Chapter Seventeen
Eliza
The universe had a sick sense of humor. I wanted him, but I also knew I was being stupid to keep doing this.
So when I woke up the next morning, I swore to myself that there would be no more sex with Gabriel.
There was a knock at Gabriel’s door and I considered peeking in. But a moment later, he spoke to me through the door. “I ordered in breakfast.”
I was rewriting our last twenty-four hours in my head, layering in things I wished I’d said, things I wished he’d said, positions I wished we’d tried. Instead, I opened the door and joined him. The spread was impressive, and he offered me an omelet that looked and smelled amazing.
If he noticed the way I watched his hands, he didn’t say. But he noticed. Gabriel never missed anything.
He finally turned, giving me the full weight of that predator gaze as he took a drink of orange juice. "You’re not actually updating projections," he said, low and matter-of-fact. "You’ve run the numbers five times already. What are you stalling on?"
I took a bite, buying time. "Just because you can do math in your head doesn’t mean the rest of us are robots. Some of us enjoy double-checking before we risk our jobs on a decimal point."
"Some of us don’t have to," he shot back, but softer. Like he was inviting me to take the bait.
I wanted to ignore him, but I also wanted to peel off his shirt with my teeth and make him beg. Complicated.
"You’re in a mood," I said, affecting total boredom. "Can’t tell if it’s brooding or self-satisfied."
"Both. I’m brooding about being self-satisfied." His lips curved, almost imperceptible, like he was daring me to keep playing. "You haven’t said a word about last night, Eliza."
He pronounced it with the faintest sibilant, the way my mother did when she was angry with me. "Why would I?" I asked, enjoying the fluffy egg and the flavor of tomatoes and avocado.
He didn’t move, just waited. The air between us turned viscous. I felt my pulse in my teeth.
"We shouldn’t have had sex last night," I blurted, then wanted to melt. That was not what I meant to say.
He just blinked, then looked genuinely amused. "You regret it?"
I shook my head. "You want me off-balance so I’ll make real mistakes."
He studied me for a long beat, then leaned in. "Eliza, if I wanted to manipulate you, I’d do it in the boardroom. Not the bedroom."
"Charming." My hands shook. "Don’t patronize me, Gabriel. You’re the king of ulterior motives."
"That’s projection," he said. "You can’t imagine wanting someone without strings attached."
If he expected me to shrivel, he didn’t know me at all. "And you’re allergic to messy emotions, but you’re not exactly subtle with your own motivations."
He regarded me, then slowly unfastened the top button of his shirt. Not for me. For him. I was nearly certain. "If you’re trying to make this about business, fine," he said. "But stop pretending you don’t want me, too."
I made a noise that was supposed to be a scoff, but it escaped as a gasp. The bastard smiled.
"Fuck you," I said, but it was all heat, no venom.
He tilted his head. "You already did. Twice."
"Don’t remind me."
His voice softened. "You don’t have to do everything alone. You could ask for help, just once."
"That’s not how I got this job," I said, then bit my tongue.
He nodded. "You earned it. More than anyone. But you’re allowed to-"
I cut him off. "If you finish that sentence with ‘lean on someone,’ I will suffocate you with your own pillow."
He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. "Noted."
I went back to my breakfast. He went back to his. The urge to cry was so overwhelming I almost laughed.
Thankfully, the rest of the trip was a breeze, and I breathed a sigh of relief when we boarded the plane to go home.
The plane landed in a storm. Of course.
He followed me through customs, not even pretending to keep his distance. I wore six-inch stilettos with violence in every step. The car waited outside, all black glass and heated seats. His driver, not mine.
"You’re coming with me," he said, not a question.
I threw him a glare, but my body ached from exhaustion. "Why?"
"You’re dead on your feet. I’ll make sure you get home. And if you want, I’ll order a pizza." He opened the door for me, not breaking eye contact.
I could have argued, but I was tired. Of this day, this week, this fucking war we kept fighting.
He slid in after me. The small space felt so intimate. His cologne tickled my nose and made my mouth water.
"Your hair’s falling down," he said.
I reached up; my bun had collapsed, black strands hanging limp. I tried to fix it, but he beat me to it, reaching over and tucking a lock behind my ear. The gentleness almost undid me.
I didn’t move his hand. "Gabriel, what are you doing?"
"Making sure you’re real," he said, and then he withdrew, all business again.
The car stopped outside my apartment as the rain came down harder.
He got out, circled to my side, umbrella already open. "Come on," he said.
I followed, grateful for the excuse to let someone else lead, just for a minute. He took my bags and walked me to my door, rain pattering on the umbrella, the silence loud in the small space between us.
At the entrance, I fumbled my keys. He took them, unlocked the door, and handed them back with a hint of a smile.
"You should sleep," he said. "You’re a menace when you’re sleep-deprived."
"I am always a menace." I stepped inside, braced against the ache in my sternum. "You’re not coming in?"
He looked at me like I’d offered him the world and he was too principled to take it. "You need rest."
I wanted to punch him. Or maybe cry. I settled for straightening my spine. "You’re impossible."
He smiled, just for a second, and then reached out. His hand touched my cheek, his palm warm, and he pressed his lips to my forehead, slow, deliberate, devastating.
I froze, every nerve ending in my body on fire. He let go, stepped back into the rain, and didn’t look back.
Inside, I collapsed against the door and tried to breathe.
I should have slept. Instead, I went back to going through company logs, tracing breadcrumbs like a woman possessed. Two hours later, my screen flashed: unauthorized entry, admin override. Username: Whitfield.
Harrison fucking Whitfield. The grandfather I never had, the "mentor" who sent me my first real pen. The one who told me I was "a breath of fresh air" at my first board meeting.
I stared at the evidence until the lines blurred, tears hot and vicious. Then I copied every file, every timestamp, every last ugly packet of proof, and slid them into a folder labeled "WAR."
In the end, there was only me, and a night full of the memory of Gabriel’s mouth on my skin, and a heart that didn’t know who to trust less: the people who’d raised me, or the one man who’d never once lied to me about what he wanted.
I shut the laptop, lay back on the bed, and didn’t dream at all.
*
My phone alarm shredded me out of oblivion at 5 a.m., less than two hours after I’d stopped staring at the ceiling. I dressed sharp: black sheath, white blazer, Louboutin stilettos with red soles that promised violence.
My eyes were swollen, my hair a fistful of static. I pulled it into a severe twist, fixed my eyeliner with military precision, and left my apartment, only stopping to get a to-go coffee large enough to euthanize a small horse.
By the time I hit the lobby, I’d read the same email from Harrison three times and still hadn’t decided if I wanted to murder him or myself. The elevators reflected my image back at me; expression impassive, shoulders back, don’t fuck with me stamped into every line of my face.
The doors opened, and there was Calvin. He’d worn a teal shirt with a pattern that had the power to induce migraines. His smile was a little too bright for the hour.
"Jesus, Eliza. Did you mug a cosmetics counter on the way here?"
I arched a brow. "Did you lose a bet?"
He followed me to my office, hands in his pockets, steps elastic as always. "You missed dinner last night. Mom was two drinks away from calling the police."
"Sorry," I said. "I was occupied."
His look sharpened. "Rough flight?"
"No."
He collapsed into the chair opposite my desk, still grinning. "Your poker face is slipping. Something is bothering you."
I didn’t answer. I set my bag down and started my computer. "What do you need, Calvin?"
He stretched, making a weird noise, and watched me like a hawk. "I need you to listen to your big brother for once. Something’s not right."
I stilled. "What do you mean?"
"Rumor is there’s a shadow vote brewing on the board. Some legacy types want to block the merger, but they’re not going through channels. They’re playing dirty."
My throat dried out. "How do you know?"
He tapped his phone. "Because half of them called me, thinking I’d be on their side. As if I’d ever vote against you." He paused, eyes softer now. "But watch your back, Liz."
I wanted to scream. Instead, I sipped my coffee and said, "I appreciate the tip."
He got up, but before leaving he said, "Don’t let Valor distract you. He’s not as bulletproof as he thinks."
The moment the door clicked shut behind him, I set about reconstructing Harrison Whitfield’s entire professional history.
I built a timeline, mapped the data leaks, matched every attack on my system to one of his committee meetings.
It was beautiful, in a way. Precise, methodical, almost respectful.
The pattern wasn’t sabotage for profit. It was personal. Which made it so much worse.
I drafted the confrontation email six times, deleted each version. The idea of walking into his office and watching the mask slip. But the urge to see Gabriel, to just touch him, talk to him, detonated every professional instinct. I texted him: I need to see you. Conference 16A, fifteen min.
He didn’t answer. I went anyway.
The executive conference hallway was glass and steel, so every step echoed. I passed the old-timers’ portraits, every one of them male, every one of them staring down the next generation like daring us to disappoint them. My heels bit into the runner.
I was about to open the door to 16A when I heard voices inside.
"We need to be ready. If she gets proof, the board will flip," said a voice I’d recognize even through a hurricane. Gabriel. Calm, measured, not a trace of the heat he’d shown me on the plane.
"You should have shut it down when you had the chance," someone hissed back. Harrison, definitely.
A third voice, Calvin, low and hurried. "Can we at least warn her? She’s not the enemy here."
"She doesn’t have to know yet," Gabriel said. "If she does, we lose the element of surprise."
A glass of ice water dumped into my stomach.
Harrison’s voice: "The vote is Friday. If you’re going to move, it has to be before then."
A silence, then Gabriel again, colder than I’d ever heard him. "Leave her to me. I’ll handle it."
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t even breathe.
"She’s not a pawn," Calvin said, but his words landed like feathers.
"She’s your sister," Gabriel countered. "She knows the game."
If I walked in now, they’d see the crack in me. The ugly, mewling thing that still wanted Gabriel’s hand on my skin, even as he plotted to ruin me. I stayed in the shadow by the door, listening as my own love story crashed and burned on the other side of the glass.
The voices inside shifted to logistics, meetings, PR control, all the tedious mechanisms of war. I let myself drift backward, heels silent now, and disappeared down the hallway before any of them could see me.
My office was quiet and safe. I locked the door and folded in half, breath coming shallow, hands shaking so badly I knocked my phone onto the floor.
A text appeared on the shattered screen: Where are you? From Gabriel.
I wanted to smash it more. I wanted to call him and demand the truth. I wanted to hate him, and couldn’t.
I spent the next hour prepping my proof, cross-referencing logs, assembling a document so airtight it would suffocate the whole board.
Then I went to the bathroom, locked myself in a stall, and wept until no more tears would come.
By four p.m., the office was emptying out. I sat at my desk, pulse an angry metronome in my ears, watching the sunset melt over the buildings. I imagined what Gabriel would say if I confronted him. I imagined what I’d say back.
A knock on my door. "Eliza?" His voice, impossible to ignore.
I said nothing. The knob turned; he stepped in, rain flecked on his suit.
He looked at me like he could sense the hole in my chest. "You’ve been crying."
"Go away, Gabriel."
He crossed to me, hands raised. "You overheard. I wanted to explain."
"Don’t bother." My voice splintered.
He hovered, desperate, then dropped to a knee in front of me like a penitent. "You have to believe-"
I shoved my laptop at him, the open folder of evidence. "Harrison’s the leak. It’s all right there."
He looked, scanned, eyes darting, and I watched it hit him in real time.
"I was going to protect you from this," he said.
I laughed, the sound ugly. "By keeping me in the dark? By deciding what I should and shouldn’t know?"
He shook his head, reached for my hand. I pulled it away. He looked gutted.
"You don’t trust me," I said. Not a question.
His face crumpled. "I trust you so much it terrifies me."
I stood up, legs numb, and walked to the window. The city sparkled, cruel and dazzling, and I let myself imagine what it would be like to start over somewhere that nobody knew my name.
"If you really trusted me," I said, "you’d let me fight my own battles. Even if it means losing."
He was silent. I turned, met his eyes, and let him see every jagged edge.
"I was going to tell you I love you," I said. "But now it just feels pathetic."
His mouth opened, but I was already walking past him, out the door, and out of his reach.
He followed, called my name once, but I didn’t slow down.
In the end, it was always me against the world. I’d just forgotten, for one weak, perfect second, how good it felt to have someone stand beside me.
I wouldn’t make that mistake again.