Page 33 of Falling for Mr. Ruthless (The Rules We Break #1)

FOURTEEN

THE BEAUTIFUL LIE

JAKOB

Routine has never been my sanctuary, but these past weeks with Chanel and Jaden living in my penthouse have rewritten that truth. I've become a collector of moments—each one preserved, counted, treasured like artifacts from a life I don't deserve.

Her coffee mug left on the counter, lipstick staining the rim. The indent of her body on my couch, still warm when I press my palm against it. The whispered conversations with our son down the hall, her laugh softening in ways I haven't heard in years.

I stand at the windows of the penthouse tonight, Manhattan's lights like a galaxy spread beneath me—distant, cold, beautiful.

Behind me, Chanel moves through the kitchen with quiet precision, the soft sounds of domesticity an exquisite torture.

She's wearing one of my shirts, stolen from my closet without asking.

The fabric drapes across her shoulders, falls to mid-thigh, transforms something mundane into something sacred.

My throat tightens each time she reaches for something on a high shelf, the hem rising just enough to make my hands flex at my sides.

This isn't just cohabitation. It's resurrection. A life I buried four years ago, clawing its way back to the surface, making me believe in ghosts.

"You're staring," she says without turning, arranging takeout containers with the same meticulous attention she once gave to spreadsheets at my dining room table, years ago. Back when this was our home, not my fortress.

"I'm memorizing," I correct, crossing to her.

My hand finds the small of her back, that perfect curve I've traced with fingertips and lips and memory. Something fractures in my chest when she doesn't pull away.

"This feels?—"

"Don't." She glances up, eyes holding mine with that fierce intelligence that first unraveled me in grad school. Something fragile lives in the warning. "The moment you name something good, you invite its destruction."

I press my lips to her temple instead, breathing her in—coconut shampoo, that perfume she dabs at her throat each morning, the underlying note that's simply her. Something hot and possessive coils low in my gut, primitive and uncontrollable.

"Superstitious," I murmur against her skin.

"Protective," she counters, but leans into the touch.

Her phone vibrates on the counter, screen illuminating with an email notification. She glances at it, then freezes beneath my hand. I feel it before I see it—the way her body goes rigid, how her breath catches and holds.

Every instinct I possess sharpens to a killing edge.

"What is it?" I ask, though something thick and toxic already fills my lungs, choking me. The feeling is sickeningly familiar—the suspended moment before markets crash, the silence before betrayal speaks its name.

She doesn't answer, just passes me the phone with fingers gone cold. I scan the message, each word slicing deeper than the last. It's addressed to Chanel, copied to the RSV executive board, the Novare leadership team, and several financial news outlets.

Ms. Warren,

This serves as formal notice that your continued involvement with both, the White Glove Pivot audit and Jakob Giannetti constitutes a conflict of interest requiring immediate legal redress.

Beyond the obvious impropriety of your undisclosed personal relationship with the subject of your audit, we have obtained evidence of communications suggesting potential fraud, market manipulation, and deliberate misrepresentation of financial findings.

Should you fail to withdraw from both the audit and your relationship with Mr. Giannetti within 48 hours, this evidence will be submitted to the SEC, the Financial Conduct Authority, and all relevant media outlets.

Separately, we believe Mr. Giannetti should be reminded of our previous conversation regarding confidential matters from Novare's early operations.

As a founding partner, I retain extensive documentation of our initial client engagements, funding channels, and operational methods that would not withstand regulatory scrutiny.

That information remains secured — for now.

Regards, Megan Ardano, Esquire Ardano Holdings

My phone buzzes next—the same message with an attachment. I open it to find copies of doctored communications, fabricated evidence of collusion between Chanel and me. Conversations that never happened. Numbers that tell a story of corruption rather than the truth.

The cold in my chest crystallizes into something harder. More lethal.

"She's coming for you directly now," I say, voice tight with controlled violence. "She's done playing in the shadows."

Chanel steps back, arms crossing over her chest. The inches between us stretch to miles.

"This isn't just about me. She mentions 'confidential matters. ' What is she talking about, Jakob?"

The moment crystallizes—perfect, terrible clarity.

I've been here before, standing at the precipice of truth and consequence, calculating what to reveal and what to protect.

Four years ago, I chose silence. Chose to shield Chanel from Megan's toxicity by walking away rather than dragging her into the darkness of what I'd done.

Now Megan's left me no choice.

"We need to sit down," I say, gesturing toward the living room, buying seconds I don't deserve.

"No."

The single syllable cuts like a blade. Chanel's voice isn't raised—it's lowered, stripped to something elemental.

"No more managed conversations. No more calculated revelations. Whatever you need to say, say it now. Right here."

Her eyes meet mine, unwavering. Something collapses inside me—the architecture of control I've built my life around. She deserves this—the unvarnished truth, not the sanitized version I've been parceling out in safe increments.

"Megan has evidence from Novare's early days," I begin, forcing the words past the resistance in my throat. The taste of copper floods my mouth as I bite the inside of my cheek. "Transactions. Clients. Methods that wouldn't withstand regulatory scrutiny."

"The audit would have uncovered that."

"No." I shake my head. "I buried it years ago. Restructured everything when I took full control. The evidence shouldn't exist anymore, but Megan kept copies. Insurance, she called it."

Understanding begins to dawn in Chanel's eyes—a terrible clarity I've dreaded witnessing since the day I walked away. I watch it happen—the pieces connecting, the past rewriting itself in her mind.

"You founded Novare with her," she says, piecing it together. "She was your business partner."

"Yes. We built it together after grad school."

"And the affair," she says quietly. "It was with her."

It's not a question. Her eyes hold something deeper than accusation—knowledge. She's suspected this. Perhaps always has.

The room tilts beneath me. My pulse thunders in my ears. I taste metal, smell fear— my own . Still, I keep my face composed, though everything inside me splinters.

"Yes."

"The woman your family always wanted for you," she says, and though her voice doesn't break, something in her eyes does. "The right match. Same world. Same privileges. Same... race ."

The words hit like body blows. I don't flinch, but something tears inside me—old scar tissue ripping open.

"During our separation."

"Yes." My voice sounds distant to my own ears. Blood rushes through my head, a deafening roar. "Once. It wasn't?—"

"Don't."

She holds up a hand. The gesture feels absolute, like a door slamming shut.

"I don't need the details of what you did or didn't do with her body. What I need is the truth about why you left me."

The floor seems to shift beneath me. This is the moment I've avoided for four years—the reckoning I feared would destroy whatever remained between us. I see us suddenly in double exposure: here in this kitchen, and years ago in another one, where I made the decision that broke us both.

Megan's face, flushed with triumph. The photographs spread across my desk. The voice recordings. The fabricated emails linking Chanel to insider trading schemes she'd never been part of.

"She'll never recover from this," Megan had promised. "But you can protect her, Jakob. You know how."

"Megan used what happened as leverage," I say, each word dragging from somewhere raw and unprotected.

My hands shake. I hide them in my pockets.

"She threatened to destroy everything—the company, yes, but more importantly, you.

Your career. Your reputation. She had...

resources. Connections. The ability to make allegations that would follow you regardless of truth. "

Chanel's face doesn't change, but I see her throat work as she swallows. The pulse at the hollow of her neck beats too fast.

"She wanted me," I continue, needing her to understand. The words taste like ash. "Not just physically. She wanted what we had. What I chose instead of her. The narrative was always supposed to be different—the Giannetti heir and the Ardano heiress. Two dynasties. A perfect merger."

I can still see my father's face the first time I brought Chanel home. The careful neutrality masking disapproval. "She's very... accomplished, " he'd said later. A word chosen to avoid others.

"So, you filed for divorce," she says, voice terrifyingly even. "To protect me."

"Yes."

"Without telling me why."

"Yes."

"Without giving me a choice."

The words land like bullets. I don't defend myself. Can't. There is no defense for this, only the brutal accounting of consequence.

"I thought I was doing the right thing," I say finally. My voice fractures at the edges. "Keeping you clean from the consequences of my mistake."

"Your mistake." She laughs, the sound brittle as shattered glass. "Not the affair, Jakob. The mistake was thinking you had the right to decide what I could handle. To control my life under the guise of protection."

She moves to the counter, gripping its edge until her knuckles whiten. I watch her shoulders rise and fall with each controlled breath, the elegant line of her spine rigid with fury.