Chapter 16
However, as she returns to her office on the executive floor, she isn’t thinking about balance sheets or profit margins. Her mind drifts to Chester, to the warm weight of a hand intertwined with hers on an ancient Roman wall.
She closes her office door and leaves the folder of reports on the oak desk.
Through the floor-to-ceiling windows that span an entire wall, Manchester looks magnificent.
The glass buildings reflect the gray twilight sky, and the lights from the offices still occupied create a mosaic of yellow and white dots in the dusk.
Seraphina massages the bridge of her nose with her fingers, trying to relieve the pressure she feels in her temples, and then opens her purse.
Her cell phone vibrates between her fingers. Despite the exhaustion coursing through her body, a part of her responds immediately to the name lighting up the screen.
“Did you make it out alive?”
Seraphina slumps into the chair and replies with her thumbs, though her eyes wander for a moment to the rain pounding against the windows.
“I’m starting to suspect that Helena enjoys watching people suffer. But yes.”
“We both knew that already,” Nerissa replies almost instantly. “How did the meeting go?”
Seraphina hesitates for a second before typing.
“I’ve been going over the investment fund’s terms and conditions since eight this morning. My head hurts just thinking about more numbers.”
“That can be cured with a decent dinner. No sad vending-machine salads.”
“I need to sleep for two weeks straight, actually.”
Seraphina stares at the screen for a few seconds, her thumb hovering over the keyboard, and then continues typing.
“I miss you.”
“And I miss you.”
Seraphina rereads the last message for a few more seconds. She feels that ache intensify, because in Chester she promised she was going to change her life, and now the panic returns once again.
She puts her phone away and begins organizing the documents scattered across her desk. The computer screen remains open, displaying the share distribution tables for the merger. The percentages dance before her tired eyes as she rearranges the papers.
The silence in the office feels strange after spending hours immersed in a space filled with raised voices and executive debates. Then she hears the door, and Seraphina’s body tenses immediately, even before she looks up.
Adrian Beckett stands by the door, a cup of coffee in one hand and a relaxed expression that sends an instant chill down her spine.
His gray coat is perfectly draped over his shoulders, and his tie is slightly loosened, as if he had just stepped out of an unimportant meeting and weren’t invading the CFO’s private space after hours.
“I thought you’d already left,” Seraphina says.
“I wanted to talk to you without any interruptions,” he replies, stepping inside with a smile.
The atmosphere in the office changes immediately. Seraphina can physically feel it. Adrian moves around the room, observing everything with a familiarity that is unbearable. He behaves like someone who already considers the place his own.
“The meeting was productive…” he remarks as he takes a sip of coffee. “Although I think Helena continues to underestimate the reputational impact of certain variables.”
Something in Adrian’s tone makes the skin on Seraphina’s arms prickle beneath the silk of her blouse.
“If you’re here to argue about the fund’s percentages again, we can pick that up on Monday. I’m done for today.”
Adrian lets out a laugh, not a pleasant one, laced with condescension.
“No. This can’t wait until Monday.”
She feels the first stab of anxiety pierce her chest, slight but enough to quicken her pulse.
Adrian walks over to the desk and sets the cup down next to the financial reports.
Then he reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulls out a tablet, which he places in front of her with deliberate slowness.
Seraphina looks down. For a second, her brain refuses to process what she sees.
Then it does, and her stomach drops violently.
The photograph fills the entire screen: her and Nerissa in Chester, their hands clasped on the Roman wall.
Then another image appears of the two of them leaving the underground restaurant.
And another of Nerissa brushing a strand of hair from her face beneath a streetlamp.
The blood drains from Seraphina’s face so quickly that her hands feel cold.
She isn’t breathing. She can’t. The images keep scrolling beneath Adrian’s steady fingers, perfectly in focus, taken from a distance.
“Nice city, Chester,” he murmurs. “Very discreet. Though not as much as you thought.”
Seraphina slowly looks up. And suddenly she understands every comment, every glance, every poisonous remark from the past few weeks.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Adrian,” she manages to say, though it’s clear she has no way out.
He smiles with that expression that turns her stomach.
“Don’t do that. You’re too smart to play dumb with me.”
Seraphina struggles to her feet. She needs to regain her height, her space, her control. But her legs start to tremble.
“Get out of my office right now,” she warns him. “Before I call security.”
Adrian doesn’t even blink.
“I know exactly what you’re up to with Dr. Ashcombe,” Adrian says calmly, “because I saw you two at the hotel.”
The humiliation hits her hard. Her heart starts racing. Adrian slowly circles the desk until he’s standing right in front of her, too close, invading her personal space.
“The Premier investors’ reputation clause is quite strict, Seraphina. You know how these things work: public image, corporate transparency, institutional integrity… Very fancy words for saying they don’t want sex scandals linked to a fifty-million-pound deal.”
Seraphina tries to hold his gaze, even though something inside her is starting to break.
“This is harassment,” she whispers. “And extortion.”
“This is pragmatism. Pure and simple,” he replies. “Nothing personal.”
Adrian rests both hands on the desk and leans forward slightly.
“If these images reach the board, the merger will enter an immediate crisis. The CFO having a relationship with the sports division’s top medical figure. Not to mention that you’re cheating on Elliot and your family. Investors would pull out in a matter of hours.”
Every word hits her like a blow, cold and precise. Seraphina feels her pulse pounding in her throat. She thinks of Helena, of the board, of the headlines that might appear, of Elliot opening a corporate email, of Oliver and Ivy.
A brutal wave of dizziness washes over her.
“What do you want?” she asks Adrian.
The man’s smile shifts, now satisfied, as if he’d been waiting for exactly this moment.
“I need you to modify the pre-merger share redistribution. Certain holdings in the fund need to be diverted before final approval.”
Seraphina stares at him, her eyes wide.
“That would be financial fraud.”
“Call it whatever you want.”
“Helena will catch on,” she insists.
“Not if you do it.”
Fear stirs inside her, mingling with a rage she is finding very difficult to contain.
“You’re crazy if you think I’m going to destroy my career to cover up your illegal activities,” Seraphina warns, raising her voice slightly.
Adrian shrugs with exasperating calm.
“Your career is already ruined. The difference is that you can still decide how much of it you want to save from the fire.”
She looks away for a second, toward the screen, toward Nerissa, toward that night in Chester when, for the first time, she stopped looking over her shoulder. How na?ve she had been.
“Besides, you’ll submit your resignation once the merger is complete. Health reasons, stress, burnout… something elegant and credible that benefits someone I care deeply about.”
Seraphina feels a sharp pang in her chest.
“No.”
“Yes,” he replies.
“I’m not going to give in to your fucking blackmail.”
Adrian tilts his head slightly.
“Then Elliot will receive the entire gallery before breakfast tomorrow.”
The air stops flowing into her lungs. Suddenly, Seraphina Chapman sees her whole world falling apart.
“You can’t do this to me,” she murmurs, the words coming out broken.
“Of course I can,” Adrian replies with a smile.
Seraphina tries to catch her breath and think clearly.
She needs to find a way out.
“Elliot is your partner,” she murmurs. “If you destroy this marriage, you’ll hurt yourself too.”
“Not particularly. Divorces are quite profitable for lawyers,” he replies cruelly.
The remark sends a chill down her spine. Adrian moves a little closer.
“Look at yourself, Seraphina. You’ve built a perfect life over the years, and you’re about to throw it all away for a fling with an arrogant surgeon.”
“Don’t talk about her like that,” Seraphina warns through clenched teeth.
Adrian smiles instantly. He’s found exactly the wound he wanted to expose.
“Ah. So you really do love her.”
Seraphina freezes. Adrian studies her in silence for a few seconds, and his expression changes. He no longer looks amused. Now he looks dangerously satisfied.
“That complicates things even more for you.”
She feels her nails digging into her palms.
“You know nothing about us,” she whispers.
“I know enough. I know you’d risk a lot for her… but not enough to lose your children.”
The words pierce her chest because they hit their mark. That is exactly the limit of her courage. Adrian picks up the tablet with absolute calm.
“You have forty-eight hours to hand over the asset modification and draft your letter of resignation.”
Seraphina shakes her head slowly, still searching for a way out.
“Helena will look into it.”
“She won’t make it in time,” he replies.
“Nerissa…” The name slips from her lips before she can stop it.
Adrian watches her with a terrifying calm.
“Dr. Ashcombe can’t help you. And if you try to warn her, Elliot will receive the images before midnight.”
Seraphina feels genuine terror for the first time in months. Because she realizes she no longer controls anything happening around her. Adrian heads toward the door. And before leaving, he turns to face her.
“Choose wisely, Seraphina. The stability of your children and your family name… or your dear surgeon.”