Chapter 16 Wyatt
The digital display on the console of the rowing machine flickered over to forty-five minutes just as Wyatt pulled the handle to his chest one final time.
He let the cable slide back with a controlled, metallic hiss, his broad chest heaving as he sat in the center of his home gym.
Sweat slicked the heavy ink covering his shoulders and dripped onto the rubber interlocking mats below.
It was barely seven in the morning on Sunday, and the sky outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of his penthouse was a bruised, frozen gray.
Normally, a brutal cardio block followed by an intensive lifting circuit cleared his head, cutting through the dense matrix of data that constantly occupied his brain. Today, it hadn't worked.
He stood up, grabbing a dark towel from a nearby bench to wipe down his face and neck, his gaze automatically drifting to the sleek smartphone resting on the water bottle rack.
Bitsy still hadn’t texted him back.
He had sent her a direct text the previous night, explicitly ordering her to report in, but she had met it with total, radio silence.
A low, dark rumble of irritation vibrated in his throat as he walked out of the gym and down the long, minimalist hallway toward his master suite.
He wasn't accustomed to being ignored. In the corporate ecosystem of Enigma, his word was law; in his private life, it was even more uncompromising.
Yet this tiny, fractured girl he had pulled into his orbit was already testing the perimeter of his authority before her first official day on the payroll had even begun.
He stepped into the glass-enclosed shower, turning the pressure up until the near-scalding water beat against his sore muscles. He leaned his palms against the dark slate tile, letting the heat wash over his back while his mind systematically cataloged the problem that was Bitsy.
She was hiding. She was running a defensive script, deflecting his questions and attempting to project an aura of standard, entry-level capability.
But Wyatt didn’t just read data; he read people.
He had seen the subtle, rhythmic tremor in her small hands when she thought he wasn't looking.
He had seen the slight, protective hunch of her shoulders, a universal sign of someone used to minimizing their physical profile to avoid notice.
And most tellingly, he had noticed the distinct, stale scent of cold air and enclosed spaces that clung to her clothes—the unmistakable markers of someone living out of a vehicle.
The piece-of-shit car he’d seen her driving was a ticking bomb in a Bridgeport winter.
The temperature was projected to drop well below freezing again tonight, and the thought of her curled up in a freezing cabin, shivering under a borrowed coat while trying to maintain the illusion of a normal existence, made his jaw lock until his teeth ached.
He turned off the water, stepped out, and wrapped a heavy white towel around his waist. He didn't want to break her pride—not yet—but he was going to dismantle every single lie she tried to push toward him.
It was a matter of safety. If she couldn't protect herself, he would take the reins out of her small, stubborn hands and do it for her.
After dressing in a pair of dark gray sweatpants and a heavy black cashmere sweater, Wyatt moved into the kitchen.
He kept his meals as systematic as his code.
He cracked six eggs into a skillet, pairing them with thick slices of avocado and a massive steak he had prepped the night before.
He ate at the kitchen island, his iPad propped against a marble fruit bowl, his eyes scanning the latest security diagnostic reports from Enigma’s server stacks.
By nine in the morning, he was settled at the massive desk in his private study.
The room was lined with bookshelves and illuminated by a single, high-end desk lamp that cast long shadows across the dark wood.
He fired up his triple-monitor array, entering a twelve-digit encryption key that opened his private server layer.
It was time to find her a place to live.
Wyatt spent the next three hours systematically tearing through the Bridgeport commercial and residential real estate registries.
He didn't just look at standard listings; he pulled up building code histories, neighborhood crime statistics, proximity vectors to Enigma, and structural insulation ratings.
He analyzed a luxury high-rise three blocks from the office, but threw it out within four minutes; the parking garage had blind spots in the security camera matrix, and the security staff used a third-party contractor with high turnover.
He looked at a quiet, gated townhouse community on the eastern edge of the city, but dismissed it because the commute would force her to rely on her unreliable vehicle for too long on icy roads.
Every single property he evaluated failed to meet his baseline threshold for her protection.
He found himself picking apart every detail—the locks on the windows, the lighting in the courtyards, the responsiveness of the on-site maintenance teams. He was being impossibly selective, his internal protective instincts shifting from the cold, logistical calculations of a CFO into the deeply rooted, possessive gravity of a Dom who had already claimed a piece of property in his mind.
She was his employee, yes, but more than that, she was his. She just didn’t know it yet.
He leaned back in his leather chair, tapping a heavy silver pen against his chin as he looked at the flashing cursor on his central monitor. There was only one building in the entire metropolitan area that met every single one of his specifications.
His own.
The Evermont High-Rise was a fortress. The building featured a twenty-four-hour concierge desk, biometric access elevators, private secure parking, and an integrated security grid that Wyatt himself had audited three years ago.
If she was here, she would be exactly where he could keep an eye on her.
She wouldn't be in his penthouse—not yet, that would spook her entirely and break the fragile professional boundary she was clinging to—but she would be under his roof. In her own space. Safe.
He toggled over to the building’s internal vacancy ledger. By sheer stroke of timing, a one-bedroom apartment on the eleventh floor, fully furnished and boasting a southern exposure that caught the morning light, had transitioned back to the corporate holding pool just forty-eight hours prior.
Wyatt didn't hesitate. He pulled up his personal financial portal, generated a secure ledger transfer, and initiated a print command for a standard twelve-month lease agreement.
He grabbed the printed lease packet from the tray and took the elevator down to the residential management suite on the ground floor.
The lobby of The Evermont was dead quiet, smelling of polished marble and expensive white tea fragrance. The property manager, a sharp-featured woman named Elena, blinked in surprise as Wyatt stepped through the frosted glass doors of the office.
"Mr. Calder," she said, quickly standing up. "Good afternoon. Is there an issue with the penthouse?"
"No," Wyatt said, his voice level and commanding as he dropped the packet onto her desk. "I need to secure the lease on apartment 1104. The furnished one-bedroom."
Elena blinked, looking down at the paperwork. "Oh. Of course. We can certainly initiate the standard background check and application routing for your associate—"
"There won't be a routing process," Wyatt interrupted smoothly, his tone leaving absolutely no room for negotiation.
"The lease will be held under my personal real estate holding LLC.
I am paying the security deposit, the full twelve months of rent, and the premium utility maintenance fees today. In advance."
He pulled a matte black corporate card from his wallet and laid it on the desk with a soft, definitive clack.
"I want the access codes generated, the biometric profiles cleared for a secondary user, and the keys delivered to me by five o'clock today.
The tenant will be arriving later this week.
She is an executive analyst for Enigma. Her move-in needs to be entirely seamless.
No paperwork for her, no administrative delays. Am I clear?"
Elena looked at the card, then up at Wyatt’s unyielding, massive frame. She swallowed once and nodded quickly. "Perfectly clear, Mr. Calder. I will process the payment immediately and have the concierge bring the key packet up to your penthouse before five."
"Thank you," Wyatt said. He took his card back once the transaction cleared, turning on his heel and heading back toward the elevators.
Once back in his study, the silence of the penthouse felt heavier. He needed to clear his head, and there was only one person he trusted enough to talk to when his protective, dominant instincts were running this hot.
He pulled out his phone and hit the speed dial. It dialed three times before a familiar, deep voice answered.
"Wyatt."
"Silas," Wyatt said, leaning back against the edge of his desk. "You got a minute?"
"For you? Always," Silas replied, the ambient sound of a quiet room and the distant, soft laughter of a little carrying through the line. Lennon was nearby, clearly content. "What's on your mind? You sound more serious than usual."
"I just bought a twelve-month lease on an apartment downstairs in my building," Wyatt said flatly, pulling no punches.
A low, knowing chuckle came from Silas’s end. "Let me guess. The little stray you brought into the office on Friday."
"She’s not a stray," Wyatt growled automatically, his possessive streak flaring before he could check it. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, letting out a heavy sigh. "But she’s living in her car, Silas."