Chapter 10 #2
"You shouldn't have to ask!" The words come out rougher than I intend, frustration bleeding into my tone.
"You defended yourself brilliantly, Romee.
You stood up to him in front of witnesses and reclaimed your professional dignity.
But he still had power over you. He could still damage your career, spread lies about your competence, poison your reputation in the industry. I removed that threat. Permanently."
"By making me your employee?" Her laugh is sharp and humorless. "By trapping me in another power dynamic where someone else controls my future? How is that better?"
I actually take a step backward, my hands coming up in an instinctive gesture of defense.
"That's not—I would never—"
"Wouldn't you?" She's relentless now, advancing on me despite the ridiculous size difference, her finger jabbing toward my chest in an echo of Richard's earlier gesture, except when Romee does it, I actually feel it.
"You've been trying to control this entire situation since you got here, Thrall.
Ripping up itineraries, ordering me to eat, carrying me to your cabin, leaving notes telling me what to wear—"
"You liked those things," I interrupt with a growl. “Don't pretend you didn't. You responded to every single one of them."
"That was different! That was—" She cuts herself off, her cheeks flushing, and I know exactly what she's remembering. The door. My hands. Her breathless surrender. "That was personal. This is my career. My independence. My entire professional life, and you just bought it like—"
"Like I was protecting what's mine," I finish, the words coming from somewhere primal and possessive, and the second they leave my mouth, I know I've made a catastrophic tactical error.
Romee goes completely still, the kind of motionless that feels dangerous, like a predator recognizing a threat.
Her entire body locks down, shoulders rigid, hands dropping to her sides.
The anger that had been propelling her forward just moments ago evaporates, replaced by something far more devastating: a cold, crystalline clarity that settles over her features like winter frost.
"What's yours," she repeats, each word carefully enunciated and delivered with surgical precision. Her voice has flattened into something that sounds almost conversational, except for the lethal undertone running beneath it. "I see."
She takes a measured step backward, creating distance between us, and I feel the space yawn open like a chasm.
Her eyes, usually so expressive, so full of fire and challenge, have gone dim and guarded, shuttered behind a professional mask I haven't seen her wear in days. It's like watching a door slam shut.
"Romee—" I start, my voice rougher than I intend, urgency creeping into my tone because I can feel something fracturing between us, something fundamental and irreplaceable beginning to crack.
"No." She holds up one hand, and the gesture is so commanding that I actually stop mid-sentence, my mouth closing with an audible click.
"No. We're not doing this. I thought—last night, I thought maybe we had something real.
Something based on actual respect and partnership.
But this? This is just you deciding you own me because we slept together. "
"That's not what this is," I insist, forcing my voice to remain level despite the panic starting to claw its way up my throat.
"I respect you more than anyone I've ever met.
Your competence, your intelligence, your ability to command a room full of Orcs twice your size—it's extraordinary.
I wanted to give you the freedom to use those skills without someone like Richard holding you back. "
"By buying my company," she says slowly, as if explaining something to a particularly stubborn child. "By making yourself my boss. By creating a situation where I'm financially dependent on you and professionally indebted to you. That's not freedom, Thrall. That's just a prettier cage."
"It's not… I didn't mean—" I'm actually struggling to articulate my thoughts, which never happens, my usual ruthless verbal precision completely deserting me in the face of her righteous anger.
"You can run the company. Full autonomy.
I'll be a silent investor. You'll have complete creative control—"
"I don't want your money!" The words explode out of her with shocking force.
"I don't want your investment or your protection or your high-handed Orc solutions to problems I was perfectly capable of solving myself!
I wanted to build something on my own terms. I wanted to succeed because I'm good at what I do, not because some CEO decided to white knight his way into my professional life! "
"I was trying to help," I bite out, my own temper finally igniting. "You were being exploited. Systematically. And you were so busy being perfect and managing everyone else's problems that you couldn't see how badly you were being used. Someone needed to intervene."
"But it didn't have to be you!" Her voice cracks slightly on the last word, and the sound does something terrible to my chest. "It didn't have to be some grand gesture that puts me in your debt. I could have found another job. I could have started my own agency. I could have—"
"Failed," I finish brutally. "You could have failed, Romee.
Because the industry is vicious and Richard would have sabotaged you at every turn and you would have spent years fighting an uphill battle against his lies and his connections while struggling to keep your head above water financially.
I gave you a shortcut. I gave you resources and security and the freedom to actually use your skills instead of wasting them on survival. "
"I didn't ask for any of that!"
"You shouldn't have to ask!" I'm shouting now, my control finally snapping completely.
"You shouldn't have to beg for basic professional respect or fight for opportunities that should have been yours from the beginning!
You shouldn't have to prove yourself over and over to mediocre men who will never appreciate your value!
I saw what you're capable of and I wanted to give you the platform to actually do it without obstacles! "
"By removing my agency!" she shouts back, matching my volume despite the significant size difference. "By making decisions about my life without consulting me! By assuming you know what's best for me better than I know myself!"
The accusation hangs in the air between us, heavy and damning, suspended like a blade suspended above my head. It's the kind of silence that fills a room entirely, suffocating and absolute, and I can feel every word she's thrown at me settling into my bones.
And I realize, with a sinking horror that crawls up my spine and claws at my throat, that she's absolutely, devastatingly right.
I did exactly what Richard did. Every manipulative, controlling, paternalistic thing he inflicted upon her, I replicated it.
I simply dressed it up in different clothing, wrapped it in better intentions and justified it with more sophisticated business strategy.
I just used better intentions and significantly more expensive resources to accomplish the same fundamental violation of her autonomy.
The method was different, the scale was grander, but the underlying assumption was identical: that I knew better than she did what she needed, and that my judgment should supersede her own agency.
The realization tastes like ash in my mouth.
"Romee," I start, my voice rough, but she's already moving, already turning away, her small frame radiating a level of hurt and betrayal that makes my chest physically ache.
"I need some air," she says quietly, all the fight draining out of her voice, leaving behind something worse. Something broken. "I can't—I need to think."
"Don't leave," I hear myself say, hating desperation in my tone. "Please. We can fix this. I can—I'll reverse the acquisition. I'll transfer ownership to you. Whatever you want."
She pauses in the doorway, her compact frame outlined against the fading afternoon light filtering through the corridor windows, her back still turned resolutely toward me.
Her shoulders are rigid, locked in that defensive posture she adopts when she's fighting back tears, a gesture I've learned to recognize with painful clarity over these past weeks.
"What I wanted," she says softly, her voice stripped of its usual razor-sharp authority and reduced to something raw and honest, "was a partner.
Someone who actually saw me as an equal.
Not a problem to be solved with the right algorithm or an asset to be acquired with sufficient capital and business acumen.
" She takes a shaky breath, and I can hear the tremor in it from across the room.
"Someone who trusted me to make my own choices, even the ones that scared me or that you disagreed with. "
The words land like hammer blows, each one detonating against me with surgical precision.
Then she's gone, moving forward with that quick, efficient stride that I've watched navigate a thousand retreats and contingencies.
Her footsteps echo down the hallway with terrible finality, the sound growing fainter and fainter until there's nothing left but silence and the lingering ghost of citrus perfume that clings to the air like an accusation.
I stand in the empty dining hall, surrounded by abandoned chairs and the lingering scent of her citrus perfume, and realize I've just destroyed the best thing that's ever happened to me.