Page 35 of Falling for Mr. Ruthless (The Rules We Break #1)
FIFTEEN
THE TRIGGER HITS
CHANEL
The email arrives with the precise, silent violence of a blade between ribs:
Given the current circumstances, we believe it would be in everyone's best interest if you continued your excellent work remotely until the White Glove Pivot concludes.
Corporate language. Sanitized execution. Professional death dressed as consideration.
I read it three times, each word burning deeper into my skin. My fingers hover over the keyboard, trembling so violently I have to press them flat against the desk to steady them. The taste of copper floods my mouth— I've bitten the inside of my cheek without realizing it.
Not suspended. Not fired. Just quietly erased.
I power down my computer with mechanical precision. Each item from my desk goes into my leather tote—framed photo of Jaden, spare lipstick, the fountain pen my mother gave me when I made senior analyst. Objects that mark the territory I've carved in a world never designed to make space for me.
The office goes silent as I stand. Conversations die mid-sentence. Eyes track my movement, then deliberately slide away when I look up. Cowards. All of them.
Three senior partners hover near the conference room, watching. None meet my gaze. Only their silence follows me as I walk the gauntlet of open-plan desks—spine rigid, chin lifted—like I'm still someone who belongs here.
"I'll forward everything to your secure server," Sandra whispers as I pass her desk. Her voice catches. "And I'll keep your office plants alive."
This small mercy nearly breaks me—this whispered allegiance when everyone else has opted for silence. I nod once, unable to speak around the knot in my throat.
The fifty-floor descent feels endless. Just me and my reflection in polished brass, watching each other disintegrate in slow motion.
The woman staring back at me is immaculate—tailored blazer, silk blouse, perfect makeup.
Natural hair pulled so severely it sends dull pain through my scalp.
The armor I've constructed piece by piece since Jakob left.
Since I was left holding the ruins of what we built.
My phone vibrates against my palm. Jakob : Just got a call from Martin. Are you okay?
The question lands like a slap. Am I okay? When was the last time I was okay?
I don't respond. Can't. If I open that door —even a crack— everything I've contained might pour out, might drown me right here in this elevator with its perfect mirror showing the exact cost of survival on my face.
The doors slide open to the lobby's brutal indifference. I move through the revolving door into Manhattan's relentless noise, into a world that continues spinning while mine fractures along fault lines four years in the making.
The penthouse air feels charged when I step off the private elevator three hours later, like the space itself is holding its breath.
Jakob stands in the kitchen, shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows, tie discarded, two glasses of amber liquid catching the light between us.
His eyes track my entrance with the focused intensity of a predator.
Not a safe place anymore. Not neutral ground.
"Drink?" he offers, voice deliberately casual.
I set my laptop bag on the counter with measured precision, the soft thud echoing in the silence stretched tight between us. I want to scream. Want to throw something. Want to make him feel a fraction of the humiliation burning beneath my skin.
Instead, I stand perfectly still, letting the silence do the work my voice can't trust itself to accomplish.
"RSV suggested I take some time away," I finally say, each word carved from ice. "While the 'unfortunate situation resolves .'"
Understanding darkens his eyes. Something else flickers there too—calculation. Strategy. The machinery of protection already whirring to life.
"They suspended you."
"They offered me a graceful exit to protect the firm's reputation." My voice doesn't sound like my own—too flat, too controlled, scrubbed clean of the rage vibrating through my body. "Remote work only. Effective immediately."
I move past him toward the windows, needing distance, needing air. Needing not to smell his cologne, or register the heat of his body as I pass. My reflection in the glass looks hollowed out. A woman trying to remember who she was before today. Before him.
"I'll call Martin." His voice hardens with that quiet authority that once made me feel protected. Now it scrapes against my raw nerves like sandpaper. "This is?—"
"Don't."
The word slices between us, sharper than I intend. I see him flinch in the glass.
I turn slowly, something unraveling inside me. Something I've kept tightly wound since the divorce papers landed on my kitchen table four years ago.
"Don't fix this. Don't manage it." My voice cracks on the last word, betraying me. I swallow hard, reclaiming control. "Don't use your power, or your money, or your influence to solve a problem you created."
The silence that follows feels radioactive. Dangerous. When I look at him again, I find him watching me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle with memories I've spent years trying to bury.
"You waited until now?" I finally ask, voice dropping to something barely above a whisper. "After I rebuilt everything? After I learned how to be whole without needing you for anything but Jaden?"
He takes a step toward me, then stops himself. Something vulnerable breaks through his carefully constructed control—a crack in the perfect facade of Jakob Giannetti, corporate titan.
"I wanted to protect you, Chanel."
A laugh escapes me—a sound so bitter it burns my throat. "You wanted to protect me." I repeat the words, each one a stone I want to throw at him. "That's what you keep saying. That's your justification for four years of silence."
I grip the counter edge, knuckles going white. My hands won't stop shaking. I need him not to see this weakness, this evidence that he still affects me.
"You didn't protect me, Jakob." The words taste like blood in my mouth. "You positioned me."
His eyes widen fractionally—the only sign that the blow landed.
"You positioned me as the woman you stopped wanting. The woman you cheated on. The woman who wasn't enough." My voice splinters around the edges, composure cracking. "You let me carry that weight for four years while you played the silent martyr."
"That wasn't my intention."
"Your intentions mean nothing against your impact.
" The control I've maintained starts to slip.
Words tumble out faster, harder. "Do you know what it costs to rebuild from abandonment?
To explain to your child why his parents couldn't stay together?
To fight for respect in boardrooms where they're ready to dismiss me as 'angry Black single mother' instead of seeing the financial strategist I've become?
To watch years of hard-earned credibility dissolve into stereotype the moment they learn about our history? "
He steps toward me, one hand extended. I jerk back so violently my hip catches the counter edge, pain flaring sharp against my side.
"Don't."
He freezes, hand still outstretched. His fingers curl slowly into a fist before dropping to his side. I watch his throat work as he swallows.
"I never meant to hurt you," he says, voice rough with something that might be regret.
"That's what you said yesterday." I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly cold. "That's what you've been saying since I walked back into your life. As if intention negates consequence."
I move toward the guest room where my things are still scattered—evidence of our temporary cohabitation. Each item I touch feels contaminated now, tainted by proximity to a man I can't seem to escape.
"You let her win." The accusation slips out before I can stop it, soft but lethal. "You gave Megan exactly what she wanted. You surrendered to her threat instead of fighting for us."
"I was trying to save you from her vendetta."
"No." I turn back to him, fury washing through me in a wave so powerful my vision blurs at the edges.
"You were trying to save yourself from having to fight for what mattered.
It was easier to walk away than to face the consequences of your choices.
Easier to divorce me than to trust me with the truth. "
He moves toward me with the fluid grace of a man accustomed to taking up space, to claiming territory. This time I don't retreat. Can't. My legs won't obey the command to move, to maintain distance.
"You're not the man I needed, Jakob." The words come from somewhere beneath my ribs, raw and bleeding. "You're the man I left."
Something fractures in his expression—pain so naked it's almost obscene on a face usually so controlled. I feel a savage pleasure at the sight, then immediate, crushing shame for wanting to wound him.
"Let me help you now," he says, voice dropped to that register that used to make me melt against him in darkened rooms. "Let me fix this."
"Some things can't be fixed." I begin gathering what I'll need for the night—laptop, clothes, dignity. My movements are precise, controlled, the opposite of the chaos raging inside me. "Some things can only be survived."
He watches from the doorway, his presence a physical weight against my skin. I feel him there without looking—the heat of his body, the particular cadence of his breath. The way space itself seems to bend around him.
"Where will you go?" he asks, as if he has any right to this information.
"My apartment. Where I've lived for three years without your protection." I zip my overnight bag with a finality that echoes in my chest. "I've survived Megan Ardano's first attack. I'll survive whatever comes next."
"It's not safe. Not with what she's threatening."
"It's safer than here." I shoulder my bag, turning to face him fully. "Safer than living in the shadow of your control."