Gage looked past Nate, toward the skyline. The city was beginning to shift, the glass turning from black to silver. “I don’t know.”
Nate sat back. Let the silence stretch. Let him come to it.
“She’s Tier Four.”
“Congratulations.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “She’s not happy about it.”
“You didn’t tell her about the threshold?”
Gage’s jaw tightened. He said nothing.
“You thought she’d leave if you did?”
Gage took a sip of coffee.
Nate studied him. “So what are you going to do?”
That was the question he’d been circling for hours.
He had strategies for nearly everything—investor negotiations, succession optics, legacy maneuvers. But Bea wasn’t a market. She was a woman who’d given him her nights, her body, her time. And he’d taken something from her without fully grasping the weight of it.
Choice.
His fingers stilled on the cup. “She’ll initiate severance,” he said quietly.
Nate’s brows shot up. “You sure you want that on record?”
“I don’t,” Gage said. “But keeping the Tier isn’t worth losing her trust. Not now.”
“With London coming?”
Gage looked out the window. The skyline was turning gold. “Especially with London coming.”
He didn’t add the rest. That he was already moving toward something more permanent. And when that question came, it wouldn’t depend on a system or a statute.
It would be her choice. Entirely.
Bea didn’t expect the knock.
She opened the door in leggings and a St. Ives sweatshirt, hair still damp from her shower. Gage stood on the other side. He held a folder.
She leaned against the doorframe. “You could’ve called.”
“In person is better.”
“Are you here to explain or to persuade?” she asked, eyes narrowing. Because one meant a conversation. The other meant a strategy. And she was not in the mood to be managed.
“I’m here to bring you information.”
She held his gaze a second longer than necessary, then stepped aside.
Gage walked in. Even when she was upset, her body didn’t reject his presence. Which was annoying. So unfair.
He set the folder on her counter. “I should have told you,” he said.
She stayed by the door. Arms crossed. Jaw tight. “Yes. You should have.”
