LOGINVincent POVLandon Beck lived in Marlowe Park, on a street where the trees were older than the houses, and every lawn looked well-groomed and taken care of. His lights were on. Of course they were. Somewhere out past Halden Ridge, a truck full of my bronzes was being driven into a nameless warehouse, and a man does not sleep through his own crime.I sat in the car across the street for ten minutes, watching his silhouette cross the front window twice, and I thought about the two ways this could go. I could wait until Monday, call HR, call lawyers, follow protocols and do it properly. The other man would go through the back door, and Beck would tell him everything within the hour, and then Beck would disappear, and Margaret Whitmore would know within a day that her line into my company had been cut, and she would lay another one somewhere I couldn't see it.So I did the third thing. I walked up the path and rang his doorbell like a neighbour.The change in his face when he opened the
Vincent POV“Graymark Capital?” I asked, arching a brow. “Yes, sir,” Cyril nodded.I kept my face pleasant and blank, the way I had trained it to be, but my mind was already moving, because I had heard of Graymark Capital. Not through Hayes Acquisition. Through the other channels. Graymark was old, quiet money that did placement work for families who did not like their names in filings. It had come up months ago in one of Theo's briefings, flagged in passing, an institutional player circling the Green Valley development. Circling Bennett Holdings.Circling Evelyn."The second thing?" I asked, and my voice came out steady."The invoices from Halloway. The billing software leaves metadata in the PDF files. Author fields, template names, that kind of thing. Whoever generated them stripped most of it, but they missed the template registry on two of the early ones." He pointed. "The invoice template was originally created under a company profile. The profile name is 'WFO — do not use.'""
Vincent POVThe house was quiet after she left.I stood at the window and watched her taillights disappear down the drive, and then I kept standing there long after they were gone, holding a glass of water I had poured for her and never handed over. The condensation ran down over my knuckles, but I still didn't move.I set the glass down on the sill and exhaled slowly.It was better this way. That was what I told myself as I walked back through the living room, turning off lamps I didn't remember turning on. She had a company to save, and a launch to survive and two other men orbiting her life like weather systems, and the last thing she needed was a third one pretending his feelings were a form of support. I wasn't going to be that. I had decided, somewhere between her arriving and her leaving, that I was going to step back. Completely. Not out of pride, and not to punish her, but because the version of me that Evelyn knew- the harmless one, the safe one- was getting harder to mainta
Evelyn POVI woke up with a gasp, my hand clutching the blanket, my body hot and slick and pulsing with the residual aftershocks of a dream so vivid I could still feel phantom hands on my skin.My bedroom was bright with afternoon light. The clock on my nightstand read two-fifteen. I'd slept for nearly eight hours. My hair was plastered to my forehead with sweat, and my t-shirt was twisted around my torso, and the ache between my legs was very real, just like it had been in the dream. Did I have a wet dream? Involving the three men in my life?I lay there for a full minute, staring at the ceiling, breathing hard, waiting for the heat to subside.Then I got up and walked to the bathroom.The mirror showed me exactly what I expected. Flushed cheeks. Dilated pupils. Lips that looked bitten even though nobody had bitten them. The face of a woman who had just had the most intense experience of her life, and it had happened entirely inside her own head.I gripped the edge of the sink and s
Evelyn POV"Are you sure?" I sobbed. "Can you really fix this?""Watch me."She got me off the ground and got me inside. Guide me up the stairs and into my bedroom, where Biscuit greeted me with frantic yips and a tail that wouldn't stop wagging. She sat me on the edge of the bed and pulled off my shoes, one at a time, then guided me backwards until my head hit the pillow."Sleep," she said."I can't sleep. The investors. The launch. I need to call—""You need to sleep. You've been running on fumes for three days, and you look like death warmed over, and I say that with love." She pulled the blanket up to my chin with tenderness, and I knew she wouldn't mind pinning me to the ground to make sure I stay in bed. "I'm going to call my team. We'll analyse the article, trace the source, assess the market damage, and build a response strategy. By the time you wake up, I will have a plan. That's what I do, Evelyn. I make plans, and I execute them, and I don't lose."She put her hand on my fo
Evelyn POVI drove home with my jaw clenched so tight my teeth ached.The streets of Crescent Harbour were starting to wake up around me. Early commuters, delivery trucks, a jogger crossing at an intersection, a bakery with its lights already on and its doors still closed. The world going about its Tuesday morning as though nothing had changed, as though Bennett Holdings' stock hadn't just cratered by twenty-seven per cent and Grace's face wasn't splashed across every financial news site in the country.I gripped the steering wheel and tried to organise the chaos inside my head into something I could manage.For three days now, my life has been in disarray and in the history of how my life has been in shambles, this was by far the shittiest.Three days ago, I'd been on a rooftop terrace with Adrian, drinking my mother's wine and talking about paintings and butterflies and another universe where we were lovers. Then the wine had done something to my blood, and Adrian had done somethi
Evelyn POVThe VIP ward room was more comfortable than the ICU had been. I could see the city skyline through the large windows. The room was private, decorated in soft blues and greens. There was a comfortable-looking armchair in the corner, a proper bathroom, and the room was well furnished.I go
Evelyn POV“Yes. Stand beside a man. Adrian is still pursuing you. That alone should tell you something.”"A friend of mine casually mentioned that you've been offending a lot of key players in the business space in Crescent Harbour," she continued, moving closer to my bed. "She thinks it might hav
Evelyn POVI followed Gabriel to the private room like a sheep to a slaughterhouse.At this point, my brain was jumping with anticipation at the promise of whatever Gabriel had mentioned, and I could barely function. There was no part of me telling me to turn back, too. I wanted to experience it al
Gabriel POVI stood and watched until Evelyn’s car disappeared from my sight.I was so hard.It had taken me all the restraints I could muster not to unleash my want on Evelyn. I wanted her to come to me, not the other way around, and everyone knows I do not force women. Yet, I was desperate to get







