[Rae’s POV]
The boardroom empties like a champagne flute at a Valmont function—slowly, expensively, with everyone pretending they're not calculating who owes whom what.
I shake hands with board members whose names I've finally memorized after years of strategic avoidance.
Henderson pumps my arm like he's trying to extract water from a well, congratulating me with the enthusiasm of someone who voted against me three months ago and hopes I've forgotten. I haven't. But I smile anyway, because CEOs apparently do that.
Beatrice approaches with the measured grace of someone who's been orchestrating family drama since before I learned to walk.
"Well done," she says, and the two words carry more weight than any speech she could deliver. Her hand squeezes mine once—brief, deliberate, the Valmont equivalent of a standing ovation.
"Thank you. For the opportunity. For not disowning me when the scandal broke."
"Disowning you would have required paperwork. I hate paperwork." Her almost-smile suggests she might actually be joking. With Beatrice, certainty is a luxury I've never been able to afford.
Laurent hovers near the door, looking like a man who's recently discovered his emotional vocabulary extends beyond "quarterly projections" and "disappointing." We meet in the middle of the room—neutral territory, Switzerland with better carpet.
"I meant what I said." His voice is quieter than I've ever heard it. "About supporting you."
"I know." The words come easier than expected. "It doesn't fix everything."
"No. It doesn't." He nods once, acknowledging decades of damage that won't dissolve with a single board meeting confession. "But it's a start?"
"It's a start."
We don't hug. That would require evolution neither of us has achieved. But something passes between us—recognition, maybe. The understanding that we're both trying to become people we've never been before.
Through all of it, I keep finding Miles across the room.
He's wedged between Henderson and a potted plant, somehow making the old man laugh with what appears to be an anecdote involving hand gestures and possibly livestock. Henderson's jowls actually jiggle with genuine amusement, which I didn't know was physiologically possible.
This is what I want. Him, here, part of my world instead of waiting on the edges of it. No longer the secret I'm keeping or the arrangement I'm managing—just Miles, making Henderson laugh, wearing a suit that's seen better presidential administrations.
I catch his eye across the room. He raises one eyebrow in silent question: Ready to escape?
I nod.
We slip out while Henderson is mid-story, grabbing a bottle of champagne from the sideboard that Beatrice reserves for acquisitions and hostile takeovers. Given today's events, it seems appropriate.
His apartment welcomes us like it always does—slightly chaotic, aggressively comfortable, smelling like coffee and the particular desperation of a man who considers two towels adequate.
My penthouse is bigger, cleaner, professionally decorated by someone who confused "minimalism" with "emotional void." But his place is where I go when things matter.
Miles examines the champagne label and whistles. "This costs more than my rent."
"We're celebrating my hostile takeover of my own family. It seemed fitting."
"Your grandmother saves this for acquisitions?"
"And funerals. The Valmont emotional range is impressively narrow."
He pops the cork with practiced incompetence—it ricochets off the ceiling and nearly takes out a lamp. We pour glasses, toast to something neither of us bothers to name, and somewhere between the first sip and the second, the champagne goes flat on the counter.
Because his mouth finds mine, and suddenly celebrating with alcohol seems redundant when there's celebrating to be done with other activities entirely.
This time is different. Not desperate like the kitchen counter, not angry like the night I showed up soaked with transparent excuses. This is slow, deliberate, the kind of kissing that feels like a conversation we've been having for years and are finally continuing without pretense.
He walks me backward toward the bedroom, hands spanning my waist, thumbs tracing circles through the silk of my blouse. Each button he opens is an unhurried negotiation, his fingers brushing newly exposed skin like he's learning me for the first time even though he's known me for a decade.
My back meets the mattress with the soft impact of something inevitable. Miles follows me down, settling between my thighs with the weight and warmth of someone who belongs there. He kisses my throat, my collarbone, the swell of my breast above the edge of my bra.
"I've imagined this," he murmurs against my skin. "Properly. Without alcohol or anger or pretending it was anything other than exactly what I wanted."
"And how does reality compare?"
"Better. You're not stealing my toothbrush in my imagination."
I laugh, and the sound transforms into a gasp as his mouth closes over my nipple through the lace. The friction is maddening—enough sensation to register, not enough to satisfy. He knows exactly what he's doing. Has probably been planning this since the first spreadsheet he fixed at three AM.
He undresses me with methodical attention, removing each piece of clothing like unwrapping something precious. My bra joins the floor. My skirt follows. He pauses at my underwear, fingers hooked in the waistband, eyes meeting mine with a question that doesn't need words.
"Yes," I breathe. "To everything you're not asking."
The underwear disappears. He settles between my thighs with an expression that borders on worship.
"I've wanted to do this properly," he says, breath warm against my center. "Not rushed. Not proving anything."
The first stroke of his tongue is unhurried, exploratory—learning what makes me gasp, cataloging responses like data points in a spreadsheet only he can read. He licks into me with patient focus, tongue circling my clit in patterns that suggest he's been taking notes for years.
He adds fingers, two sliding inside me while his mouth continues its devastating attention. The combination builds something bright and inevitable in my core, pleasure compounding like interest until I shatter with his name breaking from my lips.
He works me through the aftershocks, gentling his touch as I come down. When he crawls back up my body, I'm already reaching for him, shoving at clothes with graceless urgency.
His cock presses against my entrance, and he pauses—forehead against mine, breath ragged.
"I love you," he says. "In case that wasn't obvious from the years of spreadsheets and stolen coffee."
"I love you too. In case that wasn't obvious from the years of pretending I didn't."
He pushes inside slowly, letting me feel every inch. When he's fully seated, we both still, breathing together, the connection bigger than physical.
We move together like we've been doing this forever—slow, deep thrusts that build pressure without rushing. His pelvis grinds against my clit with each stroke, sending ripples through my already-sensitive flesh.
This isn't fucking. This is conversation, negotiation, two people finally agreeing on terms they've been drafting for years.
When I come the second time, he follows moments later, and we collapse together in a tangle of sweaty limbs and declarations neither of us knew how to make until now.
After, wrapped in sheets that definitely need washing, I trace patterns on his chest.
"I want to do this for real," I say. "Not fake dating. Not arrangement. Not performing for my grandmother. Actually together."
Miles is quiet for a moment. "What's the benefits package like?"
I grab a pillow and hit him with it.
He catches it, pulls me close, and his expression shifts into something soft and certain. "I've been waiting years for you to ask."
The morning light is starting to creep through his blinds. Tomorrow, Florisight needs attention. The board needs transition meetings. The world needs evidence that I haven't completely abandoned professional responsibility for personal happiness.
But right now, in his bed, with his heartbeat steady under my ear, that's enough.
More than enough.
It's everything.