Chapter 10 – Samuel
The grand ballroom of the glass-and-marble gallery on the waterfront is a spectacle of blinding luxury.
Crystal chandeliers hang like frozen waterfalls from thirty-foot ceilings, casting fractured, glittering light over a sea of tailored tuxedoes, silk gowns, and diamond necklaces.
This is the annual maritime logistics gala—the playground of old money, cutthroat shippers, and the elite who control the physical arteries of global trade.
It’s exactly the kind of sterile, high-end environment where Ashley and I first crossed paths in this city. But tonight, everything is different.
I stand near the towering arched windows overlooking the dark, whispering harbor, a heavy tumbler of bourbon resting easily in my palm.
I don’t wear my sunglasses or my casual leathers tonight; I am wrapped in a bespoke, midnight-blue Tom Ford tuxedo, the silk lapels catching the light, my white shirt pristine against the dark tan of my neck.
Beside me, Kaplan is quietly exchanging nods with a port director from Trieste, but my focus is entirely elsewhere.
My eyes are locked onto the center of the room.
Ashley is a vision. She’s wearing a liquid-emerald silk gown that clings to the curve of her waist before pooling elegantly around her high heels.
Her dark hair is swept up, revealing the delicate line of her neck and the sharp, regal angle of her jaw.
She is fully immersed in her element. I watch her charm a group of elderly European shipbuilders, her laughter light and musical, though I can see the sharp, calculating assessment behind her eyes.
She’s a queen surveyor of her empire. And I’m a predator watching from the shadows.
“She’s pulling the room,” Kaplan murmurs, not looking at me but tracking my gaze. “Don’t do anything stupid, Samuel. The Greeks are watching.”
“I’m simply going to congratulate our partner on her successful quarter,” I reply, my voice a low, gravelly purr.
I set my bourbon down on a passing silver tray and glide into the crowd. The sea of elite guests seems to part instinctively for me, my height and the quiet, dangerous aura I carry warning them to step aside.
I wait until the shipbuilders excuse themselves before I make my move. I step into her space, my shadow falling over her small frame as I close the distance, stopping close enough to catch the faint, intoxicating scent of jasmine and rain that clings to her skin.
“You dominate a ballroom just as easily as a boardroom, Ms. Kang,” I say, my deep voice dropping to a low, intimate register that vibrates between us, deliberately cutting through the swell of classical violin music.
Ashley stiffens, her shoulders squaring instantly beneath the emerald silk.
She doesn’t flinch, but as she turns to face me, her dark eyes flash with a sudden, fierce heat.
The polite, glowing smile she had for the shipbuilders vanishes, replaced by a cool, impenetrable mask of executive detachment.
“Mr. Rusnak,” she says, her voice smooth and entirely professional, though her eyes are glittering with warning. “I didn’t expect to see you here tonight. I assumed you would be busy managing your…high-value shipments.”
“My shipments are in excellent hands,” I say, leaning in just a fraction of an inch, letting a slow, deliberate smile play on my lips.
It is a provocation, a soft testing of her boundaries, attempting to spark even a flicker of the old, breathless connection we once shared.
“And besides, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see how my doubled rate is being spent.
The emerald suits you, krasavitsa. It makes you look like a prize. ”
I watch her closely, waiting for the split-second hitch in her breath, the widening of her eyes, the crack in her fortress.
But Ashley has spent four years building her armor, and tonight, she’s impenetrable.
She doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t flush. She simply tilts her head up, meeting my piercing blue gaze with a look of supreme, icy indifference.
“My rates are spent on maintaining the flawless security and discretion you contracted, Mr. Rusnak,” she counters, her voice hard as diamonds and completely devoid of any reciprocal warmth.
“If you’re looking for a prize, I suggest you try the silent auction in the West Wing.
My time, and my presence, are strictly professional.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have actual clients to attend to. ”
Without waiting for a response, she takes a step to bypass me, her silk gown brushing against my trousers.
I step into her path, blocking her exit with my broad frame. “Still so eager to run away, Ashley? I thought we established a partnership.”
“We established a business agreement,” she corrects sharply, her voice quiet but lethal as she glares up at me. “Do not mistake my compliance in a contract for an invitation to cross boundaries. I suggested you keep your head down and stay out of my way. I highly recommend you start practicing.”
I take a slow step closer, narrowing the gap between us until the hem of her emerald gown brushes against my leather shoes.
“Let me buy you a drink, Ashley,” I say, my voice dropping to a low, rough murmur. “For old times’ sake. Let’s start over. Just a drink.”
“No,” she says.
There’s no hesitation. No pause to consider it, no polite softening of the syllable. The rejection is immediate, clear, and completely unambiguous, reinforcing the invisible, steel-plated boundary she has erected between us.
“I don’t drink with clients, Mr. Rusnak. And I certainly don’t drink with you.”
The flat dismissal sparks something hot and volatile in my chest. The cool, calculated businessman slips, and the raw, untamed edge of the man beneath takes over.
“Why are you doing this?” I demand, my voice hardening as the tension between us escalates, vibrating in the narrow space separating us. “Why the act? You and I both know what happened four years ago wasn’t just some meaningless lapse in judgment.”
“It was a mistake,” she snaps, her eyes flashing with a sudden, dangerous fire. “A mistake I paid for and moved past.”
“I don’t believe you,” I say, stepping fully into her space, towering over her, my hands clenching into fists at my sides. “And frankly, I don’t understand it myself. I don’t understand my own reaction to you, Ashley.”
She freezes, her dark eyes locking onto mine, searching my face.
“I’ve spent the last four years of my life deliberately avoiding relationships,” I admit, the confession ripping from my throat, raw and unpolished.
“I don’t do attachments. I don’t do feelings.
I live a life where everything is controlled, where everyone has a place and a purpose.
Yet you walk into my path again, and you disrupt every single bit of that control.
I can’t explain it, and I sure as hell don’t like it. But it’s there.”
Ashley stares at me, her chest rising and falling in sharp, rapid breaths. For a second, just a fraction of a second, I think I see a flicker of something soft in her eyes—a ghost of the girl from the penthouse.
But then her jaw sets, and she rejects the statement entirely, her face hardening back into a flawless, icy mask.
“I don’t care, Samuel,” she says, her voice cold, flat, and devastatingly calm. “Whatever you think you feel, whatever disruption you’re dealing with, it’s completely irrelevant to me.”
She takes a step back, breaking the proximity, her dark eyes pinning me to the floor.
“I do not want you,” she says, each word delivered with a terrifying, absolute certainty. “Not now. Not tomorrow. Not in the future. I want nothing to do with you outside of the coordinates of your cargo. Do not speak to me like this again.”
Her tone is firm, leaving absolutely no room for misinterpretation, no room for negotiation, and no room for hope.
Without waiting for me to breathe, she turns on her heel and walks away.
Her emerald gown sweeps across the polished marble, her head held high as she melts seamlessly back into the sea of glittering elite, leaving me standing completely alone under the blinding light of the chandeliers, staring at the empty space where she used to be.