12. Chapter 12 #2
"No." I don't look up from my phone. "Antonio is downstairs. He'll drive you home."
"Declan—"
"This isn't a discussion, Miss Madison."
Wyeth looks between us, then very deliberately closes his laptop. "Actually, I just remembered I have an early call tomorrow. I'm going to head out. You two finish up."
He's gone before either of us can respond.
Darcy starts packing—laptop, phone, the cardigan she's been wearing all day.
"I should go," she says quietly.
"I'll walk you down."
"You don't have to—"
I stand, walk around the table, and stop directly in front of her.
"When I tell you I'm doing something, Miss Madison, I'm not asking for permission." I pick up her laptop bag and hand it to her. "I'm informing you. Now let's go."
Her hazel gaze stays steady on mine for a few seconds before she takes the bag and heads for the door with me following close behind.
The car is quiet.
Antonio is driving, which means there's a partition between the front and back seats of my oversize Mercedes.
Between Darcy and me, there's approximately two feet of leather seat and enough electricity to restart a power grid.
She's looking out the window at Manhattan sliding past—the lights, the late-night crowds, the city that never sleeps even when it should.
I'm not looking at the city.
I'm looking at her.
And I'm thinking about Friday night, and, more importantly, Tulum.
About waking up in that resort suite five weeks ago to find the other side of the bed cold.
Empty.
Her dress gone, shoes gone—the entire complicated, devastating woman gone like she'd never been there at all.
Like she could just walk away from what happened between us as if it were nothing.
Like I were nothing.
I've had women leave before.
I’ve never once cared.
I've been the one to disentangle, to extract myself cleanly, to leave first because leaving first is control, and control is the only currency that matters.
But Darcy Madison got up in the gray Tulum morning, while I was still sleeping, and walked out.
And something about it has been sitting under my skin like broken glass ever since.
I look at her profile against the passing city, the line of her jaw, the curve of her throat, the way she's deliberately not looking at me.
The sheer fucking audacity…
It’s making me want to spend a significant amount of time reminding her exactly what she walked away from, making her remember it.
Making her feel it.
Because clearly she thinks she can walk out on me, that she can sit two feet away from me in the back of my car looking unfazed.
"Can I ask you something?" she says, still avoiding my gaze.
“Be my guest.”
"Last week. The two men who came in for a meeting." She's trying to sound casual, but there's something careful in her voice. "What was that about?"
I blink, frowning at the memory—the one where Darcy tried to disappear behind her desk.
"They're involved in the Tulum deal," I say. "Property development connections in Mexico. Why?"
"No reason. Just—" She shrugs. "They seemed like an odd fit for hospitality consulting."
She's not wrong.
Ricardo and Alexander are connected to some of Miami's less transparent business operations. The kind of connections my father used to have. The kind I've been trying to distance us from.
But they have the local relationships we need for the Tulum property. The connections that can smooth permitting, navigate local politics, make things happen that wouldn't happen otherwise.
"They have the local relationships we need," I say carefully. "Sometimes you work with people who aren't perfect because they can deliver what you need."
"That sounds like something my father would say."
The way she says it—flat and tinged with bitterness—tells me everything I need to know about that relationship.
"Not a fan of your father’s, I take it?” I ask.
"That's putting it mildly." She says, still looking out the window.
She falls silent, and I don’t push, letting a hush settle inside the back seat.
"The Tulum deal," she says, clearly changing the subject. "Why does it matter so much to you?"
The question catches me off guard.
"It's a nine-figure acquisition—"
"That's not what I'm asking." She turns to face me. "I've seen the way you talk about it. The way you look when you're reviewing the plans. This isn't just business for you."
She's too perceptive.
Too smart.
Too goddamn right.
I look out my own window for a moment, watching the city blur past.
"My father started Shaw Entertainment Group thirty years ago," I say quietly. "Three nightclubs in Miami. Cash operations. Gray-area deals. He built a sixty-billion-dollar empire in fifteen years."
"And then?"
"And then someone destroyed him." The words taste sour in my mouth. "A hostile financial attack. Targeted his commercial real estate holdings. Leveraged debt he couldn't service. Within three weeks, he'd lost everything. Three weeks after that, he had a heart attack. Dead at fifty-three."
I can feel her watching me.
"I'm sorry," she says quietly.
"It was twenty-four years ago."
"That doesn't make it less terrible."
"No." I agree. "It doesn't."
"And the Tulum property?"
"Is legitimate. Clean. Everything my father's operation wasn't." I turn to look at her. "If we close this deal, we're no longer just the company my father built. We're the company we rebuilt. Better. Legal. Something he never got to see."
She's quiet for a while. "That's why you and Quinn and Wyeth have been meeting lately, right?”
"What do you mean?"
“I see the three of you sometimes. In a conference room. Arguing. You couldn't choose because exiting the gray-area business means letting go of what your father built. Even the parts you hated. Even the parts that caused his heart attack."
My chest tightens, my breathing picking up.
Because Christ, this woman is too damn perceptive.
"Something like that," I snort.
She's silent again, looking at her hands. “I understand wanting to build something separate from the man who raised you. Something that's yours and not his. Something that proves you're more than just his legacy."
“And is that what you’re doing?”
“Yeah.” She gives a small smile. "I'm still figuring it out. But working at Shaw Entertainment Group? Getting promoted based on my actual work? That's helping."
The car slows.
We're in Astoria now. Tree-lined streets. Low-rise apartment buildings. Working-class neighborhood turning trendy.
"This is me," she says as the car stops in front of a five-story walkup.
Antonio starts to get out, but I'm already moving.
"I'll walk you up," I say.
"You don't have to—"
"I'm walking you up."
It's not generosity.
It's not chivalry.
I’m not ready for this car ride to be over.
We get out of the car, and the night air is warm, humid. There's music playing from somewhere, laughter from a rooftop party a few buildings over. The smell of someone's late dinner—garlic and something spicy.
She leads me to the front door, fumbling with her keys.
"Thanks for the ride," she says.
"Thanks for staying late."
Then she looks up at me.
Those hazel eyes, gold and green in the dim light of her building's entrance.
That mouth.
And something in my will that I've managed for five weeks stops being manageable.
"Declan—" she starts.
"No."
She blinks. "No?"
"You walked out on me in Tulum." The words are gritty, ground into the dirt. "In the morning. While I was asleep. You just—left."
She goes very still. "I—"
"Don't explain it. I don't want an explanation." I step closer, and she doesn't step back. "I want you to understand something."
"What?"
I reach out, take her chin between my fingers, tilt her face up.
"I’m not someone you can walk away from, Miss Madison?" I say. "I don't know what you told yourself when you picked up your shoes and left. But whatever it was—" I study her face, the flush climbing her cheekbones, the way her breath has gone shallow. "—you were wrong."
“Mr. Shaw—“
"You were sitting in that conference room for three hours pretending you don't feel this." My thumb traces her jaw. "Pretending you're fine. Pretending Friday night, Tulum—all of it…was nothing."
"It wasn't—"
"Nothing," I say again. "Was it?"
"No," she says quietly. "It wasn't nothing."
"Good." I release her, step back, give her the space she's been performing all evening. "Then stop pretending it was."
She stares at me.
"Thursday," I say, turning to head back down the steps. "Six-thirty A.M. Car picks you up."
I stop; face tilted her way.
"You walked away from me once." My stare burns into hers. "I'd think very carefully before you do it again."
This time I keep walking back to the car.
I get in without looking back, and Antonio pulls away from the curb the moment I close the door.
My phone buzzes soon after.
DARCY: That was incredibly high-handed.
I stare at it before typing back immediately.
ME: You have no idea
I text again.
ME: Thursday. 6:30 A.M. Don't be late
DARCY: Yes, sir
My cock twitches at the teasing text as I put the phone away and look out at Manhattan sliding past.
Five weeks ago, I accidentally married a woman in Tulum. Four weeks ago, she showed up at my office.
Three days ago, I made her come in the lobby.
Thursday, I'm taking her back to Tulum.
Where this all started. Where the rules we keep making never seem to work.
Where she walked away from me the first time.
And there’s no goddamned way I’m allowing Darcy Madison to do it again.
I'll make absolutely certain of that.