The Voss Global delegation files into Conference Room A, and I take my seat across the mahogany table from two men who have both had their hands on my body.
Ninety minutes. I can survive ninety minutes.
"Let's begin with the quarterly projections," Michael Harrison announces, sliding folders across the polished surface. "Mrs. Marlowe has prepared an extensive analysis of the proposed merger terms."
My voice emerges steady, professional, detached.
"If you turn to page seven, you'll see our concerns regarding the intellectual property clauses. Harrison and Associates requires explicit protections for our proprietary client data before we can proceed with any formal agreement."
Caspian's eyes find mine across the table—wounded, desperate, searching for something I refuse to give him.
I keep talking.
"The current language leaves too much room for interpretation. We need ironclad guarantees that our strategic methodologies remain exclusively ours."
Rhys doesn't look at me.
Not once. Not when I speak, not when I pause, not when the legal team debates clause modifications for twenty excruciating minutes.
He studies his tablet, makes notes, asks questions directed at Michael Harrison with perfect professional courtesy.
And that's so much worse.
I can feel him not looking. The weight of his deliberate avoidance presses against my skin like a physical force, and my hands tremble beneath the table where no one can see.
"Mrs. Marlowe, what's your assessment of the timeline?" Michael asks.
"Three months minimum for due diligence." My fingers curl into fists against my thighs. "Assuming both parties negotiate in good faith."
The meeting stretches like taffy, every minute lasting a small eternity.
Contract language blurs on the page. Legal terminology becomes white noise.
I answer questions on autopilot while my mind screams a single thought on repeat.
He planned it. All of it.
"I think we've made excellent progress today." Michael rises, extending his hand to Caspian. "Shall we reconvene next week to finalize the preliminary terms?"
Handshakes circle the table like a choreographed dance.
When Rhys's palm meets mine, warmth floods my skin—the same warmth that traced constellations across my naked back in that moonlit alcove.
"Pleasure working with you, Mrs. Marlowe."
His voice is perfectly neutral, perfectly professional.
His thumb brushes my knuckles again.
I pull away too fast, and something flickers in those blue-green eyes before the mask slides back into place.
"If you'll excuse me," I manage, "I have a personal matter to attend to."
The bathroom door locks behind me with a click that sounds like sanctuary.
I lean against the cold tile wall, hands shaking as I unbutton my blouse, retrieve the breast pump from my bag, and begin the mechanical process of expressing milk.
The mirror reflects a stranger.
The shell of a woman who used to believe in happy endings.
Who are you?
I finish, store the milk in the small cooler I keep in my office, and straighten my clothing with trembling fingers.
The parking garage awaits—escape, solitude, the thirty-minute drive to pick up Milo from daycare.
The elevator doors open onto concrete and shadows.
Rhys leans against my car.
My body recognizes him before my mind catches up—a flush of heat climbing my neck, my pulse stuttering like it's forgotten its own rhythm. Muscle memory. Skin memory. The kind that doesn't care about logic or betrayal.
"I was hoping we'd have a moment alone." He straightens, and the movement is so fluid, so unhurried. "That meeting felt endless."
"What are you doing here?"
"Waiting for you."
He says it simply, like it's the most natural thing in the world.
"We need to talk about what happened, Elara. I think you know that."
I should walk past him. Get in my car. Drive away and never look back.
Instead, my feet stay rooted to the concrete.
"There's nothing to talk about. You tricked me into thinking you were my husband."
"Did I?"
He tilts his head, and those blue-green eyes hold mine with an intensity that makes my stomach flip.
"I never said I was Caspian. I never claimed to be anyone. You saw what you wanted to see, and I gave you what you needed."
"That's not—"
"I should have been the one to approach you first." His voice softens, and something shifts in his expression. "Did you know that? Years ago, before Caspian ever noticed you existed. I saw you at a charity gala, laughing at something a friend said, and I thought—there she is. The most alive person in this entire room full of corpses in evening wear."
My breath catches.
"But I hesitated. One night. I told myself I'd introduce myself the next time I saw you, and by then, Caspian had already made his move." A rueful smile tugs at his mouth. "My cousin has always been faster than me when it comes to acquisitions. He saw something valuable and he took it. That's what he does."
"I'm not a thing to be acquired."
"No. You're not." He steps closer, and I don't step back. "But he treated you like one, didn't he? Something to display. Something to possess. And when you stopped being perfect, when you needed him to actually show up for you, he disappeared into his work and left you drowning."
The words land somewhere soft and bruised.
"You don't know anything about my marriage."
"I know what I saw. I watched you at Le Bernardin." His jaw tightens at the memory. "Watched Rowena tear you apart while Caspian sat there like a statue. I wanted to walk over to that table and—"
He stops himself. Takes a breath.
"You deserved someone who would have set that room on fire for you. Someone who would have stood up and told every person at that table exactly where they could shove their opinions about legacy and good hips."
My eyes sting.
Stop it. Stop letting him in.
But my body has already betrayed me—leaning slightly toward him, hungry for words I've been starving to hear.
"I'm not asking for forgiveness," he says quietly. "I'm just asking for a chance. One dinner. No masks, no games. Let me show you what it feels like to be with someone who actually sees you."
His fingers brush mine—the lightest touch, barely there—and electricity shoots up my arm.
"Think about it." He steps back, giving me space to breathe. "You're not broken, Elara. You're just married to a man who doesn't know what to do with beautiful things."
He walks away without looking back.
I stand in the parking garage until my legs stop shaking, then drive to daycare on autopilot, collect my son, and somehow make it home without crashing into oncoming traffic.
That night, sleep refuses to come.
At two in the morning, I lift Milo from his crib and carry him to the rocking chair by the window.
Moonlight spills across his face, illuminating features I've memorized a thousand times.
My finger traces the curve of his nose.
Is that Caspian's aristocratic slope, or Rhys's subtle bump where it was broken in whatever childhood accident he might have gotten into?
I study his earlobes. His hairline. The shape of his tiny fingernails.
"Who are you?" The whisper catches in my throat. "Who made you?"