Because the only people who knew about the merger timeline were my inner circle. My most trusted employees. The people I counted on to help build something lasting and strong.
And one of them decided to burn it all down instead.
The meeting broke up with assignments for damage control—client calls, system audits, and security reviews that should have been done months ago. But as my team filed out, discussing contingency plans and crisis management strategies, my thoughts drifted somewhere else entirely.
I thought about Willa, making breakfast in my kitchen that morning, trusting me to keep her safe while my entire world fell apart around us. I thought about the kiss we shared, about the walls that finally started coming down between us, about the fragile hope I carried that maybe two broken people could figure out how to be whole together.
But if Cross Security failed, if I lost everything I built, what would I have to offer her? What kind of protection could I provide if I couldn’t even protect my own company from sabotage?
The phone on my desk rang again—another client demanding explanations I didn’t have, another business relationship turning to ash in my hands. As I answered it, putting on the calm, professional voice that was becoming harder to maintain, I realized the truth that would keep me awake for weeks.
I spent so much time building walls to protect myself from being hurt that I never considered the possibility that the real threat might already be inside them.
And now, just when I had finally found something worth protecting more than my own carefully constructed defenses, I was about to lose everything I thought made me worthy of protecting it.
15WILLA
I was organizingclient files in the Cross Security reception area, trying to look busy while actually thinking about the way Kieran kissed me three nights ago, when my phone rang. The number was blocked, which should have been my first warning. But I was distracted, my mind still replaying the feel of his hands in my hair and the way he said we were both too broken to fix each other.
I answered without thinking.
“Willa.”
My blood turned to ice at the sound of that voice—smooth, familiar, with the same tone he used to tell me he loved me right before he hit me.
“Dex.” The name came out as barely a whisper.
“Hello, baby. Miss me?”
The office around me suddenly felt too bright, too exposed. The glass walls seemed thinner, the open space more vulnerable. I glanced around frantically, but David was in a meeting and Rebecca was on another call. I was alone with the voice that still haunted my nightmares.
“How did you get this number?”
“I have my ways. Amazing what people will tell you if you ask the right questions—and when your parents have a lot of connections and money.”
My hands started shaking so badly that I almost dropped the phone. “What do you want?”
“To talk to my wife. Is that so wrong?”
“I’m not your wife anymore.”
Dex laughed, the sound cold and bitter. “Oh, sweetheart. You’ll always be my wife. Until death do us part, remember? We made vows.”
I stood up from my desk, needing to move, needing to do something with the adrenaline flooding my system. “Those vows ended when you shot me.”
“That was an accident. You know I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
The casual way he said it, like putting a bullet through my shoulder had been some minor misunderstanding, made something snap inside me. “You hunted me through the streets like an animal. You left me to die in an alley.”
“But you didn’t die, did you? You found yourself a knight in shining armor. Kieran Cross, CEO of Cross Security. Very impressive, Willa. I always knew you were resourceful.”
The way he said Kieran’s name, with that particular emphasis that meant he’d been watching, studying, planning, made my stomach lurch. “Stay away from him.”
“Why would I want to hurt your boyfriend? He’s been so helpful.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Haven’t you been watching the news? Poor Kieran’s having some business troubles. Security breaches, lost clients, canceled mergers. Terrible shame. He worked so hard to build that company.”
