“Then you had better get your beauty sleep, baker boy,” Julian grins, hitting the button to cut the feed.
The live light blinks off. The apartment plunges into oppressive silence, broken only by the almost inaudible hum of the air filtration system. The scrolling chat vanishes, replaced by a blank black screen. The performance is over.
Julian and Zara are already on their phones, the rapid click-click-click of their typing echoing off the marble.
I stay where I am, shoulders sinking slightly now that there is no audience to hold me upright.
The door slams open.
“You have to be joking.”
Rex Chen strides in like he owns the place, coat still on, tie loosened just enough to signal furious but controlled. His voice slices through the room, sharp and incredulous.
“Leo, you cannot just step away from business for thirty days.”
Rex Chen is Zara’s older brother, my business partner, and, as Julian calls him, his enemy.
Julian does not even look up. “It’s a dare,” he says lightly. “He has to.”
Rex rounds on him. “You think this is funny?”
“I think it’s content,” Julian replies, finally glancing up, smile all teeth. “And content is king.”
Rex’s gaze snaps back to me. “Ashford Ventures does not run itself. We have board meetings. Negotiations. You have obligations.”
“I know,” I say. My voice sounds steadier than I feel. “And the world will not end in thirty days. It will be fine, Rex.”
“Fine?” He laughs, sharp and humorless. “You are the face of half our portfolio. You disappear, the market notices.”
Zara looks up from her phone, eyes glittering with mischief. “Do not you want to see him… work?” She draws the word out as if it were a novelty. “I mean, when was the last time Leo Ashford clocked in anywhere?”
Rex does not even look at her. His jaw tightens, a muscle ticking near his temple. “This is a mistake,” he says. “A very public one.”
Julian finally straightens, folding his arms. “Or,” he counters, “it is the first interesting thing Leo has done in years.”
That lands.
Rex’s eyes flick between us. “You are letting him humiliate himself.”
Julian shrugs. “I am letting him find out who he is without the money.”
Silence stretches.
I feel it then, the fork in the road. The familiar pull to smooth this over, to say never mind, to buy my way back into control. Rex is waiting for it. He always is.
Instead, I say, “I am doing it.”
Rex stares at me. “Leo…”
“Thirty days,” I repeat. “No money, no shortcuts, no rank.”
Julian’s smile softens just a fraction. Zara lets out a low whistle.
Rex exhales sharply through his nose. “You are making a spectacle of yourself.”
“Maybe,” I say.
Rex studies my face like he is seeing something unfamiliar, something inconvenient. “You are playing with fire.”
