Chapter 22 Bree
Bree
Monday’s board vote feels like it happened in a different lifetime. Some distant era when I still had functional vertebrae and remembered what sunlight felt like.
My proposal passed.
Hooray.
Didn’t even get credit, but whatever.
Celebration lasted about thirty-three seconds before we were drowning in implementation logistics.
Tuesday was donor outreach strategies and legal entity structuring.
Wednesday was financial modeling and regulatory compliance checklists.
Today was... honestly, I’m not even sure what today was. Fourteen hours of implementation details, legal frameworks, donor communication templates, and enough coffee to give a horse cardiac arrhythmia. A blur of Excel spreadsheets and increasingly unhinged sticky notes to myself.
My eyes are doing that thing where they feel like they’re coated in sand, and I’m pretty sure I’ve read the same paragraph about “fiduciary oversight mechanisms” four times without absorbing a single word.
Nico is at seated at his desk in his glass-walled office, his tie loosened, his sleeves rolled up to his forearms in that distracting way. The scars on his face catch the lamplight as he frowns at his laptop, and I watch his jaw work while he reads something that’s clearly pissing him off.
He glances up, sees me gazing at him. Then he closes his laptop and stands. He walks out of his office until he’s standing next to my desk.
“You’re still here,” he says.
“Astute observation.” I stretch my arms over my head, feeling my spine crack. “I was actually thinking of taking up residence under my desk. Really commit to the whole invisible secretary aesthetic.”
Guilt flickers across his expression.
“Come back to my place,” he says suddenly.
I blink. “What?”
“My apartment.” He closes his laptop, and I watch the muscles in his forearms shift as he does. “We can work there.”
This is the first time he’s invited me to his actual home.
Every night for the past little while, it’s been my tiny studio in Astoria.
“I don’t know,” I hear myself say, even as something warm blooms in my chest. “I kinda like my apartment.”
“I do, too,” he agrees. “But I also like mine. And I’d like you to see it.”
He returns to his office and starts gathering his things. He calls out: “Thessaly made her chicken marsala. You’ll like it.”
That would be his private cook. The name has come up, now and again.
And because apparently I have zero self-preservation instincts left, when he comes out, I grab my laptop bag and follow him.
So much for leaving work at different times.
Not that anyone was around to notice. Except building security.
In the parking garage, Indira is already behind the wheel of the Mercedes, with Callahan seated in the driver’s seat.
The drive to Tribeca takes fifteen minutes. I spend most of it staring out the window at the city lights, aware of Nico’s thigh two inches from mine, the woodsy spice of his cologne mixing with his maleness.
I can’t help the knot I feel in my stomach.
You’ve had sex with this man multiple times.
You’ve seen him naked.
Why are you nervous about seeing his apartment?
Because apartments are personal. Apartments have books and art and dirty dishes in the sink. Apartments reveal things that office desks don’t.
And yet, he’s been seeing my apartment all this time. All of my idiosyncrasies. My vulnerabilities.
It’s about time I saw his.
The Mercedes pulls into a gated underground garage, and suddenly we’re in a whole different world. Reserved spots with official signage. Biometric scanners. The kind of security that screams “the people who live here could buy and sell your entire existence.”
Cool cool cool.
Not intimidating at all.
We take a private elevator that requires both Nico’s fingerprint and a rotating code that he enters with practiced ease. The doors slide open directly into his penthouse, and I step out into—
Holy fucking shit.
And I thought the office was nice.
Floor-to-ceiling windows span what looks like the entire west wall, with Manhattan glittering beyond like a jewelry display.
There are original exposed beams in the ceiling.
The hardwood floors are so polished I can practically see my reflection.
A floating staircase leads to an upper level.
And there’s art on the walls that definitely costs more than anything I’ve seen in museums.
“This place is beautiful,” I say, and I mean it. It’s objectively stunning. Magazine-spread gorgeous.
Nico is watching my face. “But?”
“I didn’t say but,” I reply.
“You were thinking it,” he insists.
I turn to look at him. He’s standing near the kitchen island, hands in his pockets, shoulders slightly tense. Like he’s waiting for judgment.
“It doesn’t feel like home,” I say quietly.
Relief floods his expression. Like I’ve confirmed something he already knew but needed someone else to see.
“No,” he agrees. “It doesn’t.”
The kitchen is a professional chef’s dream. Marble counters, copper fixtures, what I’m pretty sure is a commercial-grade range. Everything gleaming and untouched except for a coffeemaker that’s clearly seen extensive use.
Thessaly’s chicken marsala is waiting in the refrigerator in neat glass containers with handwritten reheating instructions.
We eat at the massive dining table. Eight chairs, and we’re using two of them, clustered at one end like we’re afraid the empty space will swallow us.
“The chicken is incredible.” I make embarrassing noises while eating it, and Nico’s mouth twitches in what might be amusement.
“So,” I say between bites, “about the foundation proposal.”
His jaw tightens slightly. “Bree.”
“I’m not asking for a parade. I’m just saying, ‘my team’ is pretty vague for something I developed.”
“I know.” He sets down his fork, meets my eyes directly. “I still haven’t found a good way to give you credit without making things at the office worse for you.”
“Worse how?” I hold my fingers over my mouth as I talk so I don’t gross him out with a view of the partly chewed chicken that sits on my tongue.
“The rumors.” His voice is flat. “If I publicly acknowledge your contributions now, it confirms what people are already whispering. Secretary sleeps with boss, gets promoted. Your work becomes an asterisk.”
He’s right.
I hate that he’s right.
“So I just stay invisible forever?” The frustration leaks into my voice despite my best efforts. “Do the work, get paid secretary wages, watch everyone else take credit?”
“No.” He leans forward, intensity in every line of his body. “I’m going to fix it. But as I told you, I need to neutralize Martin first. Once he’s gone, once the board stabilizes, I can restructure properly. Give you an actual title. Actual authority.”
“And until then?”
“Until then, I know who really saved my company.” His voice drops lower. “Even if no one else does.”
It’s not enough. But it’s something.
After dinner, he gives me a tour. The living area with its museum-quality art. The home office with its multiple monitors and standing desk. The library upstairs with its wall of books and surprisingly comfortable reading chair.
“That one,” he says, pointing to a large abstract piece near the staircase, “is by Ava Redwood-King.”
I stare at it. Blues and silvers swirling together, something almost violent in the brushstrokes but beautiful, too. “I’ve heard of her. Her stuff sells for obscene amounts.”
“It does.” He stands beside me, close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating off his body. “Gideon King, her husband, usually snaps up everything before it hits market. Convincing him to sell this piece to me took six months of negotiation.”
I frown in disbelief. “Six months? For a painting?”
“Gideon is protective of her work.” A small smile crosses his face. “Understandably. She’s brilliant.”
Oh.
She’s brilliant.
Not “her work is brilliant” or “it’s a brilliant piece.”
She’s brilliant.
And there it is, that irrational twist of jealousy in my chest that I have absolutely no right to feel.
Because of course Nico knows her.
Of course he’s met some gorgeous, talented artist who creates transcendent abstract paintings that hang in billionaire penthouses.
Of course he spent six months negotiating for her work, which probably means six months of conversations and meetings and—
Stop it.
“You’ve met her?” I ask, trying to sound casual and probably failing spectacularly.
“Once. At a charity dinner two years ago.” He’s still looking at the painting, not at me. “She and Gideon were there together.”
“She sounds impressive,” I say, and wow, even I can hear the weird edge in my voice.
Nico turns to look at me then, and something knowing flickers across his face.
“She is. So is Gideon.” He pauses, and when he speaks again, his voice has become thoughtful.
“Watching them together. The way he looks at her, the way she challenges him, the way they’ve built something that’s theirs despite their differences, despite the class gap—” He breaks off, shaking his head slightly.
“That’s what I admire most. The partnership. What they created together.”
Oh.
The jealousy drains out of me so fast I feel lightheaded. Because that’s not admiration for another woman. That’s... hope. A man looking at what someone else built and wondering if he could have it, too.
We end up on the massive leather couch, the city sparkling beyond the windows. I’ve changed into one of his t-shirts because my blouse smelled like fourteen hours of stress sweat, and he’s now in gray sweatpants that hang low on his hips.
Don’t look at his hips.
Don’t look...
“You know,” he says suddenly, breaking the comfortable silence, “my older brother Dom and I had a falling out, once.”
I blink at him. That’s... not where I expected this conversation to go.
“A bad one,” he continues, staring at the city lights beyond the windows like they might have answers.
“Took us years to get past it. When he finally tried to reconcile by giving me the money I needed to start this company, part of me felt like he owed me.” His laugh is bitter.
“Some times I wonder if... everything I built was really his guilt paying dividends.”
“It wasn’t,” I say, because you don’t build a billion-dollar company on money or guilt alone.
Do you?
“No,” he agrees. “His gift was leverage. What I built afterward was mine.” He looks at me then, and the vulnerability in his eyes breaks my heart. “I’m still working on believing that.”
My fingers find his hand before I realize I’m moving.
Say something.
Something helpful and wise and—
“You’re allowed to accept help and still own your success,” I tell him. “Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“Aren’t they?” His voice drops. “I keep telling myself I’m waiting to credit you publicly because of the gossip.
Because acknowledging your work would make things worse for you at the office.
” He looks at our joined hands. “But maybe I’m just terrified to admit I needed you.
That the solution came from my secretary, not me.
That my ego can’t handle owing you the way Dom owed me. ”
Oh.
Oh, that’s—
The raw honesty in his voice just takes me aback, and I don’t know what to say.
Oh, Nico.
“For what it’s worth,” I say quietly, “I think you saved yourself. Dom gave you a tool. You built the empire.”
His eyes meet mine, dark and intense. “You’re the first person who’s ever said that and made me believe it.”
“Good,” I tell him. “Just like I gave you a tool. But it was you who saved the company. Or will save the company. It doesn’t matter if I get credit, no matter how much I gripe about it. None of that matters. Nor does it take away from who you are, or what you’ve achieved.”
He stares at me now, his gaze hungry, and just like that the air between us shifts, becoming electric.
“You’re staring,” I murmur.
“You’re worth staring at,” he replies. His eyes darken. “Bree.”
Just my name. But the way he says it... like a question and an answer at the same time.
I lean in and his mouth finds mine.