CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR #2
Nathan continued. “Look, I won’t pretend I know everything about your life.
I didn’t grow up in the streets of Louisiana.
I didn’t have to worry about where my next meal was coming from, or how to pay rent while taking care of my siblings.
But I do know what it’s like to be forced to grow up faster than you want.
I know what it’s like to lose someone you love and have to pretend it didn’t rip you apart.
To feel like your whole future got rewritten in a day. ”
The air in the room shifted.
I felt it.
So did Darryl.
Nathan didn’t pause long enough for it to linger.
“When my mom died, everything changed. And instead of dealing with it, I was handed a tie and a schedule and told to keep moving. To build. To be useful. And for a long time, that’s all I did.
Work. Win. Move on. But when I took over Edge Records, I made a decision that I only wanted to work with people who had something real to say.
People whose music mattered. Yours does. ”
My throat tightened.
I’d worked beside Nathan for years, so I knew how he pitched, how he played, how he sold a dream and made it sound like reality. But this? This didn’t feel like a pitch. It felt like a reveal.
Or was it just a new angle?
“Edge isn’t just about money and exposure,” he added.
“It’s about freedom. Artistic ownership.
Legacy. I want to help you tell your story the way you want it told.
I don’t need you to change who you are, I need you to lean into it.
Because your voice? Your story? That’s what people connect to. That’s what people remember.”
A long silence fell over the table.
Darryl stared at him for several seconds. His posture loosened, not in surrender, but in understanding. “Alright,” he said finally, quietly. “Let’s do it.”
Nathan extended a hand, and the two of them shook. “Welcome to Edge Records.”
Just like that, it was done.
The waiter came to clear the table, and conversation shifted to talk of contracts and next steps and celebration drinks. But I couldn’t stop thinking about what Nathan had said. About his mother. About loss. About how his voice cracked just slightly when he said the word pretend.
I didn’t know that part of his story. Not really.
And I didn’t know if what he’d said tonight had come from a real place or if he was just very, very good at making people believe what they needed to hear.
Maybe both could be true.
***
ONCE DINNER WAS over, we parted ways. Darryl headed back to his home and Nathan and I headed back to our hotel.
But no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t sleep.
I stared at the ceiling in my darkened suite, the city lights casting faint shadows across the walls. My thoughts ran wild, looping the same anxious reel on repeat: I was walking away from a steady paycheck, financial security. From routine. From certainty.
For what?
A dream that might not pan out?
A job that could vanish in a matter of months?
And the worst part was, I had no backup plan. No parachute. Just faith.
I need some air.
I threw a zip-up hoodie and a pair of shorts over my bikini, slid my feet into sandals, and made my way upstairs. The rooftop pool was still open.
I just needed a moment.
The rooftop door clicked shut behind me, the cool metal handle still warm from my grip as I stepped into the night, only to freeze a moment later.
There was someone in the pool.
Nathan.
He was submerged to his chest in the water, arms stretched out along the edge behind him, his head tilted back to rest against the tile. The city skyline twinkled around him, reflections from the pool casting soft ripples of light across his bare skin.
He hadn’t seen me yet.
For a split second, I considered turning around and leaving quietly. I wasn’t trying to crash his moment. But I came up here for a reason too, so I swallowed the lump in my throat and decided to be bold.
I slipped off my hoodie and dropped it on one of the nearby lounge chairs. I was already wearing my bikini underneath—teal, skimpy, and possibly too revealing for a work trip, but here we are.
I wiggled out of my shorts, and when I looked back up, Nathan was no longer lounging with his eyes closed.
He was watching me. Tracking every movement like he was trying to memorize it.
His gaze dropped, lingering over the curve of my hips, then down the length of my legs. His throat worked around a swallow, and even in the low lighting, I didn’t miss the way his jaw flexed or how his fingers curled tighter around the pool edge.
“You couldn’t sleep either?” he finally asked, his voice lower than usual.
I shook my head and padded over to the steps, dipping my toes in.
The water was warm. Nathan was silent as I descended one step at a time, until I was waist-deep and directly across from him.
We didn’t say anything for a long moment.
Just floated in the quiet.
The lights from the city cast a soft gold shimmer over his skin, and for the first time in three years of working together, I was seeing him like this. Bare. Relaxed. His hair messy and damp. His abs on full display. His face softer, less guarded.
He looked like someone I didn’t know.
And I liked it.
“I was gonna come knock on your door,” Nathan said after a minute. “I wanted to thank you again for bringing Darryl to my attention. We wouldn’t have landed him if it wasn’t for you.” Nathan said, surprising me with his rare moment of humility.
“I don’t know about that.”
“I do. You’re a vital part of the company,” Nathan told me. “I wouldn’t be able to do what I do if it wasn’t for you.”
My heart fluttered at his words. “Thank you.”
His words settled over me like warmth, quiet and unexpected. I looked down, letting the soft ripple of water kiss the tops of my thighs where they dangled in the pool. The night air wrapped around us. Cool, still, and fragrant with distant jasmine and chlorine.
A beat passed and in that stillness, something inside me loosened.
“I’m scared,” I admitted, so softly I almost hoped he hadn’t heard.
He looked over at me. “About what?”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “This next chapter. Leaving Edge Records. Stepping into the unknown. I’ve been so busy pushing forward that I didn’t let myself think about the what-ifs. But tonight after dinner, after Darryl signed I started wondering if I made the right choice.”
“I’ve known a lot of people who played it safe,” he said.
“People who settled. Who stayed in the same place their entire lives because the idea of failure terrified them more than mediocrity.” I turned my head, eyes meeting his.
“You’re not one of them, Elise.” Something twisted in my chest. “You’re brave,” he said, the corners of his mouth lifting just slightly.
“You don’t wait around for someone to hand you an opportunity, you chase it. You create it.”
My breath caught. He wasn’t looking at me like a boss. Not even like a friend. There was something deeper there. Warmer. More intimate.
“You think I’m brave?” I whispered.
“I know you are.”
I swallowed around the lump forming in my throat. “I don’t feel it. Not right now.”
“That’s the thing about bravery,” he said.
“It’s not about never being afraid. It’s about doing the thing anyway.
” He paused. “I couldn’t sleep either.” Nathad admitted.
He was staring ahead, his jaw tight, and a distant look in his eyes.
The glow from the pool lights painted the planes of his face in soft gold and shadow.
“That’s why I came out here,” he said. “Didn’t feel like being in my head tonight.” He let out a slow exhale. “Some nights are easier. Others, not so much.”
“What was on your mind?”
He glanced over at me. “Tonight reminded me of him. My dad.”
I blinked. “Because of the meeting?”
He nodded. “The way I pitched the label to Darryl. It felt like déjà vu. I was ten the first time I saw my dad sit down across from an artist and talk them into signing. I remember thinking he looked invincible. Like no one in the world could say no to him.” A humorless smile touched his lips.
“It wasn’t until years later I realized he wasn’t just selling a dream, he was selling himself.
His image. His control. Every artist he signed was another brick in the empire he wanted me to take over. ”
I didn’t speak. I just listened.
And maybe that was what he needed most.
“My dad was complicated,” he said. “Brilliant. Brutal. I spent years trying to prove I was worthy of what he built. And by the time I got it, by the time it was all mine…” He shook his head, his voice dipping lower. “I wasn’t even sure I wanted it.”
The water between us was still, now.
“You’re nothing like him,” I said softly.
His eyes found mine.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m just better at hiding it.”
A lump formed in my throat, because I saw it then. Beneath the perfection, sharp suits and smarter words, there was a boy inside him still grieving, still trying to earn something he never should’ve had to fight for.
“I think,” I said gently, “you’re more than what he made you to be.”
I was closer now somehow. I wasn't sure if it was the pool’s current, or fate, or maybe just something magnetic between us. But there were only a few inches separating us now.
Nathan’s hand came up out of the water. His fingers brushed my cheek, soft and slow, and just like that, I stopped breathing.
“You make it hard,” he murmured.
“What?”
“To keep pretending this is just business.”
“Then show me what it is.”
He kissed me.
And it wasn’t soft or hesitant.
It was the kind of kiss that stole the air from my lungs and made me forget my own name. The kind of kiss that pressed my body against his and had me clinging to his shoulders like he was the only thing keeping me afloat.
Nathan kissed like a man who didn’t get to want things. Who was finally letting himself take what he wanted and what he wanted was me.
My fingers slid into his hair, still damp, and I swallowed the sound he made when I tugged gently.
His mouth was hot and consuming, his hands roaming to the small of my back like he couldn’t get me close enough.
And maybe he couldn’t.
Because the truth was, neither could I.