Aurora read the message once, then again, her thumb frozen over the screen.Aurora. I've reviewed Stellaris's transformation plan. Bold, precise, exactly the kind of move I'd expect from you. You're a rare thing in this city—a woman with real ambition and the ability to back it up. I admire that.She let out a breath. Praise from Margaret Carter was worth more than a signed contract from anyone else.Then came the next line.But I hope that ambition and ability of yours won't stay locked inside your career alone. I asked you to look after Ethan for a reason, my dear. I'd like you to remember that.Aurora shot up straight in her chair.Her heart slammed against her ribs. She read it a third time, and the meaning did not change. It was not a hint. It was almost a declaration.Margaret wants me and Ethan together.Heat rushed straight to her face. For one dangerous second, Aurora almost laughed out loud in the office like some lovestruck girl who had lost her mind.It's like an impossibl

The air froze solid.Ethan's brow drew tight. He didn't like the way Julian said middle manager, as though the words themselves were something scraped off a shoe.Aurora didn't flinch. "Yes," she said, her voice cool as glass. "Of course."Julian's smile cracked at the edges. "Is that appropriate?""Of course it's appropriate." Her voice cut clean through his. "And before you go looking down on someone else, Julian, maybe you should look at yourself. Do you honestly not understand why I'd rather sit across a dinner table from a middle manager than spend one hour at your little party? Because at least he doesn't bore me. At least he doesn't need to buy his own confidence by stepping on people beneath him."The words landed like a slap.For a heartbeat the heir to Blackwood Capital simply stood there, choked on his own retort, his handsome face flushing a slow, ugly red.Aurora didn't wait for him to recover. She turned to Ethan, her expression softening in an instant, and reached light

The words hung in the air like smoke.Ethan's head came up. "What?"The reaction was everything Julian had hoped for. His mouth curved, slow and satisfied."She hasn't told you, has she?" He tilted his head, savoring it. "Of course she hasn't. Why would she? The moment you heard it, you'd walk out that door and never look back. Any man would."His smile widened. "She'd never risk that."Ethan's brow drew tight. "Explain."Something flickered behind Julian's eyes—a small, cold flash of resentment.He didn't like the tone. That single flat word, explain, delivered as though Julian were a servant and Ethan someone with the standing to command him. As though a nobody who rented a room had any right to speak to the heir of Blackwood Capital like that.But he swallowed it, because the pleasure of what came next was worth more."Fine." He drew the moment out, unhurried. "Let me educate you, then. A long time ago—years and years—there was a man. Nobody, really. Poor. The kind of man who had n

Julian's face had gone the color of ash.For a moment he simply stared at the hand locked around his wrist, at the grip that would not yield no matter how he strained against it. This wasn't right. Men like Ethan didn't do this. Men like Ethan swallowed, and bowed, and disappeared.He wet his lips and lowered his voice, pitching it careful and quiet."You should think very carefully about what you're doing. I'm the heir to Blackwood Capital. Do you have any idea what happens to a man who lays a hand on me? You wouldn't dare."Ethan's expression didn't change."You think a name is going to frighten me," he said, cold and unhurried.He let his gaze drift once around the corridor. Then it came back to Julian's face, and there was something almost amused in it now."Let's imagine something," Ethan said softly. "Imagine a middle manager—just a middle manager, nobody at all—walked up to the heir of Blackwood Capital, right here, in front of all these people, and slapped him across the face.

Ethan drove across Crestwood without looking back.By the time he pulled into the parking lot of Maple Grove Residences, the sky had turned black. The building stood in the middle of a quiet, middle-class neighborhood, clean and well managed, with grocery stores, cafés, and a subway station within walking distance.It fit his position at Stellaris perfectly.A deputy director in the marketing department could live here without drawing attention. The apartment was spacious enough that nobody would call it pathetic. It was also far enough from Aurora's villa that Julian Blackwood would have no reason to show up at his door.The only thing that hadn't gone to plan was the unit itself.He'd wanted a one-bedroom. Something small, something simple. But by the time he arrived, every one-bedroom in the building had already been let, and he needed to move in that same night. So he'd taken a two-bedroom instead.It wasn't what he'd imagined. But standing in the empty second room, hands in his p