The executive.
The strategist.
The man who could walk into a boardroom and bury sentiment under logic.
A man pretending the weekend hadn’t rewired the goddamn ground beneath him. Pretending these same fingers hadn’t been in Emma’s hair hours ago. Hadn’t traced the gentle curve of her back, careful as prayer.
Irony: While Emma and I were rebuilding trust, I was walking into a building where trust did not exist. A place where men like Nathan Bell shredded it for sport.
Nathan.
Even thinking his name soured the air.
I’d dealt with plenty of assholes, but Nathan Bell was his own species. Cruel, entitled, smug about it. He hid rot behind charmand called his contempt “banter.” The board laughed with him like he was scripture. Every damn time.
Five years ago, he’d torched a thirty-year marriage for a fling with the housekeeper, left his wife with nothing, and bragged about the prenup at a shareholder dinner. The same men who toasted her absence still called him a genius.
When I started Falkirk, it had been mine—every inch of it.
No partners.
No politics.
Just vision, discipline, work.
Growth changed that.
Acquisitions. Capital.
And capital comes with strings—each one tied to a name like Nathan Bell.
Seven of the nine board members came from those deals—seven people with leverage, history, and Nathan pulling half their threads. I tried to take him down once—built a file thick with witness accounts, HR complaints, midnight testimonies. Nothing stuck. He was too good at polishing rot.
My teeth ground at the memory of Falkirk’s first call with Elion.
The way his tone shifted when Emma spoke.
The smug tilt of his head.
The interruptions.
And then—her name.
Her first name.
Said with false familiarity.
Like it belonged to him.
He had no right to her name.
No right to her—period.
Hell, I barely did. Not yet.
I wanted to shield her. Wanted to tear through every bastard in her way. But she was fire-forged. She didn’t need saving.
But even that didn’t cool the fury—just sharpened it.
