Chapter 54
Theo
I’d been hoping that sitting in the library would help ease the stress of reading this document, but who was I kidding? It was a mess. I never wanted whoever wrote this to work for my company.
The merger agreement was dense in the way only corporate law ever managed. Pages of representations and warranties, stacked like dominoes, waiting for one wrong word to tip them.
Clean on the surface. Sloppy underneath.
It was the exact kind of thing Dad would’ve flagged immediately, redlined to hell, and then rewritten until the other firm hated him but couldn’t argue with the result.
I made notes in the margin, adjusting termination triggers, tightening the language around post-close obligations, wondering whether the other side was incompetent or just hoping no one was paying close enough attention—because this was a disaster and I was paying attention.
After Dad was shot, I tripled the number of hours I put in at the firm.
I worked during class and after class, and I went into the office four nights a week.
Liam was worried. I saw it in his eyes. Ren was, too, but both of them were trying to be respectful and let me handle my business, which I appreciated.
I used to love interning, but now everything felt off. Like I was stepping into a skin that no longer fit. Dad’s desk still carried the faint scent of his cologne, and his name was stamped on documents that I was now responsible for understanding, protecting, fixing, and secretly signing.
Luckily, Mr. Spector, always double checked every document. That meant he gave me a buffer of error. So far, there’d been none, but the pressure to hide how broken my father was weighed heavily around my neck.
I’d always trusted contracts because they were controlled, predictable, and something you could dismantle clause by clause until nothing was left unexamined.
Even the certainty of legal language couldn’t quiet the static in my head.
I kept thinking about how easily things could be destroyed, how one moment rewrote everything that came after.
I caught myself rereading the same paragraph for the third time, pen pointing at a random line, and exhaled through my nose. I could hold this together. I had to. That was what planners did—stepped in when the system broke and pretended they weren’t breaking right along with it.
Ever since New Year’s, I’d felt disjointed, like I was standing half a step outside my own life, watching it without quite knowing where I fit anymore.
Walking away from Harvard had been the right choice—I knew that on a rational level—but the conversation with the dean still burned.
The disappointment had been heavy in his voice as if I’d squandered something sacred.
It hurt more than I wanted to admit, not because I doubted the decision, but because it marked the first time the path I’d mapped so carefully had simply…vanished.
Everything on my screen began to blur into something abstract, and the language lost its sharp edges as my thoughts drifted.
Ren sat beside me, close enough that I could feel the soothing warmth of her through the sleeve of my sweater.
Her presence was more grounding than any contract.
I realized I didn’t need another plan right now. I just needed her.
“How’s Ivy,” I asked, closing my laptop.
Ren turned to look at me, twirling her pen between her fingers.
“She’s hurt and angry, and honestly, I’m worried. Ivy is always so positive and happy, and to see her so sad…I just wish there was more I could do.”
Cupping her face, I ran my thumb over her cheek, soaking in the softness and the love she naturally exuded like a perfume.
“Zigzag knew the moment he started hacking again that there was a chance of getting caught.”
“I know, but I hate to think that I had something to do with him getting arrested. Picturing him sitting in a cell makes me feel so guilty,” she said.
“We don’t know if it had anything to do with what he did for us. My guess is that this has to do with Christov and the fact that Sabastian found out who Zigzag is to his father.”
“So, you don’t think it was Sabastian’s fault?”
Her eyes turned hopeful.
“I didn’t say that. We don’t know exactly what happened, and we can’t trust either of them right now. But I do put more on the father than the son,” I said, and Ren nodded.
She rubbed her bottom lip. She always thought a situation through and looked at it from all angles. That was part of the reason why I loved her so much.
“How’s Ethan,” she asked, changing course.
“The same. Physically, he’s getting better, but…
it’s like his soul is broken. He tries to laugh and smile when Blake and I are around, but you can tell that he’s not really feeling it.
He and Mom were so close, despite the issues with Myles’s mom and finding out Lip was his.
She could be angry enough to want to stab him and yet would defend him and love him all the same.
” I shook my head. “I didn’t realize how special that was. How unique they were, until now.”
Ren grabbed my hand and linked our fingers together.
“You may not realize it, but you have that with Liam. Can you ever see yourself being so angry with him that you’d give up on the two of you?”
I locked eyes with her.
“No, I can’t, and you’re right. But Ren, you do know that I feel the same way about you, too, don’t you?”
Her cheeks blushed a soft rose, and she turned away. Gripping her chin in my fingers, I made her look at me again.
“Ren…please tell me that I haven’t been so remiss that you don’t know how I feel about you?”
“I do.”
“Then what is it? Something is wrong,” I said, searching her face.
“It’s the other way around. I feel like I’m not there for you guys.
Like, no matter how hard I try, I can never be there for all of you the way you need or deserve.
I hate that I’ve had to put you all on a schedule, it just…
I don’t know. Trying to balance everyone feels like a very complicated juggling act.
I feel like I’m dropping the balls all the time. ”
She pointed at me.
“Don’t, I know what that sounded like.”
“You’re not dropping anything,” I said, smiling. “I’ve never seen someone work so damn hard to make everyone else happy.”
“You mean that?”
“Yes, and trust me, I would say something if I thought you were failing in any way. This is me after all.”
Ren’s face lit up.
“You’re right, you would. Promise me that you’ll never change. That you’ll always be brutally honest with me.”
“Call you out on every little thing you can do better? Always,” I teased, but Ren smiled like I’d said the sweetest thing.
Leaning in, she kissed me. Her lips were soft and warm and offered far more comfort and love than she might ever realize. I gave in to it, my walls crumbling at her feet.
“I’ll be right back,” I whispered, and grabbed my keys.
“Where are you going?”
I smirked as I jogged down the stairs. I was nearly positive that everyone had left, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
The office and back rooms were all locked, and no one lingered among the shelves.
If they had been, I would’ve shoved them out the door.
I locked up, dimmed the lights, and went back up to Ren.
She put her laptop in her bag and zipped it up before looking at me. Her hand stilled as she reached for the open books she’d been reading.
“Are we leaving?”
Shaking my head, I took her outstretched hand and twirled her in a circle. The sound of her laughter made my heart beat faster. Rocking her gently back and forth, we danced in the silence, under the low light with nothing but books as our witnesses.
“What’s gotten into you,” she asked, smiling.
“Do you not like it?”
“Oh no, I like.”
Ren linked her hands behind my neck as we continued to sway.
“Good, because I’ve decided that I need to let go of all the old plans in my head. They have been clinging to me like ghosts, and I want to lean into living in the moment.”
“Like dancing when no one is watching?”
“Exactly.”
“Interesting. As long as you don’t expect me to participate in a flash mob, I’m all for it,” Ren said, making me laugh.
“Dammit, that was my next idea.”
I dipped her back, and the smile she gave me lit up her face.
“I love you, Theo,” Ren said, placing her hand over my heart.
“I love you, too.”
Kissing her hard, I snaked my fingers into her hair and gripped the soft waves.
Ren moaned and fisted my sweater. What she did next took me completely by surprise.
She pushed me back until the hard edge of the bookshelf pressed into my spine.
The sound of shifting books felt obscenely loud and erotic in the quiet library.
Ren’s eyes were feral, and I attacked her lips, needing the contact. Her mouth was warm and demanding. There was nothing hesitant in her touch. She knew exactly how close I was to unraveling and wanted it to happen.
I slid my hands to her hips, fingers biting through the fabric of the kilt, making her inhale sharply. That sound sent me over the edge. I tilted my head and deepened the kiss, slower but more intense, taking my time the way I always did when I wanted control—even as I felt it slipping.
Ren writhed against me while her whimpers drove me wild.
“Careful,” I murmured. “Remember what happened the last time you teased me like this.”
“Oh…I remember,” she said, her eyes glazed over with passion.
With a quick turn, I trapped her up against the books. Some toppled off the shelf, and Ren smirked as she pulled one and dropped it with a thud on the floor. I cocked my eyebrow.
“Oops.” She did it again. “I’m clumsy today.”
“Are you looking for trouble?” I groaned, locking her devious hands above her head to keep them from making a bigger mess.
“I’m looking for Murk. Have you seen him,” she asked and nibbled at my bottom lip.
That was it. Whatever control I’d been clinging to snapped clean through. I kissed her again, rougher this time, my grip firm and possessive.
The world narrowed to the heat of her body and the quiet, dangerous thrill of being surrounded by shelves of borrowed stories while writing our own in stolen breaths.
My lips never left Ren’s as I released her hands to unzip my pants and free my cock. Slipping my fingers under her skirt, I gripped her underwear in both fists and yanked hard. Ren whimpered into my mouth as the scraps fell to the floor.
“Sorry-not-sorry, eh,” I said, teasingly.
“Canadian sounds good on you.”
Ren hitched her leg around my waist as she fumbled with the buttons on her blouse. The sides fell open, giving me a great view of her breasts in a sexy lace bra.
“I know something that looks even better on me,” I said, running my tongue up the side of her neck. She trembled in my arms. “Be a good girl, Shiver, and put me in,” I whispered in her ear.
I needed her more than my next breath. Ren wrapped her hand around my cock, and I clutched the wooden shelves, thankful that they were bolted to the wall.
Ren teased me, rubbing back and forth across the head of my cock and driving me near insane.
“Do it,” I growled.
Her heat surrounded me, and I thrusted in as far as I could go. Ren gasped and clung to me. My movements were not sweet or romantic. I needed every inch of her and wanted to feel Ren come undone in my arms.
“Oh God…Theo…yes.”
The bookshelf creaked, and books fell to the floor as I fought for better leverage. I still wasn’t deep enough, which only heightened the desperation coursing through my body. Giving up on the shelf, I clenched Ren’s hips and lifted her. Her legs circled my waist as I took us to the table.
Ren’s face was flushed red, her gray eyes glinting in the dim light as she reclined. Her kilt was pushed up, granting me access to her sweet pussy.
“Put your legs on my shoulders,” I said, groaning when she did what I asked. “Fuck, that feels incredible.”
The position rocked her hips up into me and added more pressure to my cock. Ren reached out to the sides and was just able to grip the edge.
Leaning forward, Ren’s eyes fluttered shut as she bit her lip. Fuck she was sexy. Everything from her mind to her kind nature and how her body fit with mine, it was mind-blowing.
I slipped my hands under her ass, and there was no holding back. My thrusts rocked the large table. Ren’s breasts bounced in time to her whimpers.
“Theo…yes…so close,” she moaned, but it sounded more like a purr. Her body tightened, squeezing me. “God yes…don’t stop, please…ah!”
She arched up, her face the perfect image of passion as she came. The pulsing around my shaft and the wave of heat and wet were intoxicating. All I wanted was more. More of this, of her, of living for the now, and those that I loved.
“Can you come again?” I growled, biting back my need.
“Yes,” Ren breathed out, her voice dreamy as she let go of the table and rubbed her clit.
My head fell back, and groans filled the room with a rhythmical music.
I lost myself in the feel of her pussy and the sound of her moans.
“Fuck, Ren…come for me. I want to feel you come all over me.”
I pounded into her harder, and the wood bit into my thighs, but I didn’t care.
Each thrust drew another moan or whimper from her lips, and as soon as her body jerked and clenched, I let go.
“Fuck!”
The sound echoed back in the cavernous library.
My muscles flexed and froze as we came at the same time.
I held still, letting the waves of pleasure take over and wipe everything else away for a few moments.
The world had been reduced to nothing more than the two of us and the love and desire that burned as brightly as any fire.
I could find my way in the darkness because of her and Liam. They were the light for me to follow, a path of hope when everything felt lost.
Picking Ren up off the table, she locked her legs around my waist and kissed me softly, like she knew that was exactly what I needed. She always knew, and I loved her for it and everything else.
I held her tight and let all the pain go. It would come back, but for now, it was lost to the one spot where I truly felt at home, and Ren, who made it that much more special.
“I love you,” I said, resting my forehead against hers.
“I love you, too,” she whispered.
I’d survived on control for so long that I hadn’t realized how lonely it could be. Ren didn’t ask me to give it up—she just stepped into my space and made it unnecessary.
And somehow fitting between her and Liam…felt like the safest thing I’d ever known.