2026-11-03 19:16:30
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The Only Thing Worth Keeping
TOM POV "Tom?" Selene steps closer to my stool, trying to catch a glimpse of my screen before I lock the phone and slip it back into my trouser pocket. Her hazel eyes are narrow. "You didn't answer my question. Why is the president of Northstar Cloud standing in my lobby begging to hand us free server capacity?" "Because monopolies are terrible for the local economy," I say smoothly, picking up my suit jacket from the back of the chair and sliding my arms into the sleeves. "I made a phone call to a friend at Aegis Infrastructure and reminded him that Northstar leases their fiber-optic trunk lines from Aegis. Apparently, Aegis frowns on sub-lessors rigging an Apex Global tender." Selene stares at me for a long beat, "A friend at Aegis." "An old college acquaintance," I lie without blinking, adjusting my cuffs. "Come on. You have twenty-two minutes before the five o'clock filing deadline. Don't keep Mr. Vance waiting." When we step out of the elevator into the fourteenth-floor
Clause Fourteen
TOM POV Matthew barks out a laugh, looking around Selene’s office like he’s waiting for an invisible audience to join in. "You’re going to pull the plug on us?" He shakes his head, adjusting his silk tie with a condescending sigh. "Listen to yourself, man. For five years you’ve been sitting in Vivian’s guest room writing backend patches and boiling soup. Who the hell do you think you are without her checkbook?" "Someone who doesn't need to hide behind a woman to get into a boardroom," I reply evenly. The smirk vanishes from Matthew’s face. He takes half a step toward me, his shoulders squaring like he wants to swing, before Vivian catches his sleeve. "Don't waste your breath on him, Matt," Vivian says, though her eyes haven't left mine. Up close, I can see the concealer dabbed hastily over the dark circles under her eyes—and the faint crimson mark on the side of her throat that her trench coat collar keeps slipping off. "Wait for me by the elevator. I have one more thing to s
Old Clutter
TOM POV My back still stings where Vivian’s nails raked into my shoulders, the scratches pulling tight against the crisp cotton of my dress shirt as I step out of the elevator onto the top floor of Brooks Systems. It’s eight-fifty in the morning. The glass-walled corridor smells like roasted espresso and rain, and every junior engineer who passes me does a double take. I don’t blame them. For five years, the few times I was photographed behind Vivian at charity dinners, I was wearing faded jeans and whatever sweater was clean. In a custom charcoal three-piece suit with my hair swept back, I don’t look like Vivian Baudelaire’s quiet househusband anymore. In my pocket, my phone vibrates for the sixth time in twenty minutes. I stop just outside the frosted double doors of the executive suite and pull it out. Vivian. A text message pops up right beneath the incoming call banner: Tom, where the hell are you? I woke up and the kitchen was cold. Pick up the phone right now. I almost
The Hidden Billionaire & Debt Paid in Full
TOM POV For five seconds, I just stared at her. Then a laugh low, rough, and completely devoid of humor scrapes up my throat. "Cheating?" I repeat, tilting my head as I look down at the manicured fingers digging into my forearm. "That’s a bold word coming from you, Vivian. Why is that the first place your mind goes? Are you asking because you’re already sleeping with someone else, so you assume I must be, too?" Vivian’s breath hitches. It’s barely a flicker of a half-second dart of her eyes toward the living room rug but I’ve spent five years studying every micro-expression on this woman’s face. Guilt flashes across her features before she slams her composure back into place. "That’s ridiculous," she says quickly, her voice softening from a venomous hiss into that smooth, soothing cadence she uses whenever she needs to manage a crisis. Her grip on my sleeve loosens, her palm sliding up to stroke my chest. "I drank too much champagne at the hotel, and my head is pounding. I didn'
The Tipsy Confession
TOM POV Selene Brooks doesn’t look like a woman who begs for anything. When the hostess leads me toward the corner booth at the back of Mercer’s, Selene is already standing to meet me, smoothing down the front of a sharp, ivory silk blouse tucked into high-waisted black trousers. Her dark hair is pinned up at the crown of her head, a few loose strands curling against her jawline, and even in the dim amber glow of the restaurant’s sconces, her hazel eyes are laser-focused. I’ve seen her from across crowded conference halls before. Usually standing at a podium while Vivian glared at her from the front row, but up close, the sheer intensity rolling off her is startling. "You actually came," Selene says, extending her hand across the white tablecloth. Her grip is firm, her palm warm against mine. "Honestly, after call number ninety, my assistant started taking office bets on whether you’d block my number or file a restraining order." "I was tempted," I admit, sliding into the curved
Fake Piece Of Love
TOM POV Cooking hangover broth from scratch at eight o'clock on a Friday night is probably pathetic, even by my standards. I shift the paper bag in my grip and step out of the elevator onto the top floor of the Aurelia Grand, the heat of the glass container inside soaking straight through the kraft paper into my palm. My eyes burn from fourteen hours of staring at lines of code, and I didn't even have time to change out of my wrinkled gray Henley before driving across town. Not that I cared when Ann called an hour ago. “Ms. Baudelaire is already on her third glass of champagne, Mr. Monroe,” her secretary had whispered over the background roar of the banquet hall. “And with the Vanguard executives pouring another round, she’s going to have a splitting migraine by ten. Could you bring that ginger-and-honey broth she likes?” So I dropped my work, stood over a hot stove for forty minutes, and drove through downtown traffic in the rain. Because for five years, that has been the sing
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