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It should terrify me. The complications. The secrets. The inevitable explosion when people find out.
Instead, I feel more alive than I have in years.
I close my eyes, and he's there immediately. Those intense eyes. That controlled exterior hiding so much heat underneath. The way he said my name like a prayer and a possession all at once.
My father is going to kill us both.
But right now, I can't bring myself to care.
Tomorrow, everything gets complicated.
Tonight, I’m just a woman falling for a man who sees all of me. And wants me anyway.
BENNETT
Twenty minutes. I've been staring at the same spreadsheet for twenty minutes, and the numbers still refuse to make sense.
I slam the laptop shut harder than necessary. The sharp crack echoes through my office like a gunshot. My hands shake as I press them against my eyes—actually shake, like I'm some rookie analyst instead of a man who's built an empire on ice-cold control.
The Tokyo team insists their projections are accurate, but there's a fifteen-million-dollar discrepancy I can't account for. Under normal circumstances, I'd have spotted the error in minutes.
But today is anything but normal.
Because I can't stop thinking about her voice. Those small, breathless sounds she made. The way she said my name when she came.
Fuck.
This is precisely why I don't mix business with pleasure. It's been less than twelve hours since that phone call,and I'm already distracted, unfocused. Compromised. My coffee sits cold on the desk, untouched since morning. I've clicked my pen so many times Jenna probably thinks I'm sending Morse code.
My phone buzzes with a text.
Jenna:
Tokyo team calling in five minutes.
I straighten my tie, then immediately loosen it because it feels like a noose. This is ridiculous. I've built a multi-billion-dollar company through discipline and focus. One late-night phone call shouldn’t derail me.
And yet.
I've barely managed to reopen the Nakamura documents when my phone rings. Not the office line. My personal cell.
Layla.
My thumb hovers over the answer button. My chest tightens with something that feels dangerously close to need. For one weak, unprofessional moment, I consider letting fifteen executives in Tokyo wait just to hear her voice wrap around my name again.
Instead, I silence the call and grab my office line as it begins to ring.
“Mercer,” I answer, voice crisp and controlled. As if I hadn't been panting her name into the darkness just hours ago.
The Tokyo team launches into explanations about market projections and growth metrics. I make the appropriate responses, ask the right questions, but part of my mind remains stubbornly fixed on that silenced call. On what she might have wanted to say.
Was it regret? Second thoughts? Or something that would make my day infinitely more complicated?
“These projections assume a twenty-two percent growth rate in the first year,” I say, forcing myself back to the task. “That's significantly higher than industry standard. What's your basis?”
As they scramble to justify their optimism, my desk phone lights up with an internal call from Caleb. I ignore it. My cell buzzes with his text.
Caleb