My hand tightened slightly where it rested on the rug.
“You can follow every rule, do everything right, and still someone innocent pays for it.”
The room was very quiet, and the rug was harder than before.
“After I left, I kept thinking about what happens next for people like that. Not soldiers. The ones who don’t choose to be anywhere near it. The ones who survive the blast but don’t get help in time.”
Her arm tightened around my waist, just slightly, but she didn’t move.
“Traumex isn’t perfect, but it works. And in the right hands, quickly enough… it gives people a chance they wouldn’t otherwise have.” My voice dropped a little. I’d told so few people about my plan, about what was really driving it. “Buying Novexia was the only way to get control of it. I can push it where it’s actually needed instead of where it makes the most money. And if it means the next family doesn’t lose someone because help came too late…”
The last sparks lifted from the embers and disappeared up the chimney, brief and bright—like the fireflies in the forest that evening, gone almost before you could be sure you’d seen them.
“So this isn’t about profit,” she said slowly. “Or takeovers.”
“No.”
“It’s about… fixing something you couldn’t fix before.”
My chest tightened slightly. “Yes.”
She looked down to where her fingers were resting against my chest.
“That’s… not what I thought.” She let out a small breath. “I didn’t realize, Liam—”
“I don’t talk about it much.”
“Yep… I get that.” She dropped her head against my chest, and the fire shifted beside us.
For a while, neither of us said anything. The room cooled, but she stayed where she was.
Tomorrow, we’d have to leave.
Chapter 38
Andrea
Eliza:You did NOT! Oh my God, I knewit.
I sent her a zipped-up mouth emoji and slipped my phone back into my bag.
I wasn’t getting into it, not yet. The whole thing still felt slightly unreal, like I’d skipped a step somewhere and hadn’t quite caught up.
“Madame?”
The flight attendant handed me a glass of Buck’s Fizz and placed a tray of pastries between us. Normally, sitting in a private jet with a billionaire would warrant a small chapter of WhatsApp messages to Eliza on its own.
But I didn’t reach for my phone again. I stared at the glass instead.
So that wasit.
It wasn’t strategy, or ego, or whatever version of him I’d decided made the most sense since I’d found out who he was.
It was something else entirely.
Something I hadn’t accounted for.
Was that what Miranda had meant?How he could make the cuts and still want to be a good man?
