Chapter 7
Blake
The cursor blinks on the screen, steady and relentless, while the merger deck sits open on page forty-two. I've read the same paragraph four times and still can't make my body stop reacting to it.
Principal authority. Executive oversight. Creative continuity. Impact-integrated sanctuary partnership.
Victor and Dorian have a very specific way of framing my life, and none of it has anything to do with the twelve-hour coding sprints, the first office above the deli, or the years I spent building Keller Industries from a laptop that overheated every time I rendered a scene too large for it.
In their version, I'm useful, brilliant, delicate.
Something expensive that makes beautiful things as long as the right people handle the walls around me.
I lean back in my chair as the leather groans beneath the shift.
My head throbs behind my eyes, dull and persistent, made worse by the white glow of the monitor.
Dinner happened somewhere else in the house almost an hour ago.
I heard the kids for a while, Rosalie declaring something with the authority of a tiny monarch, Samuel arguing about snacks, James asking a question that made Grayson laugh.
I should've gone down. I should've closed the laptop, eaten whatever they saved for me, and let Luca press his face into my neck until I stopped smelling like office air and old resentment.
Instead, I stayed here with the deck.
The language isn't openly hostile. That's what makes it worse.
If they'd been clumsy, I could've dismissed them.
If they'd been cruel, Luther could've ended the conversation in three sentences.
But the phrasing is smooth enough to pass as respect if no one looks at it too closely.
Luther gets authority, governance, final alignment.
I get innovation, vision, emotional authenticity.
The Alpha at the table. The Delta in the lab.
It's an old wound, one I thought had scarred over. Being treated like the accessory to my own life. The clever piece that completes the set but doesn't decide where the set's kept.
I rub the bridge of my nose, pushing my glasses up against my forehead.
I hate the deck. I hate the condescension pressed between its polished lines.
I hate that part of me still wants what it offers.
Wanting resources for the game and the sanctuary doesn't make me naive.
It makes me tired. Ember House needs long-term funding.
Starlight Falls III needs infrastructure my team's been building by hand while pretending exhaustion is a project-management style.
The kids deserve a future where every threat isn't measured first by whether we can afford to survive it.
I want the money. I want the reach. I want the stability.
I just don't want to disappear inside the price.
A quiet knock touches the doorframe, and I know it's Grayson before he speaks. His scent reaches me first, cedarwood and evening air, warm enough that some part of me wants to turn toward it even while the rest of me stays locked on the screen.
"You're still in here," he says.
I don't look up. "I'm working."
He comes in anyway, because Grayson's never been impressed by my attempts at dismissal.
He carries a plate in one hand and a glass of water in the other, moving carefully through the office as if suddenness might make me bolt.
When he reaches the desk, he sets the plate down beside my keyboard, close enough that I can't pretend not to see it.
Sandwiches, sliced fruit, something with melted cheese because he knows I'll eat melted cheese before I admit I'm hungry.
His gaze moves over the open deck, the untouched food, the empty coffee mug near my elbow, then lands on my face. "You missed dinner."
"I was coming down."
"You said that two hours ago."
I drag my attention from the screen long enough to look at him. His long hair's pulled back badly, loose strands falling around his face, and his ocean-gray eyes are soft in the way that means he's worried enough to be careful. That gentleness makes my throat feel worse.
"I just need to finish this section," I say, turning back to the deck because looking at him makes it harder to keep the whole argument upright.
"If I can reframe the sanctuary's distribution rights and strip out the impact language, Victor won't have room to leverage Ember House without triggering breach protections. "
Grayson doesn't answer right away. He pulls the spare chair close to mine and sits beside me instead, his knee brushing my thigh.
The contact's small, but my body notices it before I can stop it.
His hand comes to the back of my head, fingers slipping into my curls with slow pressure, and the ache behind my eyes pulses once.
"You're shaking," he says quietly.
"I'm not."
His fingers still for a second, then continue their careful path through my hair. He doesn't argue with the lie. That's worse than if he had. He reaches for the water and puts it in my hand, waiting until my fingers close around the glass.
I take one sip to get him to stop watching me like that. It doesn't work.
The door clicks softly behind him, and the room changes again.
Luther enters without speaking. He's taken off his suit jacket, and his shirtsleeves are rolled to his forearms, the ink there dark beneath the lamplight. He closes the door with a quiet finality, then crosses the room with his eyes on the laptop. On the deck. On me.
I know that look. The stillness before he decides whether to lead, hold, or tear something apart.
"Don't," I say before he reaches the desk. "I'm almost done."
Luther stops beside my chair. His gaze flicks to Grayson's hand in my hair, the water in my grip, the plate I haven't touched. Then he looks at the screen.
Principal Authority: Luther Keller.
Founder / Creative Lead: Blake Keller.
His jaw tightens.
I feel the argument rise in me before he says anything, defensive and exhausted and already fraying.
"We need this deal, Luther. We need the security.
You saw the endowment projections. You saw the localization structure.
You saw what they could take off our plate if Maceo locks down the access clauses. "
"I saw it," he says.
His voice is calm enough that my chest tightens. Luther's calm is never indifference. It's control applied with both hands.
He reaches past me and closes the laptop.
The screen goes black. The sudden absence of white light leaves the office softer, smaller, held inside the amber glow of the desk lamp. My first breath after it closes shakes more than I want either of them to hear.
"I wasn't done," I say, but the anger doesn't land the way I mean it to. My hands are unsteady on the glass. My head hurts. Grayson's fingers are still in my hair, and Luther's standing close enough that his scent begins to push the office out of my lungs.
"I know," Luther says. "That's the problem."
Grayson shifts nearer, his chair scraping softly across the floor. He reaches for the plate, tears off a small piece of sandwich, and holds it in front of me without turning it into a demand. "Eat first. Argue after."
"I can feed myself."
"Then do it."
There's no tease in his voice. No challenge.
Just warmth and worry, steady enough that I hate how badly I want to lean into it.
I take the bite from his fingers because refusing would require more energy than I have.
The food tastes better than I expected, and my body responds with a hollow twist of hunger that makes shame rise hot beneath my ribs.
Luther notices that too. Of course he does.
His hand comes to my throat, not gripping, just resting his thumb beneath my jaw where my pulse is beating too fast. He counts it silently, his eyes fixed on my face. "How long has your head been hurting?"
"It's not that bad."
"That wasn't an answer."
I swallow, and his thumb moves with the motion. "Since before dinner."
Grayson's fingers tighten gently in my curls, his other hand sliding to the back of my neck. "Blake."
There's too much in my name when he says it like that. Hurt. Frustration. Love I can't file into anything useful. I look away from him and toward the closed laptop, but Luther steps into the line of my sight, blocking it with his body.
"No," he says, low and absolute. "You don't get to leave yourself in that deck."
My mouth opens, then closes. I want to tell them they don't understand, but they do. That's the worst part. They understand enough to stop me before I can make the argument sound noble.
"They keep making it sound almost right," I say finally.
"That's what gets under my skin. It's not all wrong.
The deal could help. The game could be bigger than anything we've ever done.
Ember House could stop living quarter to quarter.
Luca wouldn't have to hear estimates and wonder how much of the company I'm burning to keep his sanctuary alive. "
Grayson's hand leaves my hair and slides down to my shoulder, his palm broad and warm through my shirt. "Luca doesn't think you're burning the company for him."
"I know that."
"Do you?"
The question settles between us, quiet and too accurate. I take another bite from the piece of sandwich because Grayson's still holding it there, and because Luther's thumb hasn't left my pulse.
"They called me a creative asset," I say, and the words scrape more than they should.
"Not in the deck exactly, not where I can point to it and say look, there, that's the insult.
It's worse than that. It's everywhere. Luther is authority.
I'm brilliance that needs to be managed.
Ember House is impact. Luca is authenticity.
Everything we survived becomes softer when they name it, easier to sell. "
Luther's expression hardens, but his hand stays gentle. "Then we make them understand the answer's no unless the language changes."