Thirty-Two Calls

Chapter One The Gilded Cage

The amber liquid in Lance Rothwood’s crystal tumbler caught the dying embers of the fireplace, casting dancing, jagged shadows across the silk wallpaper of the penthouse.

Outside, the Manhattan skyline was a jagged crown of electric jewels, but inside, the silence was heavy—thick with the scent of expensive oud, rain-dampened wool, and the unspoken weight of nearly a decade.

Lance sat in the velvet armchair like a king on a temporary throne.

At thirty-eight, he possessed the kind of handsomeness that felt engineered rather than inherited—sharp, architectural jawline, eyes the color of a winter Atlantic, and a physical presence that seemed to pull the oxygen from the room.

He didn’t need to raise his voice to command; he simply existed, and the world adjusted its orbit to suit him.

Across the room, Evangeline Foster watched him.

To the boardrooms of Rothwood Industries, she was a ghost in the machinery—a sharp, efficient Analyst who kept her head down and her spreadsheets perfect.

To the gossips in the breakroom, she was the "Designated Distraction," the woman who had survived the transition from Lance’s bachelor days to his high-society wedding without being discarded.

But to herself, she felt like a painting that had been left in the sun too long, her colors fading at the edges.

"You're quiet tonight, Evie," Lance said. His voice was a rich baritone, smooth as the scotch he favored, yet underlined with the effortless authority of a man who owned the building, the street it sat on, and the souls of half the people walking it.

Evie moved toward him, her footsteps silent on the Persian rug.

At twenty-nine, she had lost the soft, rounded edges of the college student he had first met nine years ago.

Her beauty had sharpened into something more elegant, more brittle.

"I was just thinking about the office," she lied softly, leaning against the back of his chair.

"The whispers were louder today. Something about the Niederdorf merger. "

Lance’s hand, large and warm, reached up to cover hers. His thumb traced her knuckles—a possessive, grounding gesture. "The whispers are the music of people with nothing better to do. You shouldn't listen to them."

"It’s hard not to when they’re orchestrated by your wife’s social circle," Evie countered, the bitterness leaking out before she could check it.

The mention of Camille Deacon-Rothwood usually acted like a cold front, chilling the air between them.

Camille was more than a wife; she was an institution.

She was "Legacy" personified, a woman whose family name was etched into the cornerstones of libraries and museums. Their marriage was a masterclass in clinical efficiency—two empires joined by a contract, devoid of heat but fortified by steel.

Camille didn't care about Evie. To Camille, Evie was a line item, a hobby Lance would eventually outgrow.

Lance didn't stiffen. He didn't even blink. He simply pulled Evie around the chair until she was forced to look at him. "Camille is a ghost in a house of cards, Evie. She has the name, but I have the hand on the wheel."

"But I'm the one standing in the shadows, Lance," she whispered, her heart aching with the familiar, dull throb of a hope deferred. "Nine years. I’ve been the secret, the mistress, the 'shabby' alternative to a pedigree. I’ve given you the best years of my life, and I’m still waiting for the day I don’t have to leave through the service elevator. "

Lance looked at her then, and for a fleeting second, the ruthless CEO vanished.

There was a raw, hungry desperation in his eyes that he showed no one else.

He wanted to tell her. He wanted to tell her that for the last eighteen months; he had been a phantom in his own counting houses.

He was quietly, surgically, severing the Rothwood billions from the Deacon influence.

He was moving assets to offshore trusts, restructuring holding companies, and preparing a tectonic shift that would leave him independent of the "Legacy" that bound him to Camille.

He was building a fortress, and when he finally burned the bridge of his marriage, he intended for Evie to be safe inside the walls, untouchable and legal.

But he couldn't say it. Not yet. If Camille’s lawyers got even a scent of the decoupling, they would fleece him before he could finish the job. He had to be perfect. He had to be ruthless. Even with her.

"Trust me," he said, his grip tightening just slightly—not enough to hurt, but enough to command. "Everything I do is for the end game, Evie. You know I don’t play to lose."

"I don't care about winning, Lance," she said, a single tear escaping to track a path through her makeup. "I just want to be seen. I want to be first."

He stood up, towering over her, and drew her into the heat of his chest. He buried his face in the curve of her neck, inhaling the scent of her—vanilla and something uniquely her that calmed the storm of his ambition.

To the world, he was a predator. Here, in the dim light of a secret apartment, he was a man obsessed.

"You are the only thing that is real," he murmured against her skin.

Evie closed her eyes, leaning into him even as a part of her soul felt like it was breaking.

She had heard variations of this before.

She lived on the crumbs of his affection, hoping that one day they would form a feast. She knew the labels the world gave her.

She knew Camille looked down on her with the detached pity one might feel for a persistent stray.

But as Lance lifted her chin and kissed her with a ferocity that spoke of a man trying to hold onto the only thing he actually loved, she stayed. She stayed because, despite the indignity and the years of waiting, she still believed in the man behind the mask.

In the silence of the room, Lance’s mind was already back to the ledgers—calculating the final three moves required to insulate his wealth. He was a man who owned the room, but he was secretly dismantling the world to make a space where she could finally stand beside him.

"Soon," he whispered into the dark, a promise and a prayer wrapped in the cold steel of a Rothwood decree.

Evie didn't answer. She only held on tighter, wondering how many more "soons" she had left in her.

Someday, she told herself as she clung to him in the shadows of the beautiful penthouse. Someday, he will love me enough to put me first