“Please,” Penny scoffed. “Everything about you two is covert. You think I don’t notice when you come home looking all post-apocalypse wrecked?”
Arden shot her a sharp glare, heat creeping up her neck. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” Penny grinned. “Now come on. Let’s go feed your dangerously attractive billionaire before he starts snacking on underperforming executives.”
Once the call upstairs cleared them, the guard waved them through. They stepped into the waiting elevator, polished brass gleaming from every surface; the faint scent of cologne and citrus lingered in the air. Penny let out a low whistle of appreciation as the doors closed.
“This place smells rich,” she muttered, rocking back on her heels, testing for red carpet. “Where do they keep the poor people? In the sub-basement?”
As they rose, Arden’s pulse ticked faster.
She wasn’t nervous, not exactly.
But there was a gravity to entering his world.
To seeing him in it.
Gideon.
She hadn’t seen him since her car was vandalized.
Since the rose.
Since the cold, surgical message carved into what used to be her safe escape.
She’d spent half the night convincing herself it wasn’t that serious. That she was overreacting. That fear didn’t get to live here anymore.
And now?
Now she was walking into Gideon’s world with a bag of overpriced takeout and a half-formed plan to distract him. To keep him grounded. Or if she was being honest, to unground him completely.
Because one look from him, and the hunger in his eyes would have nothing to do with food.
The elevator chimed, opening onto the executive floor, sleek and gleaming, luxury muted beneath polished marble and glass walls.
Penny’s jaw dropped slightly. “Tell me this place doesn’t have a panic room and at least one button that opens a hidden weapons vault.”
“Behave,” Arden muttered.
“Define behave,” Penny said under her breath, lips twitching as her gaze found a familiar face ahead.
But Arden had tuned her out.
Because there he was. Watching her like a decision he hadn’t yet made.
Gideon stood at the end of the corridor, talking with Dan. He didn’t have to move or speak to draw attention; he simply was. The air seemed to recalibrate around him, steady and self-possessed in that impeccably tailored suit, posture perfect. Controlled. Powerful. Effortless.
When his eyes found hers across the space, the air shifted.
She saw it in the subtle change of posture. The way his grip on the glass in his hand flexed slightly. The near-imperceptible curve at the corner of his mouth.
Her stomach tightened, heat sweeping low and deep, but she didn’t break stride.
“Daniel,” Penny called out, her voice syrupy sweet.
Dan turned toward Penny, a slow smirk tugging at his mouth. “Penelope… you bringing the chaos today?”
Penny tsked. “You know it. Didn’t you feel the shift the second I walked through the lobby? Your productivity’s tanking.”
