One week later …
The upstairs lounge wasn’t loud—not the way money usually was. Up here, wealth softened everything: the lighting, the music, the low drift of conversation that hummed across velvet seating and polished marble.
Glass walls framed the New York night skyline like something curated. And in the middle of it all, Titus Harrington fit the room as if it had been built for him—sharp jaw, clean lines, a body shaped by discipline rather than privilege. Dark hair brushed back, a faint shadow along his jaw, his mouth set in that calm, unreadable line that had once stopped conversations in Ivy League halls.
The midnight-black Kiton suit molded to him so perfectly it might as well have been tailored into his skin.
He didn’t have to think about it. His body remembered.
Titus leaned back against the leather banquette, the warmth of a twelve-year Japanese whisky settling slowly in his chest. The group around him—men and women in their late forties, all carrying the same effortless polish of people born into power—filled the space with familiar chatter. Harvard colors, all of them. Seminars he’d sat through. Nights he’d ignored invitations from. Lives that had kept moving after he… left certain things behind.
They looked at him like he’d stepped right back into the space he’d once owned.
He found them wanting compared to the men he’d been around lately. Men with grit, purpose, command.
One in particular rose uninvited—dark hair, sharper eyes, that voice that got under his skin.
He shouldn’t have hit send. “Fuck off” hadn’t fixed a damn thing. Too late now—spilled milk. He’d already let that bruise sit too long.
He’d expected another message from Viper—anger, order, something.
Instead, he’d gotten silence.
It was better that way—yeah, like he believed it. Still irritated the fuck out of him. Because deep down, he knew Viper hadn’t wanted to leave him. The man’s shouted No! Fuck! still echoed.
Titus shoved the thought away.
“Didn’t think you’d show tonight,” Adrian murmured from his right, voice smooth but eyes sharp. Still handsome in that curated way old money allowed, still competitive in all the wrong places. “Your father must be pleased to see you back in circulation.”
A gentle dig. Wrapped in velvet. Typical Adrian.
Titus turned the glass in his hand once, the motion quiet, controlled.
Of course, Adrian would bring him up first.
The most recent words his father had said to him came rolling in, unwanted. I gave you all the resources you needed to deal with your brothers, but you couldn’t even handle that. It took someone else to get the job done.
He wondered what Adrian’s face would look like if he knew he’d become his father’s fixer.
On his left, Lila’s fingers brushed his sleeve—light, deliberate, familiar. She’d always been flirty, too curious about the Harrington heir who’d broken formation and refused the neat path laid out for him.
“You look incredible,” she said, smiling into her sparkling water. “Better than the last time I saw you. Was that here in New York… or Cambridge?”
“Cambridge,” he said. His voice came out smoother than he intended—educated, polished, the version of himself he’d shoved down deep years ago.
Across from him, Maya lifted her glass, gaze warm and far too knowing. She’d aged beautifully—subtle work, expensive products, quiet confidence.
“Your father must miss having you around,” she said softly, the kind of line spoken with layered meaning. “He always did like having you nearby.”
Another innuendo, dressed up pretty.
Titus’s pulse ticked once beneath his collar.
Fond wasn’t the word. Strategic was.
“He manages fine,” Titus said.
The table paused—just long enough for the truth inside those three words to sting someone. Probably all of them.
