ELEVEN
Levi
I jolt awake at the sound of her bedroom door opening.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
My whole body cramps as I shift from my position on the floor. My back’s screaming from spending the night upright, slumped against the wall. I manage to lift my head. And there she is—standing in the doorway, looking at me with a mix of shock and sadness.
Christ.
I still can’t get the image out of my head. One minute she was just… blank. Staring at me with her usual calm. The next, she was sobbing on the floor, gasping for air like it hurt to breathe.
My chest hasn’t unclenched since. Even now, looking at her, I can’t tell if it’s going to happen again.
My calm and quiet Cece—completely unraveled. And I’m terrified it was my fault.
I finally push myself upright. Her eyes track every movement, cautious, wary, and it guts me.
“Good morning,” she whispers, frowning just a little.
I step closer and brush my thumb across her forehead. The frown softens first, and then melts away. It’s almost insane how I find that slightly rewarding.
But the exhaustion from last night is still there on her face. I know she cried until nearly midnight.
Swallowing hard, I push in a little more. My hand cups her cheek. She leans into it slightly, but not fully. There’s hesitation there.
“Levi?”
I meet her gaze.
“Did you sleep on the floor?”
I nod, still unsure if she wants words from me yet. Yesterday, she needed silence, and I couldn’t even give her that. I talked until she shoved me out.
Her expression softens. “You can speak now.”
“Good—” I murmur, voice cracking. I clear my throat. “Good morning.”
I can’t wait another second. I pull her into my arms. She stiffens at first. Doesn’t melt into me the way she normally does—but her arms come around me anyway.
Small steps.
“Are you okay?” I ask gently. Her hair brushes my chin as she nods. I let out a shaky breath. “Do you wanna talk about last night?” I ask, trying to tread carefully. I don’t want to push, but she scared the hell out of me.
When she doesn’t respond, I lean back and lift her chin. “Baby, I just want to understand so I don’t hurt you again. So I don’t… fail you again.”
She frowns. “You didn’t. I…”
“It’s okay—”
She steps away. I let her go, though every part of me wants to hold her close until that hesitation vanishes.
“It’s something called sensory overload,” she says, eyes dropping somewhere around my collarbone. Her voice is calm but clipped. Nervous. Her cheeks are flushed, maybe with embarrassment. But that’s the last thing I want her to be.
I nod. “Okay.”
Then she squares her shoulders like she’s bracing herself for impact. I open my mouth, wanting to tell her she doesn’t have to do this. Not yet. Not if she’s not ready. She’s been keeping this side of hers to herself for a reason and I don’t want to force it out of her. But she speaks first.
“I was diagnosed with Bipolar II Disorder eight years ago,” she says, matter-of-fact. But my stomach sinks. “Only Vi knows. No one else. And my therapist says I also have an avoidant attachment style. It makes certain relationship things… complicated for me.”
My mind starts spinning. Certain relationship things… like saying ‘I love you’ first? Fuck, the signs were always there, weren’t they? I should’ve seen them.
Oh God. I’m an utter bastard.
“Last night wasn’t a panic attack,” she continues flatly. “During sensory overload, I need quiet. Sometimes even darkness. No talking. No sound. And when you kept talking, I… I…” She trails off, struggling, waving an infirm hand near her ear.
Suddenly I feel like the biggest asshole on the planet for demanding any of this from her so soon after what she went through.
Without thinking, I pull her back into my arms. But this time, her hands don’t move. They stay by her sides.
“Alright,” I murmur. “I get it. You don’t have to say everything right now. Just know that I’m listening, okay? Whenever you’re ready, baby.”
She nods. Sighing, hopefully in relief. I pick her up, bridal style, and settle us onto her couch—her tucked into my lap. I run a slow hand up and down her back. Her breathing hitches, so I still.
“Uh, I have to tell you something.” She clears her throat. That same flatness in her voice returns. “Last night, Gareth cornered me outside the bathroom.”
My whole body goes rigid.
She keeps going before I can react, her words coming faster now.
“He said I shouldn’t be poking around Astor Capital Funds.
I told him it was my job, so he—so he grabbed me by the front of my dress…
” Her hand clutches her t-shirt right over her breasts and my whole vision reddens. “And… uh… slammed me against the wall.”
I grip her a little tighter, but try not to move. She needs calm. Not the storm building in me. She doesn’t need me yelling and pacing right now.
Fuck, Gareth did what?
“Then he said something along the lines of uh, I… can’t remember clearly but, ‘mind your business, or else’? He said something like that.”
Jesus fucking Christ. He threatened her. The bastard threatened her and I wasn’t there.
What the fuck was I even doing?
And then I compounded my stupidity by hurting her again.
“Are you okay?” she asks softly, her hand on my heart that’s definitely beating wildly now. I need to can the rage for now. “Calm.”
She does that often. I’ve told her countless times that I’m too young to inherit my father’s hypertension—but she always does this. She even gifted me a smart watch that I never take off. But still chooses to feel my heartbeat with her touch instead of an app.
And I’m raging that she’s doing it now. When she got fucking attacked by my own uncle.
I take a deep breath, my eyes squeezing shut. “You’re asking me if I’m okay? Are you? Are you hurt?”
She carefully grabs my hand and guides it toward the back of her head. And I know—fucking know—what I’ll find there.
The bump is small but angry. Raised. Tender. She flinches when my fingers graze it.
I fucking see red.
“Cece…” My voice cracks into something ugly and broken.
For some godforsaken reason, she tries to reassure me. “I’m okay, Levi. Really. I noticed it earlier this morning. It only hurts a little.”
“It shouldn’t have hurt at all,” I say, breath shaking. “He shouldn’t have touched you.”
I’ll fucking kill him. My pulse is pounding loud enough that I’m betting she can probably hear it. The vision of Gareth shoving her—his hands on her dress, her body—makes something inside me snap and splinter in the same breath.
She studies me with the softest frown, still keeping her hand on my chest like she’s trying to regulate my heartbeat instead of hers.
“I was going to tell you, but I was a little overwhelmed. It just all happened so fast that I just… I needed to get out of there,” she murmurs.
A little overwhelmed?
Christ. She spiraled into that sensory freeze after coming home, hands over her ears, begging for the world to stop. And I didn’t notice. Didn’t see her drowning. I was too caught up in my own frustrations from what I learned last night that I ended up hurting her.
“Cece,” I whisper, carefully cupping her face with both hands. “I’m so sorry.”
Her lips part, like she wants to say something. Instead, she sits there in my lap, small and quiet, letting me hold her. For the first time since this morning, she fully rests her head against my shoulder.
And I finally breathe. “I’ll handle it,” I whisper into her hair—more vow than promise. “Gareth won’t come near you again. Ever.”
She tenses for a second, then exhales. “Don’t do anything yet, Levi. He thinks it’s me poking around and not Blackthorn. Let him think that until we know everything for sure.”
“Fuck. You’re right.”
“Of course I am.”
I smile, pulling her closer, my chest tightening painfully. “But he won’t come near you. I’ll make sure of it.”
She shakes her head gently, voice softer. “Can we… not talk about him for a while?”
Right. Of course. She needs quiet. Stillness. Not my rage. “Okay,” I whisper, kissing the top of her head. “Okay. No talking.”
She finally melts into me for real, her arms sliding around my torso, her breath settling.
A few moments later, I get a feeling she’s asleep. So I don’t move a muscle.
I have so much to tell her but it can wait until she isn’t this overwhelmed.
Until I can get my head around what I found out about my parents last night.
??????
LAST NIGHT - Anniversary Party
I stare down at my phone. Cece’s message sits on the screen like a weight in my chest.
She left the party. Just like that. No explanation. No goodbye. And now she’s not responding. That’s not like her at all.
Taewon steps up beside me, drink in hand. “You good? Where’s Cece?”
“She left,” I mutter, still distracted.
“Is she okay? Doesn’t seem like her to dip out at her parents’ anniversary party.”
I finally look up, but Taewon isn’t even looking at me. His gaze is locked on someone behind me. I turn slightly and spot Iris across the room, hovering near a far wall like she’s trying to disappear.
“I don’t know. But I’m gonna find out.” I pause, narrowing my eyes at him. “Why were you staring at her like that?”
He blinks, like he didn’t realize I caught that. “I was just noticing… she’s been avoiding your parents ever since that first intro.”
My stomach tightens. “I noticed that too. I’m missing something.”
He shifts slightly and gestures for us to walk a little farther from the crowd. “Remember when you moved back to Van after Stanford. She left you with just that letter you showed me… I’m thinking that was—”
“Bullshit?”
He nods and takes a slow sip of his drink. “Total bullshit.”
“I’ve been thinking that too,” I mutter, eyes narrowing. My thoughts are spinning, forming into something sharper. “Fuck it.”
I shove my glass into Taewon’s hand and head straight toward Iris. I don’t bother hiding my urgency. She spots me approaching and stiffens immediately.
“Mr. Astor,” she greets, too politely.
“Ms. Desmond.” I nod. “I need a word. Privately.” I gesture to an empty corner. Somewhere my parents won’t see us.
She hesitates, eyes darting around, but finally nods and follows.
I don’t waste time. “You know my parents, don’t you?”
She blinks. “Of course. I was introduced—”
“Ten years ago.”
She freezes. Her expression flattens too fast, like she’s scrambling to play it cool. “Levi, I don’t—”
“Give it to me straight, Iris,” I cut in, voice low. “Did my parents contact you back then? Did they interfere in our relationship?”
My heart is hammering in my chest, but I already know the answer. I can see it in the way she won’t meet my eyes. The way her hands fidget.
“Yes,” she finally whispers. “They showed up at the bar I worked at and… well…”
“Well?” I prod. “What exactly did they say?”
I can see her breathing pick up. She has hidden this for ten fucking years. Hidden my parents’ insidious machinations and I’m about ready to explode.
A part of me was clinging to some useless hope that it’s not my parents playing me for a puppet. Just Gareth. Or maybe if they were, that it was recent, or perhaps not deep enough to span over a decade.
“They told me to leave you. They threatened my… my parents’ retirement fund and my job.” She pauses, visibly trying to collect herself. “And they implied that I was of lower status than you deserved.”
I go still. Every muscle in my body tightens as fury rises like a wave. My fingers twitch. If I still had my drink, I’d be throwing it through the nearest goddamn wall.
The threads of any lingering hope unravel in an instant.
God. Ten years ago, they ripped Iris away from me. And now? Now they’re doing it again—with Cece. But subtler. Undermining her. Making passive-aggressive comments about her hair.
Now I’m one hundred percent sure that they brought Iris back because it was them who contacted Miller-Moore. They must have known. And they want Cece gone somehow, and their snide remarks weren’t enough.
Fuck.
They’re even intervening in the merger. Sabotaging it from the inside, probably because they know now, that Cece and I are getting suspicious. About the potential embezzlement. And God knows what else.
If they destroy the merger, if I lose the presidency because of the clause—
Fuck.
Everything clicks into place. The pattern. The manipulation. The control.
I barely register that Iris is now standing a little closer. “Levi… I—”
“I’ll talk to you later,” I mutter hastily, already turning away. Because right now, there’s only one person I need to talk to.
I head back to Taewon, who’s clearly been watching my entire exchange with Iris. The confirmation must be written all over my face, because he doesn’t even ask. “I gotta go,” I say, breath sharp. “You handle my parents.”
He gives me a tight nod, all business. “I’ll politely decline.”
Fucking hell.
I roll my eyes. “Coward.”
He smirks, unbothered. “Survival instinct.”
Of course. Guess I’ll have to grit my teeth through one last round of champagne and small talk before I disappear. But if I’m going down, I’m dragging Tae with me. “Come on,” I mutter. “Let’s go smile and nod.”
He sighs, defeated. But relents. And just like that, I slip the damn mask back on.
For now.
??????
PRESENT DAY
I reluctantly left Cece when Vi came over yesterday. I still don’t know how much sleep she actually got the night before—but she slept right through Vi’s arrival, and through me carrying her back to bed.
Vi told me she needs recovery time after an episode.
What rattled me wasn’t just her saying it. It was how confidently she said it. Like she knew exactly what had happened.
I have no idea how Vi even knew something was wrong. But I’ll learn. I’ll fucking learn.
Now it’s the next day—Sunday—and I’m at the office like an idiot. Staring at spreadsheets I’m not reading. Waiting for a phone call I’m not getting.
Cece said she was doing better today. That she had plans with Vi before Vi flies back to Kingston soon. Which means Cece won’t be alone for the day. So, technically, I shouldn’t be this distracted.
But I’m still desperately hoping to hear from someone else. The one person who could give me the confirmation I need. The truth I’ve been trying to stitch together for weeks now. If only he’d just hurry the fuck up.
It’s taking too long.
Then I hear it—a knock.
I expect Taewon, possibly coming in to berate me for showing up on a Sunday.
But when I lift my head, I freeze.
She’s standing in the doorway, fidgeting with the strap of her purse. Her gaze flickers nervously around the office, never quite settling on me.
Not angry. Or nervous. Just… uneasily tense.
I stand slowly.
“Iris.”