ADRIEN'S POV
Whisky cools in my hand. Neat and strong — the kind that burns down your throat like poison that's failing at its only job.
Since yesterday, I haven't slept.
Reason?
Beatrice Kenz.
She refused my offer to drive her home. And I followed her anyway. Not because of some messy, irrational impulse — I simply didn't want the woman who'd just closed a major deal against Schweitzer's interests walking through Manhattan alone at night.
That's what I told myself. That's the version I'm sticking with.
Manhattan was cold last night. But the blood in my veins boiled like something volcanic when I watched her with Theodore. Something disgustingly animalistic inside me wanted to tear him apart when he leaned closer to her. When he looked at her as if she was his.
As if she isn't the only woman I've ever found myself gravitating toward beyond reason and logic. Whose brown eyes have been haunting me for days.
They talked. Her shoulders slowly relaxed around him in a way they never have around me. My chest burned with something territorial that I refuse to examine too closely. I've taken pride in being a reasonable man my entire life. The eldest son of the Laurent family. A man who has his shit together.
But since yesterday, I've been feeling feral.
He wrapped a scarf around her neck. And she wore it today.
It felt like Theodore marking territory without properly marking her. Beatrice always smells gentle — vanilla and cherry blossom, something warm and clean that belongs entirely to her. But when she walked into my office this morning, I was greeted by a different scent underneath. Theodore's. His unique musk. Agarwood and leather and something cool beneath it — a cologne I've known for years. Since before everything between us shattered.
Men like us always have our own signature scent. Personal. Unmistakable. And today, his was on her.
I wanted to take that scarf off her neck. Burn it. And tell her — you are mine.
But I refused to let my control break. To become a man who can't hold his own instincts on a leash.
The board meeting was never supposed to go that far.
Those ten members have been standing in my way for months — doubling against me, trying to position their daughters and nieces around me and my brothers, trying to drive wedges between my siblings. I'd planned to use the meeting to rattle them. Scare them into compliance. Maybe some fines. Nothing more.
Which is why I didn't tell Beatrice beforehand. It was supposed to be routine pressure. A reminder of who sits at the head of this table.
But the moment Mr. Shawn opened his mouth — the moment he looked at her like she was filth misplaced in his world — every reason, every calculation inside me snapped clean.
I texted Angel. She was supposed to be voice-recording the meeting as standard procedure. I told her to set up the camera. Contact the lawyers. Immediately.
The entire meeting, I held myself still. Every muscle locked. Jaw clenched so hard my teeth ached. When that woman implied Beatrice had slept her way into my office, something moved through me that belongs to my father's bloodline, not mine. Something violent. Something that wanted to pull Beatrice behind me and destroy every person at that table slowly and completely.
I held it. Because Angel needed time. Because the recording needed to be thorough. Because ten board members removed in one stroke is worth more than any single moment of rage.
But let me be precise about this: the decision to fire them, to pursue legal action, to end their careers — that was not the plan I walked in with.
That decision was made in real time. Because of what they said about her.
She doesn't know that. She thinks it was all calculated from the start. She thinks I used her as bait — and I let her believe it, because the alternative is admitting something far more dangerous.
That I lost control. For her.
And then she shouted at me.
Those gorgeous brown eyes blazing with fire and defiance and self-respect. Her voice echoing through walls that have only ever heard my own raised voice — not even my father's.
"You don't own me, Adrien."
First name. No title. Nobody calls me that. Not in this building. My own mother calls me Aurélien. And this woman, five foot three, trembling with rage, stripped my title away like it weighed nothing.
Her anger didn't offend me. If anything, it got me more hooked. Because in that moment, only one thought was running through my head. One single, disqualifying, completely unhinged thought:
I want her to be angry at me. I want her to put me in my place.
I need to see a psychiatrist.
"You're looking weird."
Killian's voice pulls me out of my head. I look at him. "What?"
His eyes narrow, studying me like some subject of personal fascination. "Like you're having kinky thoughts about someone."
My finger pauses on the rim of my glass. This man and his observation skills need to be studied by a government agency.
I shrug. "Just tell me you found something on whoever tried to burn down the anniversary party."
Killian's gaze doesn't leave mine. If anything, it sharpens with suspicion. "You're changing the subject."
I side-eye him. "You're minding my business."
"Your business is my business, Adrien."
My lips twitch. He has, indeed, gotten himself far too involved in my life.
He pulls up his iPad, scrolling through several pages. "Just like your dad said — the arson has nothing to do with Schweitzer."
That name again. I press my tongue against the inside of my cheek.
Killian glances at me. "You look like you wanted it to be him."
"I would prefer him gone from any form of existence in this world."
Killian blinks. Studies me with something almost sympathetic. "You're oddly specific about your wants, Adrien." He shakes his head with an amused smile.
"Back to work. I rechecked the CCTV footage. The man carrying the kerosene bottles — the ones your little advisor spotted — got them from the hotel kitchen. How? Another housekeeper dropped them in a storage area used by kitchen staff."
My mind connects the dots. "Whoever planned this had detailed knowledge of the hotel's internal layout."
Killian nods, closing his iPad. "And that doesn't narrow the search. Because there isn't a single family or individual we can pin down who has both the knowledge of the hotel's design and the resources to smuggle that volume of kerosene in broad daylight."
The board behind me is covered in photographs, data points, and now a faceless orchestrator who nearly wiped out two hundred of the most powerful people in the Western world in a single evening.
"Whoever did this... they don't like your father." Killian's calm gaze sharpens. "That night, only you and your mother were attending. If the fire had broken out, you two would have been the highest-value casualties. Given that every escape route was jammed —"
"We'd have died."
Silence sits between us.
"We owe our lives to that little advisor of yours."
"Little advisor?" I scoff. "She's a fucking terrorist."
But there's no bite in my words. None at all. Killian gives me a look that sees far too much, but for once he lets it go. The matter in front of us is bigger than whatever's written across my face.
I stand, finishing the whisky in one swallow. Let the burn cut through the noise in my head.
"I have to meet Dad. Keep looking into it." I pause at the door. "You'll get the Russian drone manufacturing segment."
Killian's face breaks into a full grin. Satisfied. Delighted. "That's exactly why I love you." He winks. "Marry me, Adrien. We'd make a great pair."
"I wouldn't do that even if I were gay."
He gasps dramatically. I walk out, leaving him and his theatrics behind.
My shoulders are stiff from a full day of tension when I step into the hallway. I glance toward Beatrice's office just as her door swings open and she walks out.
My chest tightens.
The coat and blouse she was wearing earlier are gone — replaced by a thin-strapped satin camisole that fits her like it was designed by someone who wanted me to suffer specifically. I take one look and immediately redirect my gaze to a point roughly six inches above her head.
Professional. Controlled. Absolutely not affected.
She looks at me. Cold. Still furious from this morning. Good — that means she still cares enough to be angry.
"I need to show you something." She walks toward me.
I take an involuntary step back. Not because I'm afraid of her — because she's close enough that I can feel her warmth radiating off her skin, and the last remaining thread of my self-control does not need to be tested right now.
"What?" I keep my voice level.
She holds up her phone. And just like that — the heat, the tension, every wayward thought — cools to nothing under a wave of cold recognition.
My decision to bring an advisor from outside my circle has drawn attention from exactly the kind of people I didn't want noticing.
An email. Detailed offer. A massive sum of money and perks in exchange for her loyalty. I know the writing style. I know the approach. I know who this is.
"What do you want me to do?" she asks.
I look down at her. Late afternoon sun cuts through the hallway windows, painting her tanned skin in warm amber. Her eyes are steady, waiting, aware of too many things at once.
My pulse kicks up for reasons that have nothing to do with the email.
"It's from my brother."
"...Huh?"
I take her phone and dial the number that sent those messages.
Five rings. Then a deep, cheerful voice I know far too well.
"Oh, who's calling? Accepting my offer?"
"Cut the bullshit unless you want me to freeze your allowances, Raphael."
A shriek on the other end. My ear rings. I continue, cold and even: "Raphael Pierre Laurent."
"YES BOSS!" He fumbles. "I mean — Bro. Haha. I think I got the wrong number."
"Sure?"
"Absolutely." He stutters. "Oh — I just remembered — I have to hit the gym. Bye."
Click. Click. Click.
Beatrice blinks at me like she's just been introduced to a dimension she didn't know existed. I hand her phone back.
"My brother. He has a tendency to test the people around me. With money, with pressure, with whatever entertains him that week."
She opens her mouth. Closes it. "That's..."
"Childish. I know."
She takes her phone back. For a half-second, something almost amused moves behind her eyes — something warm, something close to the way she looked before I ruined things this morning.
Then it hardens. Like she remembered.
I feel the loss of it like a door closing.
She starts walking away.
"Let me drive you home."
The words leave my mouth before my brain approves them. I close my eyes in instant regret. But the ball is already thrown.
"No."
Of course.
"You can't take the bus tonight."
She turns, frowning. "Why not?"
"Snowstorm alert went out an hour ago. Everyone's already left — which you'd know if you checked the company email."
Beatrice's eyes widen. She pulls out her phone, scrolling frantically, and I feel a strange, entirely inappropriate satisfaction watching the realization dawn on her face.
"Let me drive you home. It's safer than a cab."
She looks at me. Lips pressed tight. Expression caught somewhere between wanting to smack the composure off my face and knowing I'm right.
"Fine."
My heart does something it has no business doing. A grin threatens to crack through, and I suppress it with the full force of thirty-four years of Laurent discipline.
A small, angry "fine" is technically a positive response.
She's still furious. Which means she still cares enough to be furious.
I'll take it.
Happily.