---
Nicholas didn't speak as he poured a second glass of whiskey.
The penthouse was dark, lit only by the skyline and the city's bleeding glow. Emery's hair was still wet from the shower. Her body wrapped in one of his oversized white shirts, bare legs tucked beneath her on the leather couch.
She watched him move like a man walking through smoke. Fluid. Distracted. Caged by something that had nothing to do with her—and everything to do with the war playing behind his eyes.
"Tell me," she said softly. "Where do you go when you disappear like that?"
He didn't answer at first. Just handed her the glass, then sat down beside her.
"I had a woman once," he said finally, his voice quiet. "Before any of this. Before the towers, the suits, the empire."
Emery tilted her head. "What happened?"
He looked out at the skyline. And the memory took him.
---
Paris, Five Years Ago
Rain. Silk. Candlelight flickering against her skin.
Her name was Cassandra Vale. Daughter of an international banking family, soul like a cigarette—smoky, addictive, doomed to burn.
They met during negotiations for a French acquisition. Nicholas was younger then. Rougher around the edges. Hungry for success. She was the wife of the man he was about to outbid.
He didn't mean to touch her.
But Cassandra was a flame.
And Nicholas had never learned how not to lean into heat.
---
The first time they touched, it was in a hotel bar.
Her dress was red. Her laugh full of secrets. And when she leaned in to whisper in his ear, she said—
"I want you to break me."
He didn't hesitate.
Took her upstairs.
Undressed her in silence.
Pushed her to her knees.
And watched her smile.
---
They spiraled fast.
Days of business. Nights of obsession. Sex that bruised. Words that bit. She liked it rough. Liked it mean. Made him want things he didn't know he was capable of.
She let him control everything—except her heart.
That was the one thing she locked behind velvet lashes and cigarette smoke. And just when he thought he'd gotten close to it...
She vanished.
Took a flight to Vienna with her husband. Never came back.
No note. No goodbye.
Just absence. Just silence.
Just the taste of her still in his mouth and the echo of her voice saying—
"You don't fall in love, Nicholas. You fall into power."
And she was right.
After that, he didn't let anyone in.
Until Emery.
---
Back in the present, he exhaled like it hurt.
"I let her see a part of me I don't show anyone," he said. "And she used it."
Emery was quiet. Then—
"She was wrong, you know."
He glanced at her.
"You do fall in love," she whispered. "You just fight it harder than anyone else."
He looked at her then—really looked.
Hair damp. Eyes soft. Wearing his shirt, in his space, but not trying to own any of it.
"You scare me," he said.
Emery smiled faintly. "Good."
---
He kissed her again.
Not desperate. Not claiming. Just real.
And when he pulled her into his lap, the tension softened. His hands were gentle. His mouth slow. Worshipful.
Their bodies tangled not out of hunger—but out of something more dangerous.
Trust.
---
Later, as she lay curled against him, fingers tracing idle lines across his chest, Emery whispered:
"She left you broken."
"She taught me where my edges were," he murmured.
"I want to see them."
He looked down at her.
"You already have."
---