Gianna sat in her office with the security footage paused on her monitor, Julian’s hand still frozen mid-strike, Marcus’s head still tilted back from the impact. She’d watched it three times already. Not for the confrontation itself, though that had been satisfying enough in its own right—Marcus had needed humbling for longer than she cared to admit, and watching someone finally deliver it had been almost cathartic. What kept drawing her back was Julian himself. The way he’d stood perfectly still while an entire floor gathered to watch him, the way his voice had never once risen even as he dismantled two men’s careers in front of an audience, the absolute certainty in his posture when he’d said this company belongs to me like it was simply a fact of the world rather than a claim that needed defending. She replayed that moment a fourth time, studying the set of his shoulders, the stillness in his hands, the way authority seemed to settle on him naturally rather than something he had

Julian sat in the VIP lounge for nearly twenty minutes before he finally pulled out his phone and typed the message.Something’s come up. I have to leave early. I’ll see you tomorrow.It wasn’t entirely a lie. Something had come up—just not the kind he could explain in a text message, not the kind that had anything to do with meetings or emergencies. What had come up was the sudden, suffocating clarity that Preston’s words had forced into the open, the realization that whatever he’d been carefully not naming between himself and Gianna had already grown into something too large to keep contained.He sent the message and left before she could respond.The drive back to the villa passed in a blur he barely registered. By the time he reached the front door, his decision had already hardened into something he refused to second-guess.He needed to leave.Not eventually. Not once things settled. Now, before this went any further, before his mother’s plans collided with whatever he was feelin

The man crossed the distance between them before Colette had even finished smoothing her expression into something appropriately composed.“Colette.” He said her name like it belonged to him already, one hand settling at the small of her back the moment he reached her, his eyes flicking toward Julian with a kind of appraising curiosity rather than any real concern. “How did it go?”“Perfectly,” Colette said, leaning into the touch. “Exactly the way we planned it.”Julian took in the man properly now—early forties, expensive watch, the particular polish of someone who’d never once had to fight for anything he wanted. Marcus Delacroix. Julian recognized the name from industry circles, a venture capitalist who’d built half his portfolio acquiring companies from founders desperate enough to accept predatory terms.“You must be the ex-husband,” Marcus said, extending a hand Julian didn’t take. “Marcus Delacroix. I’ve heard quite a bit about you.”“I doubt that,” Julian said.Marcus’s smile