Page 24

“Then there’s nothing to discuss.” She tucks her laptop under her arm. “Except the plan.”

“My office,” I say. “Now.”

I walk out. She has to trot to keep up with me in those heels, and the executive floor goes silent as we pass. Assistants find something fascinating on their screens. A junior analyst actually reverses direction. Isabella notices. I see her clock every flinch, and I don’t care what she concludes.

The moment my office door closes, she rounds on me.

“What the hell was that? I’ll review it? That plan is bulletproof, and you know it. The board knows it. You’re stalling because we slept together.”

I drop a leather portfolio on my desk. “That night has nothing to do with this.”

“Funny. It seems to have everything to do with the way you’re looking at me.”

“My father hired a firm that was raided by the FBI eight days ago,” I say. “One of your founding partners is sunning himself in the Caymans on your clients’ money. I’d be a fool not to review every word you put in front of me.”

That lands. I see it land. Her chin comes up anyway.

“I was interviewed for forty-five minutes by a federal agent and handed over every file I have. I’m clean. My work is clean. And this”—I watch her tap the portfolio—“is the best plan you’re going to get from anyone in this city, because nobody else in this city would take your call.”

“It’s flashy. It’s loud. It’s a televised mea culpa and a parade of strangers combing through my family’s ledgers. It’s a pretty coat of paint on a crumbling house.”

“Your house is on fire. I’m the one holding the hose.”

“Then quit.” I lean back against the desk. “Go ahead. Explain to Marcus why you walked away from the only account keeping his lights on.”

Her hands curl into fists. Not fear. Fury. I know the difference. I’ve spent my life watching people decide which one to show me. Most choose fear.

She doesn’t.

“You think I don’t know what you’re doing?” she says. “Your own staff call you the Ice King. A VP told a reporter that people leave your office knowing they’re finished. You’re used to everyone in this building being afraid of you.”

“Fear is efficient.”

“Fear is why your valuation model walked out the door and nobody told you anything until it was too late.”

That one lands on me. I don’t let her see it.

I push off the desk and cross the room in three strides. I stop inches from her. Her perfume, citrus, vanilla, is the same scent that was on my pillow for two days before housekeeping took it away.

“Can you handle it?” I ask, low. “Knowing we’ve been in bed together?”

“Can you sit across from me in meetings without thinking about how I felt underneath you?”

“Can you handle me scrutinizing every move you make, knowing exactly how you sound when you lose control?”

She doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t step back. Nobody in this building would stand this close to me when I’m angry. She stands there like she’s been doing it all her life.

“You want to talk about control?” she says. “Evelyn didn’t give you a leash, Sebastian. She gave you a fuse. Every day you sit on my plan is a day off your clock, not mine. When those twenty-one days run out, it won’t be my name the board remembers. It’ll be your signature on the failure.”

The silence crackles between us.

I hate that she’s right. I hate even more that some part of me, the part that knelt in front of her nine nights ago, wants her to be.

I walk around the desk and open the portfolio. Page four is her recommendation that my father issue a personal public apology.

I uncap my pen and write one word across it. VETOED.

“You can’t⁠—”