THEODORE'S POV
There's a saying — he who controls money controls the government. Powerful words. And equally the most honest thing ever spoken by old men who only ever knew how to make things messy.
Five families dominate the Western economy. From the shadows, every major event somehow connects back to one of them. Good or bad. Doesn't matter.
Laurent — finance and oil.
Vanderbilt — defense and weapons manufacturing.
Rothenburg — media, fashion, and cultural influence.
Ashcombe — technology.
And what do the Schweitzers do?
Some say banking and private credit. Some say I sold my soul to the devil and killed my family. Rumors even claim I'm not human — a blood-sucking vampire walking among the elite.
People always speculate about things they don't understand. Or things they're simply too afraid to know.
In front of me, several hundred monitors are beaming. Live telecasts of events unfolding across the world — share markets, oil and gold prices, CCTV footage streaming from the headquarters of Laurent, Vanderbilt, Rothenburg, and Ashcombe. People come and go across those screens like ants searching for food before winter.
Two hundred tech specialists sit behind me — decoding, analyzing, typing fast, pens scratching against paper. The air is thick with tension and cigarette smoke. I stand in the center of it all. The man who has spent a decade secretly building an intelligence network where nothing remains hidden from me.
Schweitzer Bank isn't just a bank. If it were, it wouldn't have survived 300 years of wars, revolutions, and regime changes. When the Laurents were still a fallen noble family scrambling to survive, the Schweitzer family had already begun its legacy — holding secrets for kings and warlords alike.
From the outside, I run an old family bank. In reality, I hold the keys to secrets that could change the fate of nations. That's the power of Theodore Schweitzer.
And none of it matters as much as the face at the center of my screens right now.
Beatrice Kenz.
The murmuring behind me fades to background noise. My gaze follows her like a hawk watching something it once thought to hunt — and has come to realize it wants to protect instead.
I have cameras in her office. In Adrien's floor, specifically — the offices of his advisor, his assistants, most rooms that matter. A micro-camera sits inside the vase on the coffee table in Beatrice's cabin. Every day, one of my operatives walks in as a cleaner, changes the flowers I've been sending for two days now, and adjusts the lens.
I know this is a line. I know I've crossed it. But men who run intelligence networks don't survive by respecting boundaries — they survive by knowing everything before everyone else. And right now, everything that matters to me sits in a corner office on the thirty-second floor of Laurent Corporation.
Something in my chest stirs when I watch her wearing the scarf I gave her. It's too big for her — practically swallowing her neck and half her chin — making her look almost adorable in a way that doesn't do justice to how fierce she actually is.
The first time I saw her was three days ago at the gala. I wasn't planning to attend. My assistant Lucas couldn't stop nagging me about being some antisocial recluse who needs to touch grass and show the world I'm not actually a vampire.
When Adrien looked at her from the second floor, I didn't think much of it. That bastard is more twisted than the psychopaths I deal with professionally.
But things shifted minutes later. Coming out of the men's washroom, I watched her crouching down in the hallway, touching something on the floor, then running barefoot into the ballroom — knowing full well the building could ignite at any moment.
Those big brown eyes I'd assumed were bored and exhausted were blazing with determination and fire. Cheeks flushed from adrenaline. Hair flying behind her in a mess.
For exactly forty-three seconds, I forgot anything beyond this woman existed.
And I knew it in that instant.
All my life — through every meaningless date, every hollow relationship, every encounter that left nothing behind — I was looking for someone like her. Messy in her own way. Brave even when she has every reason to be terrified. Stubborn enough to fight against odds that would make smarter people run. Just... her.
Then I learned that Adrien had made her his personal advisor and accountant — a reward for saving his life and two hundred of his guests. Impressive. Calculated. Very Adrien.
I remember the glass in my hand cracking when my assistant told me. Why her? Why couldn't that bastard stay out of the one space I was about to step into?
I had her entire background within twenty minutes. Born to a first-generation immigrant family in New York. Father ran a small business before retiring. Mother a homemaker. Brother working in Dubai. And Beatrice — Harvard MBA. Working since high school. Landed a junior analyst position in Laurent Corporation's audit department and caught the eye of Steve Jonathan, one of the board members.
On paper, she looks like a woman who got lucky. I doubted that immediately. Lucky people don't run toward fires.
When I found her schedule and boarded her bus, the plan was simple: use her to extract information about Adrien after she'd cost me leverage with Al-Barak. She'd impressed me. I wanted to see how far that intelligence went and whether it could be redirected.
Yet as we talked, my resolve dissolved sentence by sentence.
She intrigued me. Made me speak more than I've spoken to anyone in years. Those brown eyes seemed to hold entire histories of pain and determination that she'd never let anyone read — and I wanted to drown in them.
When that thought crossed my mind, I didn't retreat. Didn't feel embarrassed.
Because men like me are like this. When we know, we know.
I check my watch. Almost time for her to leave the office. I asked her for six months. And I know — if six months from now she still says no, I won't walk away from this unscathed.
"Where are you going?"
Lucas speaks without looking up from his iPad. Lucas Lincoln — my right-hand man. The most trusted person in my circle, picked up from the Lincoln family, one of the most powerful military dynasties in the United States. The illegitimate child meant to live in shadow and abuse somehow became one of three people I trust in this world.
"Somewhere."
He narrows his eyes. "Again meeting that girl—"
My gaze sharpens. He lets out a nervous laugh, fixing his earpiece. "I mean, Madam Kenz."
I nod. His shoulders drop dramatically as he stares at charts on his screen. "Theo, you know you should head back to Zurich. HQ is empty."
"It has Marcus."
"That bastard is a moron high on nicotine ninety-nine percent of the time." He gasps at me like I've lost my mind. I blink. "He's handling it fine."
The deep blue eyes of this idiot make him look like an innocent Persian kitten you can't easily say no to. But I've known him long enough to be immune. "Cross-check with him. I trust you."
I walk into the men's bathroom and change out of my tailored shirt and trousers into black loose pants and a navy blue turtleneck that fits close across my shoulders. Lucas stares at me in open disapproval.
"You need a leather jacket over that."
I pause mid-roll of my sleeves and glance at his leather jacket. He shakes his head, hugging himself protectively. "NO."
But who listens to the no of his assistant.
...
"I SWEAR ONE DAY I AM GOING TO MAKE YOU PAY FOR ALL THESE ASSAULTS, THEOOOOOO—"
The elevator closes. I look at my reflection in the brushed steel doors. I look good in this jacket.
And somehow, a small smile keeps threatening to surface — and I can't stop it.
I know she'll reject me. She should.
She said she doesn't know me well enough. Logical.
Lucas has often said I'm like an iceberg floating in the Antarctic, searching for shore. I've never denied it.
Yet this warmth spreading through my chest tells me I might find it.
The report said she likes white roses and pink peonies. I pick up a bouquet on the way, along with Swiss chocolates I'd selected this morning. I catch my reflection in the rearview mirror and notice something — a softness around my eyes that's unfamiliar.
It doesn't feel wrong.
I drive through the Manhattan streets, a small, ridiculous smile pulling at my lips, imagining her sighing at the sight of me but giving me a tiny opening. The plan is simple — ask her to dinner. I've already booked a reservation at her favorite Mexican restaurant.
Why am I this excited? Foolish. Completely beneath me.
But maybe this iceberg has finally found its shore.
I stop the car across from her apartment building at 7:12 PM. Open some emails while I wait for her to appear. My foot taps restlessly against the floorboard.
And then — everything stops.
The warmth in my chest. The flutter in my heart. All of it — gone in an instant.
A black Ferrari pulls up across the street. Signature model. Signature driver. The man I detest more than I have ever detested anyone in my life.
My grip around the steering wheel turns white. Jaw clenched. Something dark and irrational burns through every layer of logic I've spent a lifetime building.
Beatrice gets out of the car. Adrien follows.
Everything zeros down to his hand around her wrist. I roll the window down slightly.
"I'm not done with you." Adrien's voice cuts through the cold evening air — calm, controlled, infuriating.
Beatrice looks at him with fire in her eyes. "Oh, do I look like I care? You let me get insulted in front of those people, and you're asking why I'm mad?"
My head snaps toward them.
Insulted.
Who dared to insult her.
My fingers flex on the steering wheel. Irrational thoughts flood my mind before I can contain them. Don't tell me you used her to gain leverage against those board members, Adrien. Don't tell me you threw her into a room full of wolves to sharpen your own teeth.
Adrien says nothing. Lets her rage. And that — that silence — turns my blood cold.
Because I recognize that look in his eyes. The patience. The stillness. The way he holds his ground while she tears into him. That isn't tolerance. That isn't strategy.
That's a man watching the only person whose anger he wants to feel.
My fingers tremble against the wheel.
This bastard has his eyes on her too. And I don't know if this won't end with me pulling a gun on him someday — because she triggers something in me that I've kept under control, logic, and precision my entire life. And watching him stand in that same fire is unbearable.
"Done?" Adrien pulls her slightly closer. Still holding her wrist.
How dare he.
"No." She growls.
His eyes darken with something between desire and possession as he lowers his head slightly. "Then keep being angry at me. Keep telling me what an asshole I am."
Beatrice goes still.
Adrien releases her. Gets back into his car without another word. Drives away. He doesn't notice me — I'm in Lucas's car, not my own.
She remains standing on the sidewalk. Eyes fixed on the direction his car disappeared. Not moving. Not going inside.
A sharp, violent jealousy floods through me. Mixed with something worse.
Recognition.
The excitement I'd allowed myself to feel — the first small happiness I've permitted in longer than I can remember — all of it silences behind one thought:
If both Adrien and I pursue her, she'll never choose me.
Nobody ever chose me. Not really.
Not when there were options.
Not when Adrien was part of the option.
And I don't know how to sit with this conclusion — one I thought I'd buried a decade ago.
The flowers rest on the passenger seat. The chocolates I picked for her sit beside them like an afterthought. Evidence of a man who showed up excited and watched his own hope deflate in real time.
I sit in the car for a long time after Beatrice disappears into her building.
Then I get out anyway.
Elevator up. Bouquet in one hand, chocolates in the other. I stand before her apartment door, and for the first time since I can remember, I hesitate.
I hate this. I hate how small and self-conscious I suddenly feel. I am Theodore Schweitzer. I run a 300-year-old intelligence empire. I have files on every powerful person in the Western world. And I'm standing in a hallway holding pink peonies, afraid to ring a doorbell.
But I ring it anyway. Even rejection means something.
The door opens.
She's dressed in a soft yellow cotton nightdress. Skin glowing from a fresh shower. No makeup. Smelling like jasmine and lavender.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
For a moment I forget to breathe. This is her. The real Beatrice underneath the composed, armored woman who never lets herself appear weak. Bare-faced and soft-eyed and standing in her doorway like something I'm not worthy of.
Her eyes widen. "Theodore."
My name on her lips. Why does it sound like a curse and salvation at the same time?
I let my shoulders relax. Let yourself fall, Theodore. The worst that happens is you never have her. The best is you get to love someone.
"Hey." I hold out the flowers and chocolate. "I came to ask you out for dinner."
Her breath catches. She blinks at me like she's seeing something impossible. "You what?"
A small smile forms on my lips. "I'm asking you out on a date. Hoping you won't be cruel enough to reject me."
Even if you do, I'll come again tomorrow.