Page 90 of Falling for Mr. Ruthless

Silence stretches between us, weighted with all the things we've said and left unsaid. All the ways we've hurt each other. All the ways we still could.

"Is that what you want?" His voice gives nothing away—no hurt, no anger, just a question that feels like a cliff edge.

I turn to face him, the man I've spent four years trying to forget. The man whose body still fits against mine like it was sculpted for that purpose alone. The man who left me once to protect me, who might do so again if he deemed it necessary.

"What I want," I say carefully, "isn't always what I need."

He stands, moonlight tracing the contours of his body as he reaches for his clothes. I watch him dress with the same methodical precision he applies to everything—each movement controlled, deliberate. When he's finished, he looks at me, eyes searching mine for something I'm not sure I can give.

"Jakob." His name feels like a stone in my throat. "I need to tell you something."

He waits, perfectly still, the way he always goes motionless when preparing to absorb impact.

"I love you." The words I've held back for four years finally escape. "I never stopped."

Something shifts in his expression—hope, perhaps. He takes a step toward me.

"But I can't do this again." My voice catches, betraying the control I'm fighting to maintain. "I can't give pieces of myself to someone who might decide tomorrow that silence is safer than truth."

He opens his mouth to speak, to counter, to persuade—I know him, know the strategies already forming behind those eyes.

"Please." The word stops him mid-step. "Just go."

For a moment, I think he might fight. Might deploy the carefully crafted arguments he's used to win boardrooms and bend markets to his will.

Instead, he nods once. Acceptance. Surrender. Retreat.

At the bedroom door, he pauses, looking back at me framed against the window. The city lights behind me like distant stars.

"I'll see you tomorrow." Not a question. Not a request. A simple statement of fact. "The White Glove Pivot doesn't wait for personal complications."

Professional distance. The mask sliding back into place. The careful walls rebuilding between us.

"Of course." I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly cold despite the summer night. "Nine o'clock. My office."

He leaves without another word. I listen to his footsteps down the hall, the quiet click of the front door, the silence that follows like a physical presence filling the space he's vacated.

Only then do I allow myself to sink to the floor, back against the wall, knees pulled to my chest. Only then do I let the trembling overtake me—the aftershocks of desire colliding with self-preservation.

For four years, I've built walls to keep him out. Constructed a fortress of silence and distance. Told myself it was protection. Survival.

But sitting here in the darkness, his scent still on my skin, I finally admit the truth I've denied for so long: the fortress I built isn't safety but prison. The walls I erected to keep him out have only succeeded in keeping me locked within.

And now, having tasted freedom in his arms, I've sent him away. Chosen solitude over risk. Chosen control over surrender.

Because some lessons cut too deep to unlearn. Some wounds reopen too easily to risk the knife again.

I love him. God help me, I love him.

But love has never been our problem. Trust has.

And without trust, love is just another form of beautiful destruction.

SIXTEEN

NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE

JAKOB