Chapter 15 utive Privilege #2
“I know I can be intense when it comes to business. Competitive, a little overzealous—”
“Conniving,” I offer.
“Fair enough,” he concedes. “But listen, if you want Left Turn to stand, I’ll back you. All the way. No boardroom tricks. No fine print. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
“Why?” I challenge. “What’s in it for you?”
He holds my gaze for a long moment, something shifting in his expression. “The industry needs labels like Left Turn. Your father built something special—something that puts the music first.” His voice drops slightly. “And maybe I respect how hard you’re fighting to preserve that.”
I’m not sure what to do with his declaration—with this Dylan who looks at me like he sees more than another acquisition target.
“You’ll do whatever you can?” I ask slowly, watching him carefully.
He steps in, closing the distance, voice low and deliberate. “Whatever you ask.”
His eyes drag over my body. “I’m very, very good at following instructions.”
The air tightens between us, stretched thin with all the things we’ve buried under sharp words and long silences.
I hold his gaze, trying not to flinch, even as something inside me leans closer.
He’s too close, too steady, and the way he’s looking at me makes it hard to remember all the reasons I’m not supposed to want this—want him—again.
It feels like striking a match too close to something I can’t afford to burn.
But I square my shoulders, meet his eyes. “Truce.”
He blinks, like he wasn’t expecting me to say it out loud. “You mean it?”
I nod, holding out my hand. “Don’t make me regret it.”
He takes it—warm, steady—his fingers sliding against mine like he’s relearning something he thought he’d forgotten.
His thumb brushes across my knuckles as we shake, a deliberate stroke that sends heat racing up my arm.
I notice the calluses on his fingertips from years of drumsticks, and suddenly I’m flooded with the memory of those same calloused fingers tracing patterns on my skin in the elevator.
We both pretend not to notice how long we stay there, locked in a grip that feels too careful to be casual and too charged to be just business.
Like we’re testing the weight of a truce that could shift at any moment.
Our palms cling, reluctant. Our eyes don’t stray.
And in the breath of stillness, it’s not a question hanging between us—it’s a history.
Unfinished, unsettled, and far from over. It’s the start of something I can’t predict and might not be able to stop. And whether it saves Left Turn or ruins us both—I’ve already let it happen.
I let go first and take a step back, giving myself space. But instead of the relief I expect, I feel the loss of his touch like a physical ache.
“I’m going to Grim House tonight,” I say.
Dylan gives me a skeptical look, holding his breath like he knows something else is coming.
I tuck the folder tighter under my arm, fingers twitching. “You should come.”
It’s not an invitation, not quite a challenge—but it lands somewhere in the heat between.
Dylan blinks. “You’re inviting me… to a dive bar?”
“Yes.” The laugh escapes before I can stop it—half nerves, half disbelief that I’m doing this at all.
His brows lift slowly. “That almost sounds like a date.”
I fight the flicker in my pulse. “There’s a band I want to see. I’m thinking about adding them to the final lineup.”
“Kinda still sounds like a date. And for the record, I usually prefer somewhere a little more… upscale.” His smile is devastating and entirely too pleased with himself.
“It is not a date,” I say—too sharp, too fast.
His grin deepens. Like he heard me say yes.
“You and me,” I add, trying to recover. “Off the grid. No streaming numbers. No spreadsheets. Just music.”
He regards me in silence long enough to make me regret speaking first.
“Well?” I ask, my voice lower than I meant it to be. I tap my heel against the wood of the stage like it might break the tension.
He doesn’t move, but his eyes drag over me, slow and deliberate.
“Just admiring how well you wear impatience, Clemson,” he murmurs. “Almost better than when you wear nothing at all.”
My breath catches. Heat flashes under my skin—sharp, instant—and instead of stepping back like I should, I take an unconscious step closer. My grip tightens on my folder until my knuckles go white, and the worst part is he sees it all. Of course he does. And he smiles like it was the whole point.
And for the first time since this all began—after my father died, after we kissed, after we got stuck in an elevator—I see it. A shift in the balance.
We’re in the gray now. Somewhere between fixes and feelings, legacy and lust. Somewhere dangerous. The elevator encounter has changed everything between us, and we both know it. There’s no going back to simple antagonism when we’ve tasted something deeper, more complex.
I match his gaze.
“What time should I pick you up?” he asks.
“It’s not a date,” I say sternly.
He smirks. “Let me be a gentleman for once?”
“What makes you think I want a gentleman?” I raise an eyebrow.
He throws his head back and laughs.
“Meet me there at ten. I have to take Hazel to ballet class tonight and drop her off at my mom’s after.”
“I’ll be there.”