[Annie’s POV]
The evidence package is forty-seven pages, and I read every one with attentiveness that makes my head hurt. Theo's office is empty except for us, the floor cleared out hours ago, the city turning amber beyond the glass.
He'd called me in with three words: It's here. The PI's report sits between us on his desk, and I take the first page—account numbers, routing codes, a shell company registered in Delaware three days before my custody hearing.
My eyes move line by line, slow and deliberate, because rushing would mean trusting the relief. Page two maps four wire transfers routed through separate LLCs, each terminating at the clerk's office—the woman who smiled at Jake in the courtroom like he was family.
Page three. The fabricated prescription records—my name on pharmacy logs I've never visited, medications I've never taken. Next to them, highlighted, the fourteen-thousand-dollar payment that purchased them.
Something behind my chest cracks open—not breaks, opens—and my vision blurs. I press my knuckles against my mouth because the sound trying to escape isn't grief. It's the devastating relief of being confirmed by evidence, by something that can't be gaslit.
Theo doesn't say anything. He reaches across the desk and slides the box of takeout napkins toward my elbow—casual, unhurried, as if rearranging a stack of files.
A laugh breaks out of me, wet and startled, and I press a napkin to my eyes. "Very dignified. Nothing says vindication like soy sauce napkins."
"They're versatile." His mouth pulls sideways. "We've got everything Nina needs—every payment, every shell."
"I know." My voice is raw and I fold the napkin into a square because my hands need a task. "So why does it feel like I'm still waiting for someone to tell me I made it up?"
"Because you spent five years being told exactly that." No pity—just fact, the way he delivers quarterly projections. "Paper doesn't undo that overnight."
The silence that follows isn't empty—it's the specific quiet that arrives when the emergency ends and you realize you don't know how to exist without one.
"Can I tell you something terrible?" I set the napkin down and my fingers press into the wood. "I don't know who I am without a crisis to manage. I've been in survival mode so long I've forgotten what it feels like to want something that isn't just safety." The confession comes out quieter than I intended, aimed at the desk.
"I built Meridian because a man stole a deal from me and I wanted to prove he was wrong." He leans back, staring at the ceiling. "Somewhere along the way I forgot to ask myself if I actually enjoy running it."
"That's the saddest thing I've ever heard a billionaire say." I look at him—past the rolled sleeves and the careful control he wears like armor—and something in his face loosens.
"I'm not a billionaire," he says, but his mouth is losing the fight. "You keep inflating my net worth."
"Give it two quarters." I hold his gaze, and his laugh cracks open—sudden, real—and the distance between us compresses to nothing.
I close it. My mouth finds his and this time there's no hesitation, no pulling back, no reminder of someone else's ring.
His hand goes to the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair, pulling me in. The groan that rumbles through his chest reverberates down my spine and I rise from the chair into the space between his knees.
"Annie." My name, rough and half-wrecked, against the corner of my mouth. His thumb presses the hollow above my hip bone and the precision of it short-circuits something vital.
I push his chair back and straddle him—the contact immediate, his hips rising to meet mine. The sound I make against his throat is nothing I'd confess to under oath. His fingers work my blouse open, one button then the next, and his mouth traces my collarbone.
I unbutton his shirt, palms sliding over warm muscle. When I rock forward his head drops back and the sound he makes is low and ragged and entirely mine.
He stands without warning—lifting me onto the desk. Papers scatter, evidence slides to the floor. His mouth is on my neck while his hands push my skirt up.
"Theo—" Half demand, half prayer. He drops to his knees, hooks his fingers into my underwear, draws them down slowly—pressing his mouth to my inner thigh, then higher.
The first stroke of his tongue wrenches a gasp I muffle against the back of my hand. He's thorough, devastating—gripping my thighs, reading every shudder—and when my hand fists in his hair the orgasm rips through me hard enough to bow my spine and tear his name from my teeth.
He rises, mouth wet, eyes dark. I pull him to me by his open shirt, legs wrapping around his waist. "Couch," I manage, and he lifts me—carries me to the leather sofa against the far wall.
He lays me down and the sight of him above me—shirt open, chest heaving—makes my mouth go dry. I reach for his belt, unfasten it, take him in my hand, and the groan he buries against my neck vibrates through my whole body.
He braces over me, forearms framing my head, his mouth barely above mine. "Tell me you want this." Low, serious—not permission but confirmation.
"I want this." My voice is barely a sound, and my fingers curl into his shoulders. "I want you, Theo."
He pushes inside me and my back arches off the leather—a sound between a gasp and a sob escaping because he fills me completely. Five years is a long time to pretend you don't remember how someone fits against you.
He moves slowly, forehead pressed to mine, breathing the same air. My nails drag down his back and he hisses, hips snapping harder, the new angle drawing something electric from the base of my spine.
"I'm terrified," I whisper against his mouth, and the confession escapes before I can catch it—truer than anything I've said in years.
He stills inside me, one hand cradling the side of my face, eyes holding mine without flinching. "Of what?"
"Of wanting this." My voice splinters around the words, and he doesn't offer reassurance or promises—he kisses me instead, deep and unhurried, and starts moving again.
His hand slides between us—thumb finding exactly where I need him—and the second orgasm hits so hard my teeth sink into his shoulder. He follows moments later, shuddering against me, my name broken between his teeth.
We stay tangled on the leather, both breathing like we've outrun something. His lips press against my temple once, and my chest aches in a way I don't trust.
"What happens now?" I trace his jaw with my thumb, and he turns his head, mouth grazing my fingertips. "Because I'm not sure I know how to do this without a spreadsheet."
"Now we win." He laughs—quiet, spent—and his mouth brushes my knuckles. I almost believe him because right now, tangled in his shirt on his couch, winning feels possible for the first time in five years.
My phone buzzes on the floor among scattered evidence pages. Nina's name glows on the screen, and the three words beneath it drain every trace of warmth from the room: Jake knows everything.