Vivian's POV
"What if she's awful?"
Leander asks, his voice crackling through the phone with the kind of anxiety I haven't heard from him since we were children.
I stare at the empty desk through my glass partition, the one that used to hold a ceramic mug and a small plant and a woman who made everything bearable.
Three days since Elle walked out.
Rachel, the new assistant, has organized Elle's former workspace with clinical efficiency. New supplies, fresh flowers, not a trace of the woman who sat there before.
It only makes the absence feel more permanent.
"Then you'll be awful together," I reply, forcing my attention back to the conversation. "At least you'll have company."
"That's not helpful, sister."
He exhales sharply, and I can picture him pacing his apartment, running fingers through hair that's probably already disheveled.
"I'm meeting my future wife tomorrow, and I don't even know what she looks like. The family is famously private, and Grandmother won't share photographs because she says first impressions should be organic."
"Grandmother says many things that serve her purposes more than ours."
"You think I don't know that?" His laugh is hollow, brittle. "I agreed to this because she convinced me it was best for the family, but now I'm wondering if I've signed away my entire life to a stranger who might despise everything about me."
I lean back in my chair, letting his words settle into the silence between us.
My brother has always been softer than I am—more willing to bend, more desperate to please. It's why Grandmother chose him for this arrangement instead of forcing my hand again.
"What do you actually know about her?" I ask, reaching for the notepad beside my keyboard.
"Almost nothing," Leander admits. "Her name is Elowen. She was educated abroad, somewhere in Europe, I think. She's been out of the public eye for years, which Grandmother says is a sign of good breeding and discretion."
"Or a sign that something happened that required hiding."
"You're not making this easier."
"I'm not trying to make it easier, Leander. I'm trying to make you think."
I tap my pen against the desk, my mind already shifting into strategic mode.
"This marriage affects more than your personal happiness. It affects Meridian Holdings. If her family has leverage over us through this union, we need to understand what we're walking into."
"You sound like Grandmother when you talk like that."
The comparison stings more than it should.
I set down the pen, forcing my voice to soften.
"I sound like someone who doesn't want her brother trapped in a marriage that benefits everyone except him. Let me look into this, quietly. If there's anything concerning in her background, I'd rather know before you're standing at an altar."
Leander is quiet for a long moment. When he speaks again, the anxiety has shifted into something closer to gratitude.
"You'd do that for me?"
"I'd do considerably more than that for you, though I'd prefer you didn't make a habit of requiring it."
"Thank you." His voice cracks slightly. "I know we don't always agree on how to handle Grandmother, but it means something that you're in my corner."
"I'm always in your corner," I say quietly. "Even when I'm too stubborn to show it."
We end the call, and the silence rushes back like water filling a void.
My eyes drift to the glass partition again—Rachel typing at Elle's old desk, efficient and forgettable. A placeholder where something irreplaceable used to be.
I reach for my phone and dial Maren Cole.
She answers on the second ring, her voice crisp and professional. "Ms. Cross, what can I do for you?"
"I need a background investigation," I say, keeping my tone neutral despite the tension coiling in my chest. "Discreet. Thorough. No one can know this is coming from me, especially not my grandmother."
"Understood. Who's the subject?"
"Elowen Kincaid. She's the eldest daughter of one of the old shipping families, and she's engaged to my brother as of next week. I want everything you can find—background, habits, weaknesses, anything that might indicate whether this marriage poses a threat to Meridian Holdings' independence."
Maren pauses, and I can hear her processing the implications.
"That family is notoriously private, Ms. Cross. This won't be a standard investigation."
"I'm not paying you for standard results, Maren. I'm paying you because you find what others can't."
"I'll have a preliminary report by this evening," she says. "Anything else?"
"Just the truth," I reply. "Whatever it is."
The call ends, and I turn back to my monitor with renewed focus.
Work has always been my refuge—the place where emotion has no foothold, where everything can be measured and controlled and optimized.
But today the numbers blur together, and I keep catching myself staring at Rachel's desk like it holds answers I haven't thought to ask for.
She loved this job, I think, remembering the way Elle's voice cracked when she said it.
The ghost of her embrace lingers against my skin—the desperate pressure of her arms, the catch of her breath near my ear.
Three days, and I still feel it like a brand.
I cannot sit here. I cannot stare at that desk for another minute.
The executive gym on the forty-second floor is empty at this hour, which is precisely why I chose it.
I wrap my hands with methodical precision, the familiar ritual steadying the tremor in my fingers, and position myself in front of the heavy bag.
The first punch lands with a satisfying crack.
She left.
Another punch, harder this time. The impact reverberates up my arm and settles somewhere behind my sternum.
She looked me in the eyes and told me she loved this job, and then she walked out like none of it mattered.
My fist connects again, and again, until my breath comes in sharp bursts and sweat traces lines down my spine.
The bag swings on its chain, absorbing every strike I throw at it, and still it isn't enough.
Four years.
I slam my wrapped knuckles into the leather.
Four years of morning briefings and late nights and coffee she made exactly the way I like it without ever being asked.
The anger is a living thing now, coiling through my chest with teeth and claws.
I let it drive my movements—jab, cross, hook—until my muscles burn and my lungs ache and still the rage keeps coming.
She hugged me.
The memory surfaces unbidden: the desperate pressure of her arms, the way her body fit against mine like she belonged there. The catch of her breath near my ear.
I hit the bag so hard my shoulder screams in protest.
She held me, and then she left.
Another combination. Another burst of controlled violence that does nothing to quiet the howling in my head.
How dare she.
The thought is irrational, and I know it.
She resigned. People resign. It happens every day in every office in every city, and none of it feels like this—like something has been carved out of my chest and replaced with broken glass.
How dare she make me feel this way and then disappear.
My next punch goes wide, sloppy. I reset my stance, force my breathing to steady, and throw another combination that lands clean.
Anger is easier than the alternative. Easier than admitting that I stood in my office and watched her walk away and did nothing. Said nothing. Let her go because I am weak.
You let her walk out.
The thought burns hotter than exhaustion.
You built an empire on control, and you couldn't even find the words to make her stay.
Another strike. Another burst of violence that solves nothing.
She unmade you in thirty seconds. Four years of careful distance, and she tore it apart with one embrace.
The rage shifts, turns inward.
I have negotiated billion-dollar acquisitions without flinching. I have stared down hostile boards and walked away victorious.
But one woman with warm eyes and a resignation letter reduced me to paralysis.
Pathetic.
I keep hitting until my arms feel like lead and my thoughts blur into white noise.
The bag swings and settles, swings and settles, and I brace my wrapped hands against it, head bowed, chest heaving.
The gym is silent except for my ragged breathing and the faint hum of ventilation.
She's gone. Accept it.
My phone buzzes from the bench where I left it.
I cross the room on unsteady legs and check the screen.
FLIGHT REMINDER: Departure to Vermont — 10:00 AM Tomorrow. Check-in opens in 12 hours.
I stare at the words until they burn into my retinas, then sink onto the bench and press the heels of my hands against my eyes until stars burst behind my lids.
Tomorrow, I meet my brother's bride.
And I can't shake the terrifying suspicion that I already know her.