Max
The elevator ride back to the executive floor was twenty-seven floors of awkward silence.
At least, it would have been awkward if Lani knew how to be quiet. She did not.
Max stood with her tablet clutched to her chest like a shield. Lani stood beside her, arms crossed, expression so smug it was practically audible.
"I'm not saying anything," Lani said, which of course meant she was absolutely about to say something.
"Good," Max replied without looking at her.
Beat.
"She was wearing that green blouse," Lani continued, as if this were an episode of some drama she had season passes to. "The silk one. The one she only wears when she's trying to kill someone with her cleavage and make it look like an accident."
Max pinched the bridge of her nose.
"I saw the way you didn't look at her. It was like a whole performance piece."
"I didn't look at her," Max said calmly.
"Exactly," Lani said. "With great intention. Which is suspicious as hell."
The elevator dinged. Max strode out.
Lani followed like a shadow with opinions. "So what happened? You two make out again? Was it another mic incident? Or did she pull you into a closet and—"
"Nothing happened."
"You're a terrible liar."
"Lani."
Max stopped so suddenly, Lani nearly ran into her. Max turned slowly, her expression unreadable but her voice just slightly strained.
"I am not interested in Kaiser. We are professional equals attending the same consortium. That is all."
Lani blinked.
Then she smiled—bright, wide, and utterly unconvinced.
"Uh-huh. And I professionally download fan edits of your panel interviews."
Max gave her a look that could have curdled champagne.
But Lani's smile softened. "Look. You don't have to tell me anything. But if you're gonna fall apart over someone, Max? You don't get to pretend it's not happening. Not with me."
Max flinched. Just slightly.
"I'm not falling apart."
"I didn't say you were. I said if."
Max said nothing. The hallway was quieter now—just the hush of distant voices and the faint tap of Lani's heels as she walked ahead.
"I just don't want you to melt for someone who only wants to watch the puddle," Lani added, almost casually, over her shoulder. "Especially someone who's still engaged to someone else."
Max froze.
The words landed like a physical blow. Still engaged. The information shouldn't have mattered—shouldn't have affected her at all. What happened in Geneva had been situational, temporary, meaningless.
Except it hadn't been. Not for Max.
"What did you say?" she asked, voice dangerously quiet.
Lani turned back, expression shifting from playful to cautious. "You didn't know? It's been all over Page Six. Her fiancée—Elena something, European heiress—was caught with some model on a yacht in Portofino. Total scandal. Kaiser's PR team has been in damage control mode for weeks."
Max's mind raced back, connecting dots she'd previously ignored. Aurelia's occasional glances at her phone during their time in Geneva. The cryptic messages she'd stepped away to answer. The call she'd taken on the balcony late one night, voice low and tense.
All while she was engaged. All while another woman wore her ring.
All while she seduced Max with those knowing smiles and careful touches and whispered confessions in the dark.
"I thought you knew," Lani said, studying Max's face with growing concern. "It's been in all the business gossip feeds. They've been engaged for almost a year, though nobody's seen them together in months."
Max's expression hardened, the momentary shock replaced by something colder, more controlled. More like the Ice Queen the world expected her to be.
"It's irrelevant," she said flatly. "Ms. Kaiser's personal life is her own concern."
"Max—"
"I have the Tokyo call in thirty minutes," Max interrupted, already walking away. "Have the quarterly projections ready."
Lani watched her go, worry evident in her eyes. "Of course."
Max's heels clicked a little too fast.
Her pulse, faster still.
Because now the walls she'd been rebuilding since Geneva had new reinforcement. New justification. New certainty that whatever had happened in that hotel suite had meant nothing to Aurelia beyond momentary pleasure, beyond the conquest of a long-term rival.
She had been a distraction. A plaything. A way to pass the time while Aurelia's real relationship imploded in the Mediterranean.
Max reached her office, closing the door with controlled precision before allowing herself to feel the full force of the revelation.
Aurelia's laugh. Her touch. The heat of her in the dark.
I don't want to want you.
And now she had every reason not to.
---
Aurelia
The day's meetings blurred together—sustainability initiatives, supply chain optimizations, PR strategies for the upcoming joint announcement. Aurelia moved through them with practiced charm, her public persona firmly in place despite the turmoil beneath.
By late afternoon, she found herself alone in Sterling Tower's executive lounge, reviewing notes for tomorrow's presentation. The space was designed for privacy—plush seating arranged in discreet groupings, soft lighting creating pools of warmth, floor-to-ceiling windows offering views of Manhattan's skyline beginning to glitter as dusk approached.
She didn't look up when the door opened. Didn't need to. Her body recognized the presence before her mind did—a shift in the air, a tension in her spine, an awareness that had nothing to do with sight and everything to do with the past three nights.
"Aurelia."
Max's voice was composed, professional. As if they were merely colleagues who happened to cross paths. As if she hadn't whispered Aurelia's name like a prayer in the darkness of Suite 927.
But there was something else in her tone now. Something harder. Colder than even her usual reserve.
Aurelia looked up slowly, expression neutral. "Max."
Max stood a few feet away, tablet in hand, posture perfect. "I wanted to discuss the joint press release for tomorrow's announcement."
"Of course," Aurelia replied, gesturing to the chair opposite her. "Professional collaboration at its finest."
Max didn't sit. Instead, she placed her tablet on the table between them, maintaining a careful distance. "I've made some revisions to the language around carbon offsetting."
"Naturally," Aurelia said dryly. "Heaven forbid we commit to anything too ambitious."
Max's eyes narrowed slightly. "This isn't about ambition. It's about accuracy. Making promises we can actually keep."
"Some of us aim higher than the guaranteed minimum," Aurelia countered.
"Some of us prefer substance over spectacle."
The familiar rhythm of their professional antagonism should have been comforting—a return to known territory after the dangerous exploration of something new. But it felt different now. Sharper. Tinged with something Aurelia couldn't quite identify.
She leaned forward slightly. "Is this how it's going to be? Pretending nothing happened?"
Max's expression didn't change, but a muscle ticked in her jaw. "We're discussing the press release."
"We're avoiding the conversation."
"There's nothing to discuss," Max said evenly. "Geneva was... a temporary situation."
"Three nights is hardly temporary," Aurelia pointed out. "And you didn't seem to find it meaningless at the time."
Max looked at her then, really looked at her, and the coldness in her gaze made Aurelia pause.
"How's Elena?" Max asked quietly.
Aurelia froze.
The name hung in the air between them, loaded with accusation and knowledge Aurelia hadn't expected. Hadn't prepared for.
"That's not—" she began.
"Your fiancée," Max continued, voice perfectly level despite the edge beneath. "The woman you're engaged to marry. The one currently featuring prominently in Mediterranean yacht paparazzi photos. How is she?"
Aurelia's throat tightened. "You've been reading gossip columns, Maxine? That doesn't seem your style."
"I don't need to. It's everywhere." Max's expression remained perfectly neutral, but her eyes were ice. "Including mentioned by my assistant, who assumed I already knew about your... situation."
Aurelia exhaled slowly. "It's complicated."
"I'm sure it is," Max replied, the words clipped and precise. "Your personal life is, of course, your own concern."
"Max—"
"But next time you decide to pursue a... distraction," Max continued, as if Aurelia hadn't spoken, "perhaps select someone who isn't so easily researched in the business press. It creates unnecessary complications."
The implication was clear. That Aurelia had used her. That Geneva had been nothing more than a convenient entertainment while her real relationship imploded publicly. That Max had been a pawn rather than a partner.
"It wasn't like that," Aurelia said quietly.
"It doesn't matter what it was like," Max replied, already gathering her tablet. "The press release needs your approval by morning. That's the only reason I'm here."
Aurelia stood, unwilling to let Max retreat behind professional distance again. "Elena and I have been separated for months. The engagement is being dissolved. The announcement is scheduled for next week."
Max paused, but didn't turn back. "As I said, your personal life is your own concern."
"It is when you're using it as an excuse."
Now Max did turn, one perfect eyebrow raised. "An excuse for what, exactly?"
"For running away," Aurelia said bluntly. "For pretending Geneva didn't matter. For hiding behind your walls again the second we got back to New York."
Max's expression hardened. "You're engaged to another woman, Aurelia. You were engaged while you were in my bed. Those aren't walls. Those are facts."
"Facts without context," Aurelia countered. "Elena and I haven't been together since February. The public engagement has remained for business reasons—her family's investments in Kaiser, primarily. The dissolution agreement has been in process for months."
"And yet, you didn't mention any of this in Geneva," Max pointed out. "Not once, during three days and nights of... whatever that was."
Aurelia didn't have a ready answer for that. Because the truth was, she hadn't thought about Elena once during those three nights with Max. Hadn't considered her relevant to what was happening between them. Hadn't wanted to introduce the complication of her public engagement into what already felt too fragile, too new, too important to risk.
"I didn't think it mattered," she admitted finally.
Max's laugh was short and humorless. "Of course you didn't."
And in those four words, Aurelia heard everything Max wasn't saying. That this was exactly what she'd expected. That Aurelia Kaiser was exactly who Max had always believed her to be—selfish, cavalier, taking what she wanted without concern for consequences.
"Max, please—"
"The press release," Max interrupted, placing the tablet back on the table. "Review it tonight. We'll finalize in the morning."
She turned to leave, every line of her body radiating the controlled composure that had earned her the Ice Queen moniker.
"It wasn't just sex," Aurelia said to her back. "Not for me."
Max paused at the door, hand on the handle. For a moment—just a moment—Aurelia thought she might turn back. Might listen. Might believe her.
Instead, she said softly, "Goodnight, Ms. Kaiser," and walked out.
Aurelia stood alone in the executive lounge, the weight of what had just happened settling over her like a physical presence. She'd known Max would retreat once they returned to New York. Had expected the professional distance, the pretense that nothing had changed.
What she hadn't expected was this—Max finding a reason, a justification, for that retreat. A way to recast what had happened between them as meaningless, as a mistake, as something easily dismissed and forgotten.
Aurelia sank back into her chair, staring at the tablet Max had left. The press release blurred before her eyes, words meaningless against the echo of Max's voice.
You're engaged to another woman, Aurelia. You were engaged while you were in my bed.
The worst part was, Max wasn't wrong. Not about the facts, anyway. Elena was still technically her fiancée, even if they hadn't spoken in months, even if the engagement was a business arrangement more than a relationship, even if the papers dissolving it were already drawn up.
Aurelia should have told her. Should have explained. Should have given Max the context she needed to understand that what happened in Geneva wasn't a casual fling or a convenient distraction.
But she hadn't. And now Max believed exactly what Aurelia had spent years convincing the world—that she was charming but shallow, passionate but uncommitted, brilliant but ultimately untrustworthy when it came to matters of the heart.
The carefully crafted persona she'd hidden behind for so long had finally cost her something she hadn't known she wanted until it was too late.
Aurelia pulled the tablet closer, forcing herself to focus on the press release. Tomorrow, they would face each other across another conference table. Would maintain professional composure. Would play their assigned roles.
But something had shifted between them—something deeper than just professional rivalry or physical attraction. Something that felt surprisingly like hurt, like betrayal, like the painful recognition that they might have had something real, if only briefly, before walls and pride and misunderstanding had destroyed it.
And for the first time since Wharton, Aurelia Kaiser wasn't sure how to win this particular battle.
Or if winning was even possible anymore.