"I'll hate being away from you more."
"You're going to need a suit."
"I own a suit."
"You own a suit?"
"One. Navy. Wore it to Deck and Vivian's wedding." He grins. "I clean up okay."
I press my face against his chest and laugh. Really laugh. The kind that starts deep and shakes my shoulders and makes my eyes water. He holds me through it, his hand moving up and down my back, and when I finally look up, he's watching me with the expression that started all of this. Not just attraction. Not just desire. The quiet, focused attention of a man who sees everything and chose me anyway.
"I have a board dinner on Friday," I say. "Black tie. Very boring. Very corporate."
"I'll wear the suit."
"People will talk. The age gap. The optics."
"People can talk."
"My CFO will interrogate you."
"I've been interrogated by men with guns. Your CFO doesn't scare me."
I kiss him. Slow and deep. Tasting coffee and wanting and the faint salt of my own tears on his lips.
"Stay," I say. The word I've never said to anyone. The word that cost me more than any deal I've ever closed.
He pulls the covers over us. Reaches past me to set his phone alarm, because even in my penthouse, the operator in him wakes before dawn. Then he wraps himself around me, my back against his chest, his arm across my waist, his mouth against my hair.
"I'm not going anywhere," he says. "Not in three days. Not in three years. Not ever."
I close my eyes. The city hums below. The sheets smell like expensive detergent and sex. And the man behind me, the one I tried to dismiss, tried to control, tried to outrun, breathes steady and warm against the back of my neck.
For the first time in longer than I can remember, I fall asleep without setting an alarm.
I don't need one.
He's here.
EPILOGUE
HAYES
ONE YEAR LATER
The ring has been in my sock drawer for three weeks.
Not the most tactical hiding spot, but Lex doesn't go near my sock drawer because she reorganized it once, saw the state of things, and declared it a lost cause. Her exact words were "I've seen operating theaters less chaotic." She hasn't opened it since. Which makes it the one place in our cabin she won't accidentally discover a two-carat emerald-cut diamond set in platinum.
I chose emerald cut because it's clean, precise, and elegant. Like her. I chose platinum because gold felt too soft. Lex is not a soft-metal woman. She's a woman who performs under pressure, holds her edge, and looks better the longer you look.
The jeweler in Reno thought I was buying it for my mother. I didn't correct him.
The memory fades as I look around. Cade's got venison stew going for Sunday dinner, and the whole main room smells like rosemary and red wine. Elena Cross is standing on a chair directing traffic with a wooden spoon, pointing people to their seats with the authority of a tiny field marshal. Thomas is asleep on Deck's shoulder, drooling onto his father's flannel. Natalie's got her feet in Cade's lap under the table while she flips through a proof copy of her second children's book. Sadie's filming something on her phone while Wolfe sits beside her with Jake on his knee, not talking, watching his wife with the expression of a man who still can't believe his luck.
Normal Sunday. Full table. Loud in the way that means everyone's home.
Lex is at the far end of the table with Sully's laptop turned toward her, and they've been going back and forth for ten minutes about something I stopped following around the phrase "zero-trust architecture."
