31. Return of the King
Return of the King
King
The Fuse boardroom smells faintly of coffee, and the hum of the city is muted by floor-to-ceiling glass.
It’s a gorgeous office, just north of Wall Street, with a perfect view of the East River.
It’s bigger than what we had at King & Rowe, and everyone has been friendly so far.
Sometimes mergers can create hostility, but the employees here seem to be excited about this one, which is good.
It makes my job easier, at least.
I’m already seated at the head of the table when the door opens, and Asher walks in like he owns the place. Which… I guess until this morning, he basically did. Same crisp suit, same perfectly styled hair… but there’s something in his eyes I don’t remember. Caution, maybe.
Or guilt.
We haven’t spoken since the retreat, when he walked out on me and didn’t look back. I told myself I’d be fine with that. That I’d been expecting it from day one. But the truth is, seeing him now, in our now shared office space, feels like someone just shoved a live wire under my skin.
He doesn’t look at me at first, just nods to Walter, who is of course our first client as Fuse & King.
He greets the other execs like nothing is amiss, like we weren’t well on our way to a very real relationship.
Like we didn’t strip each other down to bone and nerve, or sleep tangled together in a bed I never let anyone else share.
These last two weeks have been hell, to be honest. I oscillate between rage and sadness, trying to pinpoint where it all went wrong.
Some days I tell myself I dodged a bullet, that the silence is proof we were never built to last. Other days, I wake up with the taste of him still in my mouth and can’t stop replaying the way he looked at me before he left.
The devastation splattered across his pretty face.
I buried myself in work, closed three deals, and pretended it didn’t matter… but every night, when my apartment on the East Side was too quiet and there was nothing left to distract me, I felt the weight of him in the empty space beside me.
I hate it. I hate him for leaving.
But I hate myself more for wanting him back anyway.
When Asher’s gaze finally flicks to mine, it’s brief. Controlled .
And it pisses me off more than if he’d glared.
“Mr. Harrison,” I say, deliberately formal.
“Mr. King,” he replies, voice even, as if the last thing I did to him wasn’t make him whimper into my mouth.
The rest of the room doesn’t seem to notice the crackling tension stretching between us, but I can feel it like a tripwire. One wrong move and the whole thing will blow.
I give a quick, introductory speech, thanking everyone for the seamless transition. Asher sits across from me at the table, jaw hard, as he looks at everyone but me.
When I’m finished, Walter flips open his leather portfolio and launches right in. “Well, gentlemen, now that Fuse and King are one entity, I’d like to review the first joint pitch.”
“What pitch?” Asher asks.
Walter’s brow furrows. “The one Mr. King emailed me yesterday.”
Asher looks at me then, his face turning red with rage. I’d deliberately left him off the email, and with the way he’s looking at me like he might murder me, perhaps that wasn’t the brightest idea.
I start to answer, thinking of an excuse other than ‘ I wanted to hurt you just as much as you hurt me ,’ but Asher’s chair scrapes back sharply.
“Excuse me a moment.”
He’s already halfway to the door before anyone can respond.
I give Walter my most diplomatic smile. “One second.”
I follow Asher down the hallway, the sound of my shoes echoing off the marble.
He doesn’t slow, doesn’t even look at me, just beelines for the metal door at the end that leads to the stairs, which leads to a rooftop terrace.
I’d gotten my tour of the building earlier this morning, and my assistant had told me it was one of those “fresh air” spaces the execs use when they need to blow off steam.
Wonderful.
“Asher,” I call after him.
He ignores me and climbs the stairs, two at a time. Shoving the matching metal door open, we both step into the early March air. The blast of cold hits me in the face when I follow him out.
The door swings shut behind us with a sharp metallic click. I turn to go back in, but the handle won’t budge.
Of course.
“It’s locked,” I growl, turning to face him.
Asher’s chest rises and falls, nostrils flaring. “Security had the automatic lock installed last month after someone left it open in the rain. You need a key card to get back in.”
My eyes go wide. “By all means, be slower at producing said key card. I haven’t gotten mine yet.”
He chuckles, but it’s not kind. “You mean the one sitting on the table next to Walter?”
I take a step toward him, shoving my hands into my suit pockets against the biting wind. “Guess you’re stuck with me until someone realizes we’re missing.”
The wind cuts straight through the thin wool of my jacket, and I can see him shiver. The tip of his nose is already pink. I move closer, partly because I’m freezing, partly because I want to see how long he’ll hold his ground before giving in.
“Don’t,” he warns, but his teeth chatter halfway through the word.
“We’re on the seventy-second floor and it’s twenty-eight degrees out here, Harrison,” I say, voice low. “We’re either standing close or we’re both going to be miserable.”
He huffs, but when the next gust of wind hits, he gives in, letting me step in close until our shoulders touch, heat bleeding slowly between us through layers of fabric.
His body is stiff at first, like he’s determined not to need the contact.
But the longer we stand there, the more he leans in.
From this close, I can smell his cologne under the cold air.
Clean, sharp, familiar . It does things to me I wish it didn’t, especially after two weeks of silence.
His jaw is tight enough to crack, his gaze fixed somewhere over my shoulder.
“I see you still enjoy screwing me over in public,” he mutters finally, voice cutting through the hiss of the wind.
“You mean the pitch email to Walter?”
“Don’t play dumb.”
“Wasn’t playing,” I reply, teeth clicking.
He snorts. “You knew exactly what you were doing.”
I let the silence stretch a beat too long, mostly because he’s right. “Maybe I did,” I admit, my voice low enough to be almost lost in the wind.
That gets his attention. His head snaps toward me, eyes narrowed.
“You are unbelievable.”
“I learned from the best.”
He laughs once, sharp and humorless. “This is what it’s going to be, then? Petty revenge for me walking away? I should put my two weeks in now, then.”
“You didn’t just walk away,” I say, and my voice comes out sharper than I intended. “You made me believe—for a minute—that this wasn’t just a game to you. And then you bailed without a word, like I was nothing.”
“That’s because it was getting too—” He cuts himself off, looking away so quickly.
“Too what?” I press, leaning closer.
“Too real,” he bites out.
There it is. The words hang between us, almost visible in the cold air like smoke signals. My chest tightens, not because I didn’t already know, but because hearing him say it makes it impossible to keep pretending this is just business for me.
“You think I didn’t feel that too?” I ask quietly. “That maybe that’s why I’m so angry? Because, for once, it wasn’t pretend. Not for me.”
His mouth opens, then closes.
“I told you things I’ve never told anyone, Asher. I fell asleep next to you—twice. That’s not something I do. And you…” My throat tightens, but I push through it. “You left.”
“I had to,” he says, but it sounds weak even to him.
“You had to,” I repeat, disbelief dripping from every syllable. “Why? Because you’re so convinced that letting anyone in will make you weak? That it’ll ruin the perfectly controlled little life you’ve built?”
His face hardens. “That’s rich coming from you, Mr. Control-Everything-Or-Die.”
He’s not wrong, but I’m too stubborn to give him the satisfaction.
“I control things because it keeps people safe. Because it keeps me safe. You? You run. Though in the end, I suppose it has the same result. Nobody gets close enough to hurt you, right? Except, you get to pretend it’s self-preservation instead of fear. ”
That hits, I can tell. His shoulders stiffen, his eyes flash, but he doesn’t deny it. I take a breath and let the wind cut between us before stepping closer again, erasing the distance he tried to put there.
“Here’s the thing, Harrison. You don’t scare me off. You piss me off, sure. You make me want to shake you until your teeth rattle. But I’m not afraid of what this is.”
“This?” he echoes, his voice softer now.
“Us. Whatever the hell ‘us’ is.”
He looks down, the pink in his cheeks deepening, not just from the cold. For a second, I think he might actually say something honest.
Instead, he mutters, “We’re actively freezing to death right now. I’m not doing this here.”
“Too bad,” I say, matching his stubborn tone. “Because unless you’ve got a spare key card hidden in that perfectly tailored jacket, we’re not going anywhere.”
He huffs out a frustrated breath, but he doesn’t move away. The wind whips around us, and instinctively, he steps closer into my space, our coats brushing.
We stand like that for a long time, our chests heaving between us.
“I’m not good at this,” he admits.
I almost smile. “What, talking without your balls freezing off?”
“Feelings,” he says flatly. “Relationships. The whole…” He waves a hand between us. “Thing.”
“And you think I am?”
His eyes flick up, incredulous. “You act like you’ve got it all figured out.”
“I act like I’m in control,” I correct. “That’s not the same thing.”
Something shifts in his expression. Less guarded, more… curious.
“So what, you’re saying you’re just as fucked up as I am?”
“Maybe worse,” I admit.
That earns me the smallest, most reluctant smirk, and it delights me to no end. “That’s a low bar, King.”
I can’t help it, I laugh. It’s short, but it feels good. “And yet here we are.”
“Frozen solid on a roof?”
“Talking.”
He shakes his head, but I can see the tension bleeding out of his posture.
After a long pause, he says, “When I left that morning… it wasn’t because I didn’t want to be there. It was because I did. Too much. I’m not ready to…” He trails off, shaking his head. “I thought putting distance between us would make it easier.”
“How’s that working out for you?” I ask, softer than before.
He exhales, and for once, there’s no bite in it. “Terrible.”
Something in my chest loosens, just a little. “Same.” It’s nice to know I wasn’t the only miserable one. It’s nice to know that, despite everything, perhaps we’re not doomed. “Maybe,” I say slowly, “we could try not running. Just… see what happens if we stay.”
He studies me for a long time, and I let him. If this is going to happen, it’s not going to be because I coerced him while being locked up here with me.
Finally, he says, “I don’t know if I can promise I won’t screw it up.”
I step closer until our foreheads almost touch. “Then we screw it up together.”
His breath catches, but he doesn’t pull away. And just like that, the tension shifts. Still tight, still electric, but no longer edged entirely in anger.
“I hate you,” he mutters.
“I know,” I say, and lean in, pressing my lips to his and earning a low moan.
The kiss is cold at first, our lips are chapped from the wind, but it heats fast. His hands fist in my coat, dragging me closer, and I grip the back of his neck like I’m afraid he’ll vanish again if I let go.
It’s not neat or careful. It’s not even romantic, despite the setting and circumstances. It’s the kind of kiss that says I missed you, and I’m still mad, and I don’t know how to stop wanting you.
By the time we pull apart, we’re both breathing hard.
“This doesn’t fix anything,” he says, but his voice is rough, and his pupils are blown wide.
“I know. But it’s a start.”
Suddenly, the roof door handle rattles. We both turn as it swings open, a confused intern poking his head out. “Uh, Mr. King? Mr. Harrison? Everyone’s waiting for you.”
“We’ll be right there,” I say, not taking my eyes off Asher.
The intern nods awkwardly and disappears, leaving the door open.
I gesture toward it. “After you.”
He hesitates, then steps forward. But as he passes me, his hand brushes mine—just for a second, just enough to make me feel like maybe everything will be okay.
And I know in that instant that no matter how messy this gets, I’m not done with him. We’re not done with this.
Not even close.