apartment without looking back. She used every one of those hard-won skills now.“Compatible,” she repeated, the word tasting like ash. “In bed.”“Among other things.” Derrick’s gaze remained steady, unreadable. “What we have is carnal need, R

He paused, blade still against the board, but did not turn.“Last night,” she began, then stopped. The words she wanted to say I need you to stop being kind in ways that make this harder felt too raw, too revealing. She chose a safer path, though her voice still carried the weight of everything she was trying to bury. “You clarified the terms. I heard you. I understand what this is.”Now he did turn. The winter calm was fully in place, but something darker moved beneath it.“Do you?”“Yes.” Rica met his gaze without flinching, even as her pulse hammered against the high collar of her sweater. “Lust. Mutual. Intense. Temporary for as long as the contract requires. I won’t mistake it for anything else again. I woke up this morning and told myself exactly that. Over and over. That whatever happened in that bed was physical. That the way you looked at me, the way you touched me, the way you made me say those words none of it changes the clause we both signed. I will not fall in love with

“Yes.” He set his own mug aside and rounded the island once more. This time he stopped directly behind her stool, close enough that the heat of his bare chest brushed her back when he leaned down. His mouth found the side of her neck, just above the collar, and pressed a slow, open-mouthed kiss to the mark he had left hours earlier. “You’re still mine in every way that matters for the duration of this arrangement. That includes making certain you recover enough to stand beside me when Hartley tries whatever desperate move he has planned next. It includes feeding you. It includes noticing when you’re sore. It includes touching you like this even when both of us know the touch is dangerous.”Rica’s eyes fluttered closed. The contradiction of him made her chest ache so sharply she had to grip the edge of the island to stay upright.“Then stop kissing me like that if the only thing between us is lust,” she managed. &l