Chapter 9
CYPRESS
The elevator doors slide shut and I jab the lobby button with more force than necessary, my hand trembling so badly that I miss twice before finally making contact.
The fluorescent light above me buzzes with that particular frequency that always gives me a headache, and I press my back against the cold metal wall.
The merger document crinkles against my damp blouse, the pages already warped from the humidity clinging to my clothes, and I gawk at the descending floor numbers without really seeing them.
I am such an idiot.
The elevator shudders to a stop between floors, and for one heart-stopping moment I think the rival firm has sabotaged us again, that I am about to be trapped in this metal box while my world crumbles around me.
My finger must have slipped, my muscle memory carrying me toward the subway entrance in the basement rather than the street-level lobby where I intended to flee.
I do not move. I stand there in the open doorway, staring out at the rows of expensive cars belonging to executives who probably never worried about being eliminated in a merger, and I feel the fight drain out of me like water through a sieve.
Where am I even going? Back to my tiny apartment with its floral sofa still bearing the impression of Knox's frame?
Back to a life of soul-crushing corporate drudgery under whatever faceless CEO takes over after the foreclosure claims everything we have built together?
The thought of losing him hurts more than the thought of losing my job, and that realization terrifies me more than anything in that folder.
Behind me, I hear the stairwell door slam open with enough force to crack the drywall, and I spin around to find Knox barreling toward me like a freight train wrapped in a three-piece suit. He skids to a stop three feet away from me.
"You took the stairs," I finally manage.
"The elevator was too slow." His breathing is ragged. "Cypress, please. Let me explain."
"Explain what? Explain how you were planning to dissolve the entire company the moment things got difficult? Explain how I was never part of your long-term strategy?"
"That is exactly backwards." He reaches for the folder and I let him take it, watching as he flips through the pages with hands that are not entirely steady. "This document—these terms—they are not about eliminating you, Cypress. They are about protecting you."
I blink at him, certain I must have misheard. "What?"
"Look at the severance structure." He points to a section near the back, his thick finger tracing lines of text I had skimmed over in my initial panic.
"Three years of salary, guaranteed. Full benefits continuation.
A letter of recommendation with my personal seal that would open doors at any clan-affiliated business on this continent.
This was my backup plan, Cypress. My contingency if I failed.
If my leadership proved insufficient, if the rival firm succeeded in crushing us despite my best efforts, I needed to know that you would be protected.
That my failure would not destroy your future along with my own. "
"You drafted a severance addendum specifically to protect my salary if things went wrong."
I say it slowly, testing each word, trying to make them fit together into something that makes sense.
"During your first week here. After knowing almost nothing about me except that I corrected your math in a conference room."
"I knew enough. I knew you were brave enough to challenge a warchief in front of his new subordinates.
I knew you were brilliant enough to identify the flaw in my calculations before anyone else in that room even understood what I was proposing.
I knew— I knew that I could not bear the thought of my failures hurting you.
Even then. Even when you were nothing more than a human with messy hair and three different colored highlighters. "
I look up at him, this green creature who broke down conference room doors and terrorized corporate rivals and ran down twelve flights of stairs because he could not bear to let me leave without explaining himself.
The wall I have been building between us, the professional distance I have been desperately maintaining, cracks down the middle and crumbles into dust.
"You absolute idiot," I breathe, and his expression flickers with confusion before I grab his silk tie and yank him down to my level. "You magnificent, ridiculous, overprotective idiot."
Our foreheads touch, his skin warm and slightly rough against mine, and I feel the tension drain out of his frame like air escaping a balloon.
His hands come up to cup my face, engulfing my cheeks entirely, and for a moment we just breathe together in the empty parking garage, the folder of backup plans dangling forgotten from his fingers.
"I thought I had lost you. I thought my caution had cost me the only victory that truly matters."
"You need to stop making plans without me," I tell him firmly, pulling back just enough to meet his eyes.
"I am not some damsel who needs to be protected from the consequences of your decisions, Knox.
I am your partner in this ridiculous corporate warfare you have dragged me into.
If we are going to fail, we fail together.
And if we are going to win—" I take the folder from his hands and rip it cleanly in half, the sound of tearing paper echoing through the concrete chamber.
"—we win together. No backup plans. No contingencies that exclude me.
We are in this until the bitter end, whatever that end looks like. "
Knox watches the pieces of the document flutter to the ground, his golden eyes tracking their descent with something that looks remarkably like wonder.
When he looks back at me, his expression has shifted into something and proud and hungry all at once, the look of a warchief who has just been handed a weapon he never knew he needed.
"Together," he repeats, and the word sounds like a vow on his lips. "Until the bitter end."
"Until the profitable end," I correct him, and the laugh that escapes him is deep and warm and rumbling, filling the parking garage with sound that bounces off the concrete walls.
"We still have a foreclosure to prevent, remember?
Fifteen days left to hit our profit target, and we are still running about forty percent below where we need to be. "
"Then we require a decisive victory." His hands slide from my face to my shoulders, steadying me, grounding me, and I lean into his touch without meaning to. "A single strike that will shatter our enemies and secure our position in one blow."
"I love it when you talk military strategy at me." The words slip out before I can stop them, and I redden as his expression shifts into something decidedly predatory. "I mean—that is—we should focus on the business problem at hand."
"Indeed we should. Let us return to the office and plan our assault."
The elevator ride back up is considerably more charged than the ride down, my shoulder pressed against his arm, his hand resting at the small of my back with a possessiveness that makes my pulse race.
By the time we reach our floor, I have managed to wrestle my composure back into something resembling professionalism, though my glasses keep fogging up in a way that suggests my body temperature has not gotten the memo.
We find the office exactly as we left it—his jacket still pooled on the floor, our desks covered in the debris of a long day's strategizing, the windows streaked with rain that has finally begun to taper off.
Knox retrieves his jacket while I settle back into my chair, pulling up spreadsheets and projections on my laptop, trying to find the angle that will get us across the finish line.
"We need something big," I mutter, more to myself than to him. "Something that will generate enough revenue in two weeks to cover the gap in our projections. A major client, maybe, or a strategic partnership that comes with an upfront licensing fee—"
The ping of an incoming email cuts me off, and I glance at the notification with the weary resignation of someone who has received far too many pieces of bad news via electronic communication. But the sender makes me sit up straighter, my fingers flying over the keyboard to open the message.
"Knox. Come look at this."
He appears behind me instantly, leaning over my shoulder to read the screen, and I try very hard to ignore the way his proximity makes my skin prickle with awareness.
"The Meridian Foundation," he reads aloud, his brow furrowing. "I do not recognize this name."
"You should." My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my temples.
"They are the largest charitable endowment on the Eastern Seaboard.
Old money, older connections, and they are notoriously picky about which companies they contract for their financial management services.
" I point to the relevant paragraph, my hand shaking slightly.
"They are hosting a gala this Saturday. Black tie, invitation only, the kind of event where deals get made over champagne and canapés.
And they have just invited you—" I pause, rereading the text to make sure I have not hallucinated it.
"—they have invited us to attend as potential candidates for their new primary asset management contract. "
Knox is quiet for a long moment, and when I twist around to look at him, his expression has gone calculating.
"How much is this contract worth?"
"Enough." I pull up a quick estimate based on publicly available information about the Foundation's holdings, and the number that appears on my screen makes us both go very still.
"If we land this contract, Knox, we do not just hit our profit target.
We exceed it by a factor of three. The rival firm would not be able to touch us.
The foreclosure would become completely moot. "
"Then we attend this gala. We secure this contract. We crush our enemies so thoroughly that they never dare to challenge us again."
"It is not that simple." I chew on my lower lip, running through the logistics in my head.
"The Meridian Foundation is incredibly exclusive.
The people who attend their events are old money and high society, the kind of crowd that can smell new money—or hostile takeover money—from across a room.
We cannot just barrel in with siege tactics and expect them to hand over a contract this valuable.
We need to be subtle. Sophisticated. We need to fit in. "
Knox straightens, his expression shifting into something that might be uncertainty on anyone else's face.
"This sounds like a battle for which I am poorly suited."
"It is a battle for which we are both poorly suited," I admit, glancing down at my practical, budget-friendly wardrobe.
The nicest thing I own is a clearance-rack blazer with a small coffee stain on the inside pocket.
"A black-tie gala at the Meridian Foundation is going to be filled with women wearing designer gowns that cost more than my annual salary.
I do not exactly have formal attire suitable for infiltrating high society. "
Knox's expression transforms from uncertainty to determination to almost gleeful.
"Then we must acquire appropriate armament.
" He straightens to his full, imposing height, and when he looks down at me there is a light in his golden eyes that makes my stomach flip.
"You cannot ride into battle unprotected, Cypress.
If this gala is the field upon which our war will be won, then I will ensure you are armored accordingly. "
"Knox, I do not need you to—"
"You are my First Mate." He cuts me off with a wave of his hand, already pulling out his phone and typing with surprising dexterity for someone whose fingers are each the size of small sausages.
"When a warchief rides to war, his most trusted lieutenant must be equipped with the finest weapons and armor available.
It is tradition. It is honor. It is—" He pauses, glancing at his screen.
"—apparently available for rush delivery if I pay an additional surcharge. "
I open my mouth to protest, to insist that I can find something suitable on my own, that I do not need him spending money on me, that this crosses some professional line that probably should not be crossed.
But the look on his face stops me cold—earnest and eager and so desperately hopeful that I cannot bring myself to refuse.
"Fine," I sigh, and his expression brightens like a sunrise breaking over a battlefield. "But I am choosing the color. And the style. And the shoes. You do not get to dress me like some kind of corporate Barbie doll."
"I would not dream of it." His smile shows just a hint of tusk, sharp and white against his green skin. "I am merely providing the resources. The strategy, as always, is yours to command."
I shake my head, turning back to my laptop to hide the smile tugging at the corners of my mouth.
"We have four days to prepare for the most important pitch of our careers," I remind him, pulling up a blank document to start outlining our approach.
"We need to research every attendee, identify our targets, develop a comprehensive networking strategy, and practice our pitch until we can deliver it in our sleep. "
"And acquire appropriate armor," Knox adds, settling into the chair beside me with a creak of protesting furniture.
"And acquire appropriate armor," I agree.
We have four days to prepare for battle. Four days to transform ourselves into the kind of polished, sophisticated operators who can infiltrate high society and emerge victorious.
Four days, and the fate of everything we have built together hanging in the balance.