Gage didn’t stop. He promised he’d come for her. He never promised mercy.
Her moans broke, stuttered, fell apart. One hand fisted in the sheets. The other clawed for him, begging without words.
When her body clamped down—tight, trembling, helpless—he drove into the center of it. Took every last second. She broke beneath him.
He followed. Hard. Quiet.
All precision, even in the fall.
After, when the room was quiet and Bea lay against him, one leg slung over his, her fingers drawing slow, absent shapesacross the ridges of his stomach, she whispered to him, “I can’t believe you’re here.”
“You wanted me here.” He touched her chin with the edge of his finger, tilting her face toward his. “And you needed reminding.”
She flushed. Pulled the sheet higher, even though modesty had long since dissolved. “Yeah, well…reminder received.”
His mouth didn’t quite smile. But it moved.
Eventually, she shifted, lifting her head. “I need water.”
She slid from beneath the sheets. He saw her glance at her red dress crumpled on the floor, before turning away from it with a wry smile, as if it were better not to tempt fate.
She crossed the room, found his sweater folded on the chair, and pulled it over her head. Passed him his pants as she did. He tugged them on, still shirtless.
In the lounge, the lights were dimmed low, the Toronto skyline glittering outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. Bea padded to the minibar, pulling out two bottles of sparkling water. She took one, left the other on the coffee table, and curled into the wide sectional.
Gage followed. On his way, he retrieved his jacket draped over a dining chair, reaching into the pocket. An envelope. He held it between two fingers, letting her see it before offering it to her.
Bea looked up. Took it. Slid a thumb beneath the flap. Pulled the page out. Then froze.
She knew the name on the letterhead immediately.Monaghan & Stowe.
A firm based in Northgate, the UR’s financial capital. Founded by two women, with a particular focus on projects and financial policy that impacted women and girls.
They were offering her a five-week internship. One that started in ten days.
Bea looked at him, then back at the letter. “This is the place I wanted to intern at last year.”
“I know,” he said, cracking open his water and taking a sip.
“They rejected me then.”
“They’re offering it now.”
She stared at the paper in her hand. “You arranged this. They’re taking me because of you.”
“They would’ve taken you the first time,” he pointed out. “But you didn’t mention me on your application.”
He remembered that night. Bea had tried not to let him see her tears. It was her twenty-first rejection from an elite finance internship in Northgate, and the one she’d taken most personally.
She’d grown up in Toronto. She believed in merit, and earning every inch. What she didn’t understand, or hadn’t wanted to, was the UR played by different rules. Women weren’t seen as less, but they weren’t measured the same way, either.
Merit mattered. So did legacy. Association. Especially if you were aiming high.
She’d left his name off the application.
“What if I say no?” Bea asked, surprising him.
“Why would you say no?”
