The Seattle rain doesn't just fall; it presses against the glass of my temporary office like a living thing trying to get in. I watch the rivulets distort the skyline, turning the gray city into an impressionist painting of steel and sorrow. My phone buzzes on the mahogany desk, vibrating against a stack of unread merger contracts.

*Felix.*

The name flashes on the screen, a ghost haunting a device made of glass and lithium. I let it buzz three times before answering.

"Royalty." His voice is tight, pitched high with panic. "Thank God. I've been trying the main line for an hour. The encryption keys for the Zurich accounts—they aren't in the shared drive."

I lean back in my chair, the leather creaking softly. "Hello, Felix."

"The board meeting is in twenty minutes. I need the keys. Now."

"Those keys were part of my personal security protocol," I say, my voice steady, betraying nothing of the tremor in my hands. "I designed the architecture. I maintained the firewall."

"Exactly. So give them to me."

"You're the COO now, Felix. The heir. The man who expanded the empire." I pick up a silver pen, balancing it on my index finger. "Surely you understand the systems you're claiming credit for."

"Royalty, don't do this. My father is asking for the quarterly projections."

"*Our* father," I correct him. "And he gave you the job. Figure it out."

I end the call. The silence that follows is heavy, suffocating.

"Ruthless."

I spin the chair around. Anders is leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. He's not wearing a tie today, and the top button of his shirt is undone, revealing the hollow of his throat. He's been listening.

"Competence isn't ruthless," I say. "It's a requirement."

He walks into the room, his movements fluid, cat-like. He stops at the edge of my desk. "He's drowning, isn't he?"

"He's learning to swim."

Anders studies me, his gray eyes stripping away the layers of indifference I've carefully applied. "My brother, Jonathan, has been skimming from the logistics budget for three years. He thinks no one notices because the profit margins are high enough to hide the bleed."

I raise an eyebrow. "And you have proof?"

"I have suspicions. I need someone who understands forensic accounting to find the proof."

"And what do I get?"

"Independence," he says softly. "If we expose Jonathan, the merger terms shift. You stop being a pawn my family acquired to secure East Coast capital. You become a partner. Independent of your father. Independent of Felix."

I look at the rain again. Independence. It sounds better than revenge.

"Deal."

***

The video conference room smells of ozone and stale coffee. On the massive screen, the Hart boardroom in New York looks warm and golden, a stark contrast to our gray reality. My father sits at the head of the table, Felix to his right. Cleo is absent, thank God.

"Regarding the European supply chain integration," Jonathan Griffin says from beside me, his voice booming with unearned confidence. "We need assurances on the Munich distribution hubs."

Felix clears his throat. On screen, he looks pale. He shuffles papers that I know are meaningless. "The... the Munich hubs are fully operational. We've seen a ten percent increase in efficiency."

"Actually," Jonathan presses, sensing blood in the water, "the question is about the tariff mitigation strategy post-regulation changes. What is the current exposure?"

Felix freezes. His eyes dart to the side, looking for me, but I am two thousand miles away, sitting next to the wolf he's trying to negotiate with.

"The exposure is... significant," Felix stammers. "But we are handling it."

"'Handling it' isn't a number, Mr. Cunningham," Jonathan sneers.

My father frowns, a deep crease forming between his brows. The silence stretches, painful and sharp.

I slide a folded piece of notepaper across the polished table to Anders. He doesn't look down. He just covers it with his hand, reads the number through his fingers, and speaks.

"The exposure is capped at 4.2 percent due to the hedging strategy implemented in Q3," Anders says, his voice calm, cutting through Jonathan's aggression. "It's in the addendum Mr. Cunningham sent over last night. Perhaps you missed it, Jonathan?"

Jonathan's jaw tightens. On screen, Felix looks like he might vomit with relief. My father nods, impressed, but his eyes linger on Anders, not his son.

Under the table, Anders' hand finds mine. His thumb brushes against my knuckles—a brief, electric contact that feels more intimate than a kiss. He saved the deal, but he made sure everyone knew who actually held the information.

***

Two days later, the Hart jet lands in Seattle. The dinner is held at the Griffin estate, a sprawling glass mansion perched on a cliff overlooking the Sound. The air is thick with the scent of pine and rain.

Cleo wears red. It's a violent shade, too bright for the somber elegance of the Griffin home. She clings to Felix's arm, her eyes darting around the room, assessing the wealth, calculating the value of the art on the walls.

"It's so gloomy here," she announces loudly, lifting her wine glass. "I don't know how you stand it, Royalty. New York is so much more... vibrant."

She lifts her wrist to check the time, making a show of pulling back her sleeve. The Patek Philippe glints under the chandelier light. "Oh, is it only eight? It feels like midnight."

I stare at the watch. The leather strap is worn where I used to fasten it. The crystal face reflects the room, distorting us all.

Anders appears at my shoulder. He's holding two glasses of champagne. He hands me one, his body angling to shield me from the rest of the room.

He follows my gaze to Cleo's wrist.

"It doesn't suit her," he murmurs, his voice low, meant only for me.

I take a sip of champagne, the bubbles bursting sharp against my tongue. "It's a classic piece."

"It looks heavy," Anders says, his eyes cold as they watch Cleo laugh too loudly at a joke Jonathan made. "Like it's weighing her down. It looks heavy on a wrist that hasn't worked a day in its life."

The knot in my chest, the one that's been there since the gala, loosens just a fraction. I look up at him, really look at him, and for the first time in months, the corners of my mouth turn up. It's a small smile, fragile and tentative, but it's real.

"You might be right," I whisper.

"I usually am," he replies, and clinks his glass against mine.

The security alert comes at three in the morning. My phone vibrates against the nightstand, pulling me from a dream where I'm drowning in champagne bubbles and vintage watches.

I don't check it. Not immediately. I lie in the dark of my Seattle apartment, listening to the rain hammer against the windows, and wonder if this is what freedom feels like—this hollow ache where devotion used to live.

The phone buzzes again. Then again.

I reach for it. The screen burns my eyes. Three messages from Anders.

*Don't panic.*

*Someone accessed your office server.*

*I'm handling it.*

My pulse kicks up. I'm out of bed, pulling on clothes, my fingers clumsy with adrenaline. The merger documents. The forensic accounting files on Jonathan. Everything that could destroy this alliance is on that server.

Anders calls before I can.

"Where are you?" I ask.

"Your office. Don't come here. Go home. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"Anders—"

"Trust me."

The line goes dead.

***

He arrives in fifteen minutes, his hair wet from the rain, carrying a laptop under his arm. I'm still in my pajamas—silk, but wrinkled. No makeup. My eyes are swollen from crying over a photograph I found while unpacking. Me and Felix at his college graduation, his arm around my shoulders, both of us laughing at something I can't remember anymore.

Anders stops in the doorway. His eyes take in my bare face, the photo still on the coffee table, the tissue box beside it.

"I'm fine," I say, before he can ask.

He closes the door. Locks it. Sets the laptop on the dining table and opens it without a word. The screen glows blue in the dim apartment.

"Someone planted falsified emails on your server," he says. "They're designed to look like you've been leaking Griffin trade secrets to Hartwell Industries."

My stomach drops. Hartwell is our biggest competitor. "When?"

"Two hours ago. They used the guest Wi-Fi from the Griffin estate." He pulls up a log file, lines of code I can barely parse. "Cleo's iPad."

The name lands like a slap.

"She was at the estate?" My voice sounds distant, like it belongs to someone else.

"Felix brought her and the boy for a 'family visit.' My mother was... displeased." Anders's jaw tightens. "Security logged her device when she connected. She accessed your office remotely through a VPN, but she's not smart enough to cover her digital footprint."

I sink into the chair across from him. "She's trying to sabotage the merger."

"She's trying to eliminate you." Anders turns the laptop toward me. "If these emails surface during the board meeting next week, the Griffins will pull out. Your father will blame you. Felix gets what he wants—you back in New York, powerless, dependent."

The photograph on the coffee table stares at me. Felix's arm around my shoulders. My smile, so genuine it hurts to look at.

"What do we do?" I ask.

Anders reaches into his jacket and pulls out a handkerchief. White linen, monogrammed. He hands it to me, and I realize my face is wet.

"We let her think it worked," he says quietly. "We let the trap play out. And when she springs it, we show the board exactly who planted the evidence."

I wipe my eyes. The handkerchief smells like cedar and rain. "You want to use me as bait."

"I want to give you the weapon to destroy her."

Our eyes meet across the table. In the blue glow of the laptop, his face is all sharp angles and shadows.

"Okay," I whisper.

He closes the laptop. Stands. But he doesn't leave. He walks around the table and sits beside me, close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating from his body.

"He doesn't deserve your tears," Anders says, nodding toward the photograph.

I look at Felix's face, frozen in a moment when I believed in forever. "I know."

"Then why?"

"Because I gave him five years." My voice cracks. "Because I built his empire while he was building a family with someone else. Because I was so stupid—"

"You weren't stupid." Anders's hand covers mine. "You were loyal. There's a difference."

The touch is gentle. Grounding. Nothing like Felix's desperate grasping at the estate, his fingers always reaching, never holding.

"We should prepare for the board meeting," I say, but I don't move.

Neither does he.

***

Three days later, we're still preparing. The conference room in Anders's private office has become our war room. Takeout containers litter the table—Thai food, barely touched. It's past midnight. The city below is a scatter of lights against the dark water.

"The watch," Anders says suddenly. "The Patek Philippe she wears. What does it mean to you?"

I set down my pen. We've been reviewing the merger terms for hours, and my eyes are burning. "Why?"

"Because every time she wears it, you stop breathing."

I'm silent for a long moment. The rain has started again, soft against the windows.

"I had it made for Felix," I say finally. "Custom. Vintage movement, modern case. I had it engraved: 'Time brought you home.' I sent it to him in Prague, two years into his absence. I thought..." I laugh, but it sounds broken. "I thought it would remind him what he was coming back to."

"And he gave it to her."

"Like it meant nothing."

Anders stands. He walks around the table and stops in front of my chair. His hands reach for my face, and I freeze.

But he's not touching my face. He's touching my ears.

His fingers are gentle as he removes my diamond earrings, one at a time. The weight disappears, and I feel suddenly naked.

"Your armor," he says softly, setting them on the table. "You don't need it with me."

I look up at him. His gray eyes are steady, patient, seeing everything I've tried to hide.

"Anders—"

"You don't need to be defensive," he says. "Not here. Not with me."

His thumb brushes my cheekbone, and the touch is so tender it breaks something inside me. Not my heart—that's already broken. Something deeper. The wall I built to survive Felix's betrayal.

I stand. We're inches apart. I can feel his breath, warm against my forehead.

"This is dangerous," I whisper.

"I know."

"The merger—"

"Isn't why I'm here."

His hand slides to the back of my neck, and when he kisses me, it's nothing like Felix. There's no desperation, no ghosts. Just the present moment, solid and real and mine.

When we break apart, I'm breathless.

"We have a board meeting to win," I say.

Anders smiles. "We will."

And for the first time since the gala, I believe in something other than revenge.

I believe in this.