Page 16 of Falling for Mr. Ruthless (The Rules We Break #1)

EIGHT

THE DEAL

CHANEL

I don't press the buzzer.

The elevator doors open to the thirty-eighth floor, and I stand frozen, caught in the gravity of a moment I shouldn't want.

A sound drifts down the hallway—Jaden's laughter, bright and unguarded. Then lower, richer—Jakob's voice, the one I've spent years teaching myself to forget.

My body betrays me before my mind can defend itself. Mouth dry. Heart stuttering against my ribs. Heat climbing my neck as my fingers curl around the shoes I've slipped off. The natural recognition of territory that was once mine.

I move toward the sound, silent on bare feet. Each step closer to the kitchen peels back another layer of protection that shields my heart.

Then I see them.

The image sears itself into my chest—not warm, not nostalgic, but a violent collision of past and present.

Jakob stands at the stove, sleeves rolled to his elbows, forearms flexing as he stirs something that smells like the life I've pretended I don't miss.

His jacket discarded, tie loosened, guard down in a way I rarely saw in our final year together. This casual intimacy between father and son—this is what divorce stole from us all, regardless of who signed the papers.

Jaden perches on a stool at the island, legs swinging, backpack detonated across the marble counter. His eyes track his father's movements with reverent attention, their easy rhythm evidence of a relationship that's grown in the years since our separation.

A relationship I've only glimpsed in fragments—during rushed exchanges and scheduled handoffs.

I dig my fingernails into my palm, needing the sharp sting to ground me. This is what leaving cost me. This is what our son has only gotten in fragments.

This is Jakob as he should have been—present, engaged, belonging to something besides his empire.

"But Tyler's has a bigger explosion," Jaden is saying, chin propped on his hands.

"Bigger isn't always better." Jakob tastes whatever he's cooking, then adds something from a small dish. "It's about precision. Intention. Execution. The explosion will take care of itself."

"Like how you blow up deals?"

Jakob's mouth twitches, eyes crinkling at the corners as he fights back laughter. "That's... not exactly what I do." His voice softens with the gentle affection he always shows our son.

"But you said last week you blew up the Richardson deal because their numbers were trash."

The sound tears from my throat before I can strangle it—something between a laugh and a gasp. They both turn, caught in the act of being what we should have been all along.

A family.

Jaden's face cracks open with joy. "Mom!" He scrambles off the stool, nearly taking it down with him.

I catch him against me, dropping my shoes to wrap both arms around the only piece of Jakob I've ever been able to keep. His body vibrates with energy against mine, the familiar weight of him both comfort and accusation.

"You're early!" he says into my collarbone.

"Apparently just in time to hear about your dad's explosive business tactics." The words come out lighter than I feel, gaze lifting to meet Jakob's over our son's head.

Something dangerous flickers in his eyes—amusement tangled with recognition. "Richardson's numbers were trash."

"So you... what? Made their spreadsheets explode?"

"More like their profit projections."

"With lava?" Jaden pulls back, face scrunched in magnificent confusion. "Like the volcano?"

The laughter rips through me like an electrical current, raw and uncontrolled.

Not the careful, measured sound I use at work functions or parent-teacher conferences. Not the polite social laugh I've perfected over years of professional distance.

This is something buried, unearthed without permission—the ghost of a woman who once let herself feel without guardrails.

It terrifies me.

I shouldn't be here, shouldn't be laughing, shouldn't be allowing this man to witness a single unguarded moment. Not after what it cost me last time.

But I can't stop—the sound pours out, Jaden joining in without understanding the joke, just delighted by my reaction.

When I finally catch my breath, I look up to find Jakob watching me.

The mask is gone.

In its place, a nakedness that makes my skin flush hot, then cold. He's looking at me like a starving man at a feast he's forbidden to touch.

Like I'm water after years in the desert. Like if every other person on earth disappeared, he'd still be staring at me with that same desperate hunger and terrifying tenderness knotted together in his eyes.

It lasts only a moment—one heartbeat where the walls between us turn to vapor—before he blinks and turns back to the stove, shoulders rigid with the effort of reassembling his control.

"Dinner's almost ready," he says, voice rough at the edges. "Chicken parm. Jaden helped."

"I cut the mozzarella," our son announces, sliding from my arms. "With a real knife."

"Supervised," Jakob adds quickly.

"Of course."

I set my coat and abandoned shoes on the bench, hyperaware of how easily I'm slipping back into this space. How my body remembers its patterns here. How my pulse hasn't slowed since the elevator doors opened.

"Wine?" Jakob asks, not quite looking at me.

"Water." I don't trust myself with anything that might soften the edges. "I need clarity tonight."

Something shifts in his face, and I can’t dig too deep or I’ll chicken out.

He hands me a glass, our fingers brushing in a contact that shouldn't send heat spiraling down my spine—making me yearn to experience the feel of those hands uninhibited against my body until I forget my own name.

But it does.

Jaden dominates dinner, voice climbing with excitement as he details the volcano's final design. Jakob and I orbit him like cautious satellites, exchanging glances, passing food with deliberate care to avoid another dangerous contact.

"Dad says if we get the chemical reaction just right, mine will be number one." Jaden looks up at Jakob with unquestioning faith. "Just like him."

I watch something tender and pained pass across Jakob's face. "I said you have to work for number one, buddy. Nothing's guaranteed."

"But you're always number one," Jaden insists. "That's what Mr. Phillips said at career day. That you never lose."

Jakob's eyes find mine, something raw and exposed in their depths. "I've lost plenty."

The words hang between us. I look away first, unable to bear the weight of a truth that cuts too close to bone.

"Ms. Easton says my story is going on the board tomorrow," Jaden says, sauce at the corner of his mouth. "The one about the dragon who couldn't breathe fire."

"That's great," Jakob says, pride replacing the naked vulnerability of moments before. "You'll have to take a picture for me."

"Can't you come see it?" Jaden asks, voice edged with hope he's learned to temper. "It's parents' day on Friday."

A fractional hesitation, then resolve. "I'll be there."

"Both of you?" Jaden's gaze swings between us, the naked hope in his eyes more devastating than any accusation. "Together?"

The question lands like a blow. What we've stolen from him with our selfish inability to either truly leave or truly stay crashes over me. Guilt and longing tangled into something suffocating.

Jakob and I lock eyes over his head, the silent conversation flowing between us as if we never stopped having it. We've always done separate events. Separate conferences. Separate lives. Each marked by the conspicuous absence of the other.

"We'll both be there," I say before I can remind myself of all the reasons we shouldn't. "Right, Jakob?"

His eyes widen a fraction—surprised by my surrender. "Absolutely."

Jaden grins, satisfaction written across his face. "Cool. Can I have ice cream now?"

"Only if you clear your plate," Jakob says, parental instinct overriding whatever complicated emotion is moving beneath his surface.

I watch them together—my son and the man who gave him to me—and longing uncurls inside my chest. That I’ve kept bound and gagged.

For one dangerous heartbeat, I allow myself to see what could have been.

The three of us at this table every night. Jaden growing up with both parents under one roof. A life built on the foundation we started but couldn't sustain.

Then reality crashes back.

The photos. The accusations. My career hanging by a thread.

"Jaden, go wash your hands," I say, needing him away from whatever is about to happen between his father and me. "And pick out what you want to take to Tyler's tomorrow."

"But ice cream?—"

"After," Jakob says, voice brooking no argument. "Go on, bud."

Once his footsteps fade down the hall, I turn to Jakob, wrapping my arms around myself against a chill that has nothing to do with temperature.

"We need to talk about today."

He stands, gathering plates. "Yes. We do."

"What happens now?" My voice steadies after reading the text message about their retreat.

"They won't remove you from the audit." He doesn't look at me, just continues clearing the table. "I made that clear."

"Through threats."

"Through leverage." His shoulders tighten. "It's how the game is played, Chanel."

"This isn't a game." I stand, needing the height, needing any advantage.

"I know." He finally turns, leaning back against the counter, eyes finding mine across a kitchen that suddenly feels too small. "Which is why we need a strategy."

"What kind of strategy?"

His gaze doesn't waver. "One that changes the narrative."

"Meaning?"

"We go public."

"With what?"

"Us." He says it simply, like it's the most obvious solution. Like he's not suggesting we walk back into the very fire that nearly consumed us both. "We control the story by making it ours."

I stare at him, the implication crawling up my spine like ice-tipped fingers. "You want to pretend we're back together."

"I want people to believe we never fully separated." He steps closer, voice dropping to a register that once made my skin hum. "That we've been quietly reconciling for Jaden's sake. That the photos aren't scandal—they're family."