Page 21 of Falling for Mr. Ruthless (The Rules We Break #1)

TEN

ALWAYS MINE

JAKOB

I find her asleep on the couch.

Not the guest room where she's supposed to be. But sprawled across the living room couch, one arm flung above her head, files scattered across her lap and the floor.

She’s been here for three days.

Three days of us returning to civil coexistence. It feels like losing her all over again, yet her fragrance lingers, her coffee mug rests in my sink, her shoes are by my door.

Three nights of knowing she’s just twenty feet away, divided only by drywall and self-control.

I should wake her to maintain this illusion of unthreatening neutrality. To pretend that kiss didn’t change everything.

Instead, I stand motionless, committing this unguarded version of her to memory. The slight furrow between her brows—concentration that follows her even into dreams. The way her lips part on quiet exhales. Her hair flows over the pillow, wilder in sleep than she ever allows while awake.

I move toward her slowly, wanting to touch her, but knowing I shouldn’t.

My pulse thrums in my throat as I gather the scattered papers, stacking them on the coffee table. Singapore disclosures. Timeline projections. Handwritten notes.

She hasn't stopped working since moving in, as if constant motion might outpace whatever's building between us.

Chanel shifts and a sound escapes her—not quite a word, but it sounds like my name. I freeze, caught between the intensity of her whisper and the urge to pull away.

My heart hammers against my ribs as I consider reaching for her, my fingers aching to trace the curve of her sleeping form. But instead, I grab the throw blanket draped over the adjacent chair, unwilling to risk crossing that line. Not because I don't want to, but because I don't deserve her.

Every cell in my body gravitates toward her like she's my personal magnetic north, the need to touch her, hold her, possess her again burns through my veins with an intensity that frightens me.

Before I can stop myself, I reach for the throw blanket again. The one she used to steal during movies, wrapping herself until only her eyes were visible above the edge.

I unfold it carefully, letting it settle over her like a whisper. My fingers brush her hair as I tuck the blanket around her shoulders. The contact, sending electricity up my arm. She stirs but doesn't wake, moving closer.

"Chanel…” I whisper.

She sighs, tension easing from her face. I should leave. Should retreat to my room with its cold sheets and hollow silence. Should stop watching her like she's oxygen and I'm drowning.

Instead, my fingers linger at her temple, tracing the curve of her cheekbone with a touch so light it barely registers. My thumb brushes the corner of her mouth, remembering its taste, its heat, its perfect fit against mine.

Her lips part on an exhale, and desire hits me like a physical blow—not just for her body, but for everything we were. Everything we lost. Everything we might still be if I could find the words to bridge the silence I built between us.

But words have never been my strength, not with her.

I fuck it up. To unpin a grenade and destroy everything.

So I straighten, pulling my hand back before I cross a line I can't uncross because having her silence is better than not having her at all.

I step away before I wake her with confessions I have no right to make. Turn toward my bedroom, counting steps to keep from turning back.

At my door, I pause, looking over my shoulder one last time. She's shifted, curling into the blanket, face peaceful now. For one breath, one heartbeat, she looks like she belongs here. Like she never left.

The illusion burns through my chest, leaving regret in its wake.

I close my bedroom door quietly behind me, but I don't sleep.

* * *

"This timeline is impossible."

Chanel's voice cuts through the conference room, sharp enough to silence the three analysts gathered around the table. Her finger taps the projection on the screen. The White Glove Pivot's final phase is scheduled for completion in six weeks.

"It's ambitious," I counter, keeping my tone neutral despite the tension coiling at the base of my spine. "Not impossible."

"Ambitious?" She turns to face me fully, eyes narrowed. "It's reckless. The compliance audit needs a thorough review. At least eight weeks of scrutiny. You're skipping essential steps."

"I'm streamlining." I hold her gaze, aware of the analysts exchanging glances. "The market won't wait while we dot every i. We move now or lose momentum."

"The market won't care if we lose compliance certification because we rushed verification." She crosses her arms, the gesture pulling her blouse tight across her chest. "This isn't about momentum. It's about your impatience."

The accusation lands like a blow, too close to personal territory. I feel my jaw tighten, control slipping.

"My impatience built this company while others were still debating risk matrices."

"And your impatience might cost you everything you've built," she fires back, not backing down an inch. "The Singapore disclosures alone need deeper analysis. The board won't sign off without it."

"The board will sign off on whatever I tell them to."

The words slip out sharper than I mean, revealing the steel I usually keep sheathed around her. The room temperature seems to drop ten degrees. The analysts freeze, eyes darting between us like spectators at a tennis match played with knives.

Chanel's spine straightens, facing me head-on, daring me to make my next move. "Then why hire my firm at all? If you're just going to dictate terms regardless of professional assessment?"

"Your firm was hired to validate, not obstruct."

"Obstruct?" Color rises in her cheeks, the flush of anger I've seen too rarely since she moved in. Since we started this careful dance of proximity without intimacy. "I'm trying to protect your company from regulatory backlash."

"My company doesn't need protection." I stand, needing the height, needing any advantage in this unexpected battle. "It needs execution."

"What it needs is leadership that listens to expertise." She doesn't back down, doesn't cede the single inch I've come to expect from everyone else in my orbit. "But that was always your problem, wasn't it?"

And there it is—the shift from professional to personal. The line crossed. The first public acknowledgment of our history since she walked back into my life.

I sense the analysts' discomfort sharpen.

"That's enough for today," I say, not taking my eyes off Chanel. "We'll reconvene tomorrow. Mitchell, prepare the revised Singapore analysis. Davis, coordinate with legal on the compliance verification."

They don't need to be told twice. Chairs scrape back. Laptops close. Bodies exit with the urgent efficiency of people escaping a burning building.

When the door closes behind them, leaving us alone in the sudden silence, I exhale slowly through my nose. Count backward from ten. Rebuilding control that should never have slipped.

"What the hell was that?" My voice drops to a register I've never used with her before.

"That was me doing my job." She gathers her papers, movements sharp with controlled fury. "The job you're paying my firm to do. The one you're now telling me to compromise."

"I'm not asking you to compromise. I'm asking you to adapt."

"No, you're asking me to sign off on a timeline that puts your company at risk because you're too stubborn to listen to reason." She slams her portfolio closed, the sound cracking like a gunshot in the quiet room. "Typical."

The word ignites something dangerous within me. "Typical? You want to talk about typical, Chanel? How about your typical refusal to bend even when the situation demands it? Your typical insistence that your way is the only way? Your typical?—"

"Don't." She cuts me off, eyes flashing. "Don't make this about us."

"Isn't it already?" I step closer, control fraying with each word. "Isn't that what this is really about? Not the timeline. But us."

"There is no us." She doesn't back away, even as I advance, even as the space between us narrows to nothing. "There's a business arrangement. A professional relationship. That's all."

"Is that what you tell yourself when you wake up under my roof?" I'm close enough to count the frantic pulse at her throat—a rhythm that betrays her calm facade. "When you wear my clothes to sleep? When you sleep in my sofa? That it's just business?"

"Stop." Her voice wavers for the first time, uncertainty bleeding through anger.

"When you kissed me?" I lower my voice, leaning closer, close enough to smell her perfume, to feel the heat radiating from her skin. “Was that just business, too?”

Her eyes widen, realization dawning. "You?—"

"I covered you with a blanket." The words escape me, more jagged than I meant. "I touched your hair. Your face. You didn’t wake up. But you sensed it was me."

She remains silent, but the quickening of her breath betrays her, each rise and fall of her chest echoing the frantic beat in my ears. But I can't stop myself.

"Tell me this is just business, Chanel." I'm asking for a lie. I need her to reestablish this boundary before I annihilate it. "Tell me there's nothing else happening here."

"I can't."

Something breaks in me—self-control, resolve, the barriers I built in steel since she walked away.

My hand comes up to cup her face, thumb brushing her cheekbone in a reminder of last night's touch. She stills beneath my palm, eyes locked on mine, waiting.

I don't think. Don't calculate. Don't weigh the consequences. I just close the final distance between us, finding her mouth with the precision of muscle memory that never fades.

For one heartbeat, she doesn't respond. Then her lips part, her body arches, her hands fist the lapel of my jacket, pulling me closer or pushing me away. She doesn't seem to know which. And I don't give a damn.