Page 52 of Falling for Mr. Ruthless (The Rules We Break #1)

Something in my tone must register. She sets down her knife and fork with deliberate care. Reaches for the envelope with the same precision she applies to contracts, to evidence, to anything that might contain complexity beyond its surface.

I watch her fingers break the seal. Remove the check. Process the number written in precise strokes of black ink. Her name. Eight figures. Retroactive equity in the company she helped build. The stake she would have held if I hadn't pushed her away. If I hadn't sacrificed her to protect her.

Her face remains perfectly composed. Only the slight stilling of her breath betrays impact.

"What is this?" The question emerges soft but exact.

"What you earned," I say. "What should have been yours all along."

She studies the check, then me, gaze sharp with assessment. With the intelligence that disassembles systems to their component parts. That identifies weaknesses in structures designed to appear impenetrable.

"No strings," I add, voice lower. "You're free. Start your own firm. Travel the world. Or do nothing at all."

Understanding dawns across her features—not just of the amount, but of what it represents. What I'm offering beneath the transaction. Not payment. Liberation. The choice I once stole, now returned without condition.

Her fingers trace the edge of the check, eyes fixed on the paper rather than my face. I watch calculations run behind her expression—not of monetary value but of possibility. Of doors suddenly unlocked. Of futures previously foreclosed now opening before her.

"Why now?" she asks finally, voice steadier than her fingers.

"Because you deserve the choice." I keep my voice level despite the seismic shift occurring beneath my ribcage. "Because I took options from you once. I won't do it again."

She looks up, eyes meeting mine with startling clarity. "And if I take this? If I leave Marquez & Klein? Start my own firm? What happens to us?"

The question exposes what we've both been circling. The fear that stability between us depends on stasis. That changing one variable might collapse the equation we've only just balanced.

"Nothing changes," I tell her, absolute certainty in each syllable. "Except perhaps you stop settling for professional satisfaction and start building what you actually want."

Her breath catches—the observation too accurate to deflect.

"You think I'm settling."

"I think you're surviving." The distinction matters. "I think you're making the best choices from limited options. I'm just expanding the options."

She looks back at the check, at the number that represents not just money, but possibility. Freedom. Agency reclaimed rather than granted.

"And what do you get from this?" The question isn't accusatory. Just precise. The auditor who traces every transaction to its source. Who identifies motives beneath movements.

"I get to see what you build when nothing constrains you." Truth emerges unvarnished. Undefended. "I get to witness what you become when fear of financial instability doesn't factor into your choices."

She absorbs this, fingers still tracing the check's edge. Not pushing it away. Not yet claiming it. Just considering what it represents beyond its numerical value.

Then she looks up, eyes meeting mine with unsettling directness. "I never wanted your money, Jakob. All I wanted was you."

The words hollow me out. Then rebuild me from inside. Cells rearranging around a truth I've spent years avoiding—that what I thought was protection was actually fear. That what I framed as nobility was actually cowardice disguised as sacrifice.

I exhale, voice emerging hoarse with recognition. "I let you go once. Told myself it was for the best." The admission scrapes my throat. "But I think... it was just easier than admitting I was afraid."

"Afraid of what?" she asks, though her eyes suggest she already knows.

"Of needing you more than you needed me." The truth emerges unvarnished. Undefended. "Of loving something I couldn't control. Couldn't predict. Couldn't protect through calculation."

She absorbs this, fingers curled around her wine stem. Not reaching for me. Not retreating. Just present with the weight of confession between us.

"And now?" The question hangs in air disturbed only by candlelight.

I reach across the table. Cover her hand with mine. Feel the warmth of her skin, the slight tremor beneath controlled surface.

"Now I know there are worse things than vulnerability. Worse things than surrender."

"Like what?" Her voice drops lower, private despite the public setting.

"Like watching you from a distance. Like measuring my life in glimpses of what I gave away." My thumb traces the delicate bones of her wrist, the pulse point where her blood rushes closer to surface. "Like pretending I don't still wake reaching for you."

The admission costs me nothing and everything. Strips away the careful distance I've maintained. The control I've clung to like religion.

"We're different people now," she says, though she doesn't withdraw her hand from mine.

"Yes." No argument. No denial. Just recognition of transformation neither of us could have predicted. "Maybe that's why it could work this time."

Her eyes hold mine, searching for deception. For calculation. For the man who once made decisions for both of us in the name of protection.

"I won't make that mistake again," I tell her, voice steady despite the seismic shift beneath my ribcage. "I won't confuse control with care."

She looks down at our joined hands, then at the check still on the table between us. At the future it represents—not just financial security but true independence. The freedom to choose me not from necessity but from desire.

"With or without this check," she says, voice steady despite the weight of the moment, "you're my person."

The declaration undoes me more completely than any calculated seduction. Simple words that contain history, possibility, choice made with clear eyes rather than blind emotion.

"I'd rather be your husband," I answer quietly.

She breathes in, stilling. Processing implications with the same precision she applies to evidence, to risk, to everything that matters.

"Again?" she asks. Not doubt. Clarification.

"Again," I confirm. "Different this time. Better."

Her fingers turn beneath mine, palms meeting, skin against skin. The simplest form of connection. The most complex in what it represents. With her other hand, she picks up the check, folds it precisely, slips it into her clutch.

"Then yes," she answers.

One syllable that rebuilds what four years of absence tried to destroy. That bridges what secrets and silence tried to sever. That reclaims what fear sacrificed in the name of protection.

I don't move to kiss her. Don't rush to seal the promise with performance. Just hold her gaze across candlelight, across history, across the wreckage we've navigated to find each other again.

"Take me home," she says, the command gentle but absolute.

I pause, searching her eyes for clarification. "Your place?"

"No," she answers, certainty in every syllable. "Yours."

The distinction matters. Her choosing my territory. My space. A deliberate crossing of boundaries we've maintained for years.

I signal for the check. Leave cash that more than covers the bill. Offer my hand as she rises from her chair. Feel her fingers slide between mine with the certainty of decision fully made.

We walk through the restaurant without speaking. Without needing to. Bodies aligned in the perfect synchronicity that once defined us. That now defines us again, but with the wisdom of fracture and repair.

Outside, the city unfolds around us—lights against darkness, movement against stillness, life continuing its relentless forward motion. My car waits at the curb, driver standing at attention.

"Let's walk," Chanel says, tugging gently at my hand. "It's not far."

I dismiss the driver with a nod. Follow her lead down sidewalks still damp from earlier rain. The rhythm of two people moving in tandem rather than isolation.

We don't speak of practicalities—of where we'll live, of how we'll merge separate lives into shared existence, of what we'll tell Jaden. Those conversations will come. Tonight exists in its own timeline, suspended between past and future. A moment of pure presence.

When she stops at a crosswalk, I find myself studying her profile in neon light—the straight line of her nose, the determined set of her jaw, the slight curve of her mouth that suggests decisions made rather than questions lingering. The face I've memorized in fragments now viewed as whole.

"What?" she asks, catching my gaze.

"Nothing." I shake my head slightly. "Everything."

The light changes. We cross the street, her hand still in mine. Five blocks from the penthouse. Four. Three. The distance collapsing with each step toward what waits on the other side of yes.

At the building's entrance, I nod to the security guard who straightens imperceptibly at the sight of Chanel beside me. At this woman who once belonged here returning after years of absence. I guide her to the private elevator, key card granting access to the top floor without stops.

"He remembers me," she says quietly as the doors close.

"Everyone does." The truth emerges without artifice. The staff, the building manager, the doormen—all preserving a careful silence about her absence. All maintaining the fiction that she might return at any moment.

Inside the elevator, I press the button for the penthouse.

She turns to face me as doors slide closed, sealing us in shared space with mirrored walls that reflect us from every angle.

That show me what we look like together—her dark hair against my lighter suit, her curves against my angles, her composed features against my more guarded ones.

Two people who've survived each other's absence. Who've earned each other's presence.

"Are you sure?" I ask, needing to hear it once more. Needing to know this isn't impulse, nostalgia or wine-softened boundaries.

Her answer comes not in words but in movement. In the careful precision with which she steps closer. Places her palm against my chest, directly over my heart. Tilts her face upward, eyes never leaving mine.

"I'm sure," she whispers against my mouth.

And then her lips find mine, and four years of careful distance collapse in the space between heartbeats—in the heat of her mouth opening beneath mine. In the perfect pressure of her body against mine. In the quiet sound she makes when my hands find her waist, her back, the nape of her neck.

The elevator chimes. Doors slide open. We break apart just enough to exit, to move down the short hallway to the penthouse entrance. My hands steady as I unlock the door—control maintained despite the current running beneath the surface.

Inside, the penthouse waits in darkness. I don't reach for lights. Don't need to. The city pours illumination through floor-to-ceiling windows, painting everything in silver and shadow. In light just sufficient to navigate without erasing the intimacy of darkness.

We stand in the living room, suddenly uncertain despite decision already made. Despite promises already exchanged. Despite the gravity pulling us toward inevitable collision.

"Jaden?" I ask, though I know the answer.

"At my mother's." Her voice carries a slight tremor. "Until Sunday."

Two days. Two nights. Time existing as luxury rather than constraint. As possibility rather than limitation.

I watch her move through the space—this territory once familiar, now rediscovered.

Her fingers trailing along the back of the couch we chose together.

Her eyes taking in the art that still hangs where she placed it years ago.

The penthouse that has remained largely unchanged, as though waiting for her return.

I reach for her, fingers tracing the curve of her cheek, the line of her jaw, the fullness of her lower lip. Memorizing through touch what I've preserved through memory. Learning the subtle ways she's changed in my absence. The ways she's remained the same.

"I've missed you," I confess, the words emerging without calculation. Without strategy. Just raw truth in darkness.

Her eyes close briefly, lashes casting shadows against her cheeks. When they open again, I find something I've searched for across five years of separation. Something I feared I'd never see again.

Home.

"Show me," she whispers.

And I do.

With hands that tremble despite years of practiced control. With mouth that seeks rather than claims. With body that remembers hers like topography never forgotten.

We move toward her bedroom without speaking. Without needing to. Following the inevitable trajectory of bodies that know each other. That have missed each other. That have found each other again across time and distance and pain transformed into wisdom.

At her bedside, I pause. Let her set the pace. The terms. The boundaries. Give her what I once took—the power to choose. To lead. To decide how this reunion unfolds.

She reaches for me in darkness. Pulls me toward her with gentle insistence. With the certainty of decision fully made and never regretted.

"Stay," I whisper against her mouth.

Not just for tonight. Not just until morning. But for all the mornings that follow. All the nights that wait on the other side of yes.

She answers with her hands. With her mouth. With her body aligned with mine in the perfect synchronicity that once defined us. That now defines us again, but with the wisdom of fracture and repair.

With surrender that feels like the greatest victory I've ever claimed.