Chapter 14
Maxime's breathing had gone slow and even against my thigh.
I kept my hand in his hair, fingers moving through the silver strands in a rhythm I didn't consciously choose. The lamp cast a warm light across his features, softening the sharp lines of his face. He looked younger like this, unguarded, the mask he'd worn for thirty-two years finally set aside.
My leg ached from sitting too long in the chair, the damaged muscle protesting the position. I didn't move.
Because I want to. Because I crave it.
His confession echoed in my skull. Not the apology for Imogen, though that had landed like a blade between my ribs, but the other part: where he'd admitted his submission wasn't penance or debt or noble sacrifice, but need. Pure and selfish and undeniable.
That's worse, isn't it?
He'd asked me that like he expected me to agree. Like wanting something for yourself was shameful. Like thirty-two years of devotion meant nothing if it came from desire instead of duty.
I traced my thumb along the shell of his ear, watching him shiver even in his half-sleep state.
He'd hidden my sons from me. He'd threatened a mentally ill woman until she killed herself. He'd lied to my face for twenty years while I trusted him with everything I had.
And I still wanted him on his knees.
That was the part I couldn't reconcile. The rage still burned when I thought about Xavier, Xander, and Xion growing up without me, about Imogen dying alone in that bathtub, about all the years I'd lost because Maxime decided he knew best. I wasn't sure that rage would ever fully die. Some betrayals carved too deep.
But underneath the anger, something else had taken root. Something that had been there for decades, buried beneath professionalism and propriety and the careful distance I'd maintained because wanting your assistant was a cliché I refused to become.
I wanted him. I had always wanted him. And now I knew he wanted me back, not out of guilt or obligation but because kneeling for me made him feel whole.
Being used by you is the only time I feel real.
My cock stirred at the memory, and I shifted slightly to ease the pressure. Maxime made a soft sound against my thigh, his fingers curling against my calf.
I could wake him. Pull him up, take him to bed, fuck him until neither of us could think about betrayal or forgiveness or any of the complicated wreckage between us. His body would open for me eagerly, I knew that now. He'd take whatever I gave him and beg for more.
But that wasn't what either of us needed tonight.
Tonight was about something harder than sex. Tonight was about sitting with the truth and not running from it.
I looked down at him, this man who had shaped my life in ways I was only beginning to understand.
He'd built my empire alongside me, yes. But he'd also controlled it in ways I'd never suspected.
Every meeting he'd arranged, every crisis he'd managed, every decision he'd guided me toward.
Had any of it been real? Or had I been his puppet all along, dancing on strings I couldn't see?
The thought should have enraged me. Instead, it sparked something closer to admiration.
He'd played me for twenty years. Manipulated me, lied to me, removed obstacles without my knowledge or consent. And he'd done it so seamlessly that I'd never once suspected. That kind of skill wasn't a weakness. That was a predator wearing the skin of a servant.
I wanted her gone because I was jealous. Because some part of me was glad when she died.
He'd admitted that without flinching, owned the ugliest part of himself and laid it at my feet like an offering all for the chance to stop pretending he was something other than what he was.
A monster. Like me.
Maybe that was why I couldn't let him go, why the rage and the want kept tangling together until I couldn't separate them anymore. He'd done terrible things in service of his devotion to me, and some dark part of my soul recognized that devotion as the mirror of my own ruthlessness.
We were the same, both willing to destroy anyone who threatened what we wanted. Both of us were capable of cruelty that would horrify decent people. Both too proud to admit we needed anything until the need became unbearable.
My hand tightened in his hair, and he stirred, making a questioning sound.
"Shhh." I loosened my grip. "Sleep."
He settled again, his cheek pressing harder against my thigh, trusting me to hold him even though I hadn't forgiven him. Even though I might never forgive him.
That was the thing about Maxime. His trust had never wavered.
Not when I'd treated him like a convenient hole to fuck on the plane, not when I'd walked out after the riding crop.
Even now, when I'd explicitly told him the debt was still outstanding, he knelt at my feet and gave me everything, and he didn't demand any guarantees in return.
Twenty years ago, that kind of surrender would have made me contemptuous. I'd have seen it as weakness, as a lack of spine, as proof that he wasn't worth my respect.
Now I understood it differently.
Maxime didn't kneel because he was weak. He knelt because he was strong enough to want something and admit it. Strong enough to strip away the pretense and show me his real self, even knowing I might reject him. That took more courage than any boardroom battle or corporate negotiation.
I'd spent my whole life building walls so high that nothing could touch me. And here was this man, offering me everything he had with no guarantee of return, and I'd almost missed what that meant because I was too busy punishing him for his betrayal.
He was mine. He’d always been mine, even when I'd been too blind to see it.
The question was what to do with him now.
Forgiveness wasn't on the table. That much I knew. What he'd done to Imogen, to my sons, that couldn't be erased with a confession and some pretty words about desire. He'd carry that weight for the rest of his life, and I'd make sure he remembered it.
But I could give him something else. Something that wasn't absolution but wasn't rejection either.
I could give him a place at my side, not as a penitent servant working off his debt, but as a partner who'd chosen to kneel.
Someone I trusted with my empire even though I couldn't yet trust him with my forgiveness.
It wasn't enough. It wasn't fair. It wasn't the clean resolution either of us probably wanted.
But it was honest. And after thirty-two years of careful lies and professional distance, honesty was the only foundation worth building on.
Maxime shifted against my thigh, and I realized my hand had stilled in his hair. I resumed the slow stroking, watching his face relax again.
We'd figure out the rest. The anger and the want, the betrayal and the devotion, all the tangled mess of what we were to each other. Not tonight. Tonight was just this: my hand in his hair, his breath warm against my leg, the silence holding us both.
My phone buzzed on the side table.
I ignored it.
It buzzed again. Then again.
Maxime stirred, lifting his head. His eyes were hazy with sleep, and for a moment he just looked at me, like he wasn't sure if the conversation we'd had was real or some dream he'd conjured.
"Your phone," he murmured.
"I know."
It buzzed again, with multiple messages now, the vibrations running together.
Maxime pushed himself up, wincing as his knees protested after kneeling so long. I caught his elbow to steady him, and something flickered across his face at the casual touch. Surprise, maybe, or hope.
I reached for the phone.
Xavier's name filled the screen, followed by a cascade of alerts from my security team. My stomach tightened as I scrolled through them.
"What is it?" Maxime's voice had shifted, the sleepy softness replaced by something sharper. The COO had emerged from beneath the man who'd just knelt at my feet.
"Xavier found Shaw." I was already pulling up the details. "Vancouver. Warehouse district. He's moving the prototype."
Maxime went still beside me. "Moving it where?"
"Doesn't say. But there's activity. Trucks, equipment being loaded." I checked the timestamp. "This was twenty minutes ago."
"Reid's team is supposed to be wheels up at midnight." Maxime pulled out his own phone, fingers flying across the screen. "If Shaw's relocating..."
"We lose him."
I pushed myself out of the chair, ignoring the protest from my leg. "Call Reid. I want that team in the air in fifteen minutes."
"Already on it." Maxime had his phone to his ear, pacing toward the window. "Reid. Vancouver. Shaw's moving the prototype. I need wheels up in ten, not fifteen. Yes, I understand the... no, I don't care. Make it happen."
He hung up and turned back to me. The transformation was complete now, the vulnerable man who'd confessed his shameful desires replaced by the ruthless operative who'd run my company for two decades. Both versions were real. Both versions were him.
My phone buzzed again. Then his. Then both at once.
Maxime looked down at his screen, and his face went pale.
"What?"
"Shaw leaked it." His voice came out flat. "Wall Street Journal got an anonymous tip about the theft. Story's already live. Stock's down eighteen percent in after-hours trading."
Eighteen percent. Billions of dollars in market cap evaporated while we stood here in my bedroom.
"Board members are demanding an emergency meeting." Maxime scrolled through his messages. "Patterson's already circling. Pentagon wants answers. Legal is activating crisis protocols."
Shaw. That smug bastard had outmaneuvered us again. While I'd been sitting in a chair stroking Maxime's hair, he'd been burning my empire to the ground.
"When's the meeting?"
"One hour. Boardroom Level Diamond."
It was four hours to Vancouver if we pushed the jets. By the time I got back, the board would have had all day to scheme and plot and decide my fate without me there to defend myself.
"He's forcing us to choose." I grabbed my cane from where it leaned against the chair. "The prototype or the board."
"Yes."
Maxime's eyes met mine, and I watched him work through the same calculations I had. He knew what was at stake. He knew what Shaw was doing. And I could see the moment he arrived at the same conclusion I had.
"You go to Vancouver," he said.
"And leave you to face the board alone?"
"I can handle the board." His chin lifted, and there it was: the predator beneath the servant. The man who'd destroyed Imogen because she was in his way. "I've been managing them for twenty years. I know their weaknesses, their pressure points, their fears. I can buy you twelve hours."
"And if they decide to move against me in my absence?"
"Then they'll regret it." His voice went cold in a way that sent heat down my spine. "I'll destroy anyone who tries to take what's yours."
The possessiveness in his tone was inappropriate. He was my COO, not my attack dog. But I'd stopped pretending our relationship was professional the moment I'd told him to kneel.
"You're sure you can control them?"
"I'm sure I can make them too afraid to act." He stepped closer, and his hand came up to rest against my chest, over my heart. "Trust me. Please. Let me prove I'm worthy of it."
Trust him.
Could I trust him?
I thought about the way he'd looked at me when he admitted his submission wasn't penance.
The raw vulnerability in his eyes, the fear that I'd reject him for wanting something selfish.
He'd stripped himself bare and handed me the weapon to destroy him, and he'd done it without any guarantee that I wouldn't use it.
That wasn't the action of a manipulator. That was the action of a man desperate to be seen.
"Twelve hours," I said. "I want updates every thirty minutes. If the board makes a move, you call me immediately."
He nodded firmly. "Yes, sir."
"And Maxime?" I caught his chin, tilting his face up to meet my eyes. "If Patterson tries anything while I'm gone, I want to know. I don't care how small it seems. You tell me everything."
"I will."
"You're not going to go soft on me? Start feeling guilty about playing hardball with the board?"
His smile turned sharp enough to cut. "I'm going to walk into that boardroom and remind them exactly why you made me your second in command. By the time you get back, they'll be so terrified of what I might do that they won't dare move against you."
That shouldn't have aroused me. We were in the middle of a crisis. My company was hemorrhaging value by the minute, and my rival was escaping with my stolen prototype.
But the predator in Maxime's eyes, the cold promise of violence wrapped in a perfectly tailored suit, made my cock twitch against my trousers.
"Good." I released his chin. "Now help me dress. If I'm going to Vancouver, I'm not doing it in yesterday's clothes."
"Of course."
He moved toward my closet without hesitation, already pulling down the suit I'd wear into battle. His hands were steady, his movements efficient. The man who'd been shaking and broken an hour ago had transformed into the lethal weapon I needed him to be.
I watched him work, and I thought about trust.
He'd betrayed me once. He might betray me again. I couldn't know for certain that the man arranging my cufflinks wasn't already planning his next manipulation.
But I could know that he wanted to be here. Maybe that was enough. Maybe it had to be.
"Algerone?" He'd turned back with my shirt in his hands, watching me with something uncertain in his expression.
"What?"
"Thank you." His voice came out rough. "For letting me do this. For trusting me with the board."
"Don't thank me yet." I took the shirt out of his hands. "You haven't won."
"No." His eyes met mine, the predator visible again, hungry and ready. "But I’ll win the battle while you go win the war."