Chapter Nine
Colton
It was 3:00 a.m., and the bank’s legal floor was dark except for my office. The distant sound of vacuum cleaners echoed through empty corridors while Isabella Delacroix dismantled another one of my arguments with infuriating precision.
“Your approach is too cautious,” she argued, pacing in front of my desk. Hours of work had softened her usual polish—suit jacket discarded, peach-colored silk blouse untucked, hair falling loose around her face. “These manifests prove something’s wrong with the Rotterdam shipments.”
“They suggest,” I corrected, watching her move. “Nothing’s proven yet.”
She spun to face me, that familiar fire in her eyes. “Three identical weight discrepancies in two weeks. Temperature controls set for living cargo. How much more proof do you need?”
I refused to acknowledge how the city lights caught the elegant line of her throat, or how her cultured voice took on a fiercer edge when she was frustrated. “Proof that will stand up in court. Evidence that can’t be explained away by accounting errors.”
“While we gather evidence, they’re moving more girls.”
“And if we move too fast, we lose any chance of catching them.” I stood, needing to match her energy. “You know how this works. One wrong move and they destroy everything. There’ll be no evidence left, anywhere. We have to play their game, only faster. Better.”
She ran her hands through her hair, messing it further. “I’m going to Rotterdam to check the shipments.”
“Like hell you are.”
“You don’t control me, Mr. Moreau.”
“This isn’t about control.” But we both knew that was a lie. Everything about our strange relationship was about control—who had it, who wanted it, who was losing it.
“No?” She moved closer, the delicious warmth of her skin making my office feel smaller. “Then what is it about? The bank’s precious reputation? Your need to document every breath before taking action?”
“It’s about keeping you alive.” The words came out rougher than I intended. “About not letting you get yourself killed chasing leads alone.”
“I’ve been working these circles for years,” she countered, bracing her hands on my desk. “I know how to handle myself.”
“You’re going to get yourself hurt—”
“My father trusted procedure,” she said softly. “He believed in the system. In doing things carefully and by the rules.”
I moved around the desk, needing to close the distance between us. “Isabella—”
“Don’t.” She straightened, but didn’t step back. We were too close now, the late hour and shared tension making everything feel charged. “I won’t watch more girls disappear while we build an irrefutable case.”
“I’m trying to protect you,” I said quietly. “To make sure what happened to him doesn’t happen again. I want…I need to keep you safe.”
Her eyes met mine, and I thought I detected something else there. Something that made my cock harden in my slacks before I could push it away. “You want to protect me by following the same procedures that got him killed?” Her voice caught. “All his careful documentation, all his evidence, it didn’t save him. It didn’t save anyone.”
I reached for her before I could stop myself, my hand settling on her shoulder. She tensed but didn’t pull away.
“That’s why we do this differently,” I said calmly. “Together. Smart. So they can’t bury it this time.”
“While more girls disappear.” But some of the fight had left her voice. “While we play it safe behind mahogany desks and expensive suits.”
“You think this is safe?” I gestured at the files spread across my desk with my free hand, not moving the one on her shoulder. “You think investigating this won’t get us both killed if we make one wrong move?”
She looked up at me, and I suddenly realized that we were too close. Close enough to see the shadows under her eyes, the faint freckles across her nose that her usual makeup concealed. Close enough to feel the heat of her body, to catch the quiet tremor in her breathing. Close enough that I’d started to care.
I hadn’t let myself care about anyone else in years, not since Catherine. And for good reason. Catherine O’Conner had been a corporate lawyer at a rival firm, brilliant and ambitious like me. I was fresh out of law school, and stupidly, embarrassingly na?ve. For over a year, I’d thought Catherine and I were building something real. I’d bought a ring, planning an elaborate proposal at her favorite restaurant in Paris. Then I learned the truth—I’d followed her one night, planning to surprise her and pick her up after a networking event. But she didn’t go to the office. Instead, I followed her to her firm’s managing partner’s house where I waited, seething in my car. She had finally emerged at dawn, looking thoroughly satisfied.
My soon-to-be fiancée had been fucking the same partner who’d somehow known exactly how to counter every move I’d made in our recent cases.
My investigation revealed she’d been sleeping with him for most of our relationship, feeding him information about my cases between rounds in his bed. Every intimate detail I’d shared, every strategy I’d planned, every vulnerability I’d revealed—all of it had been weaponized against my clients. Against me.
And then she made partner.
It had taken an entire year to rebuild my professional reputation. When I was offered a junior role at the bank, I jumped at it. It hadn’t taken long for them to move me up the corporate ladder.
After Catherine, my relationships became purely physical. My approach to sex turned clinical, like everything else in my life. I chose women carefully, usually visiting executives or lawyers from other firms, women who understood discretion and wanted nothing beyond a night of mutual convenience. High-end hotel rooms booked under business accounts, encounters that ran like well-executed contracts. No small talk, no dinner, no pretense of romance. Just clean, efficient satisfaction followed by polite goodbyes…if even that.
These women suited my needs perfectly. They shared my professional background, understood the value of privacy, and most importantly, never expected more than I was willing to give. Many were married or similarly uninterested in attachments. We operated under unspoken but black and white terms—no personal questions, no morning after, no repeated encounters that might blur the lines between business and pleasure. Most of the time, not even exchanging words. I kept everything close to my chest, even internalizing my own sounds of pleasure as I filled condom after condom, an endless line of forgettable conquests.
Letting nothing slip.
Never again.
Word got around, and I cultivated a reputation for being an excellent, albeit severely detached, lover. Skilled, thorough, but ultimately unpossessable. Women knew exactly what they were getting: one night of precisely controlled passion with a man who wouldn’t even acknowledge them at the next charity gala. It was easier that way—no attachments, no vulnerabilities, no risks.
Cooper joked that I approached dating like hostile takeovers, all strategy and no heart.
It hadn’t always been that way, but for the last few years, it was. I craved nothing but sexual release, and then left as soon as I could.
But Isabella…was different. She’d slipped past my defenses before I realized the danger, challenging my control, making me question everything I thought I knew about myself. The way she looked at me now, with that mix of strength and vulnerability, made me want things I’d sworn never to want again. Made me feel things I’d thought Catherine had killed forever.
We stood frozen in that moment, tension crackling between us. My pulse thundered in my ears.
She moved first, stepping back carefully. “I still want to go to Rotterdam,” she said, but the edge had left her voice.
“Not alone.”
“No.” A ghost of a smile touched her lips. “Not alone. But not your way either.”
“Then we find a middle ground.”
She gathered her files, movements graceful despite her obvious exhaustion. But when she reached the door, she paused.
“Why do you care?” she asked softly. “About what happens to me?”
I considered lying. Considered some bullshit answer about protecting bank assets or limiting liability.
“Because you’re brilliant,” I said instead. “And infuriating. And probably the only person who can help me expose this.”
She studied me for a long moment, that burning intelligence I’d first noticed now turned fully on me. I felt like an ant burning underneath a magnifying glass. “And if I break your precious rules and processes along the way?”
“Then I’ll be there to pick up the pieces.”
Something shifted in her expression, surprise maybe, or recognition. “Careful, Mr. Moreau. That almost sounds like you’re choosing a side.”
“I chose my side the moment I saw those manifests.” I moved closer, drawn to her orbit despite my better judgment. “The question is, can you trust someone who likes rules as much as I do?”
“Trust?” She laughed quietly. “I don’t trust anyone. But maybe...” She looked up at me, and that electricity surged again. “Maybe I can work with someone who’s willing to bend those rules for the right reasons.”
She left before I could respond, the click of her heels fading down the corridor. But her perfume lingered, mixing with the smell of warm toner.
I stayed at my desk until dawn, analyzing manifests and trying not to think about the warmth of her skin under my hands. About the way she’d felt pressed against me for that brief moment. About how her accent got stronger when she was tired or angry or afraid.
This wasn’t part of the plan. None of this was part of the plan.
But then, Isabella Delacroix had been wrecking my plans since the day she walked into my office and made me question everything.