Escaping the Billionaire's Gilded Cage

For an entire year, Weston and I kept our friendswithbenefits arrangement strictly underground. Then, he casually dropped the bomb that he had a blind date.

Resting my chin against his bare chest, I let out a flat, "Oh." I rolled off his body, snatched my phone from the nightstand, and immediately texted Beverly to accept the setup she’d been pushing. "Perfect," I said to the wall. "I’m meeting a blind date tomorrow night, too." The words barely left my mouth before the bedroom lights flooded the room.

The man who feigned utter indifference a second ago lunged. His heavy hands gripped my bare shoulders, hauling me back to face him.

A dark anger broke through his usually composed gaze. "What," he gritted out, his jaw tight enough to snap bone, "did you just say?" What?

He gets to marry his college sweetheart to save his family's empire, but I'm not allowed to have a little fun of my own? Chapter 1 I didn't flinch.

I held his shocked stare, tilting my chin in pure defiance. "I said, I’m going on a blind date tomorrow night." A muscle twitched along his jaw.

He let out a harsh breath, giving a halflaugh utterly devoid of humor.

That same unexplainable, dark fury swirled in his eyes. "Eden," Weston said, his voice dropping low. "Who are you meeting? When did this happen?" "Jude.

Beverly set it up this afternoon." Weston hovered over me, the heat of his skin radiating against mine.

He chewed on the name, staring at me intently. "Jude… that textbookobsessed nerd from college?" I wrenched out of his grip.

Ripping the duvet from the bed, I wrapped it tightly around my naked body, a petty spark of satisfaction flaring in my chest. "What?

You get to play the dutiful heir, but I'm not allowed to move on with my life?" That shut him up. The tension in his shoulders snapped.

He rolled off me, tossing his rigid body back against the headboard. He stared straight ahead. The sharp, defined lines of his profile gave absolutely nothing away.

A heavy, dead silence stretched between us.

Finally, a dry scoff punched out of his chest. "Beverly really knows how to pick her moments." "Takes one to know one." I slid off the mattress, my bare feet hitting the cold hardwood. "Your precious Bianca happened to move back to the States at the perfect time, didn't she?" I slammed the bathroom door shut.

The heavy wood severed his intense stare, and my knees immediately gave out. I slumped against the vanity, dragging in a ragged breath.

The woman staring back at me in the mirror was flushed. I couldn't tell if the heat burning my cheeks was the aftershock of our tangled sheets, or the adrenaline of a flatout lie.

I cranked the faucet, splashing freezing water onto my face. Drops trailed down my throat, settling into the angry, purplered bruise blooming just below my collarbone. His mark.

Weston and Bianca. Those two names together weren't exactly a shock to my system. Back when Bianca left for Europe, Weston spiraled. He was a complete wreck for months.

But eventually, the obsession faded. Or so I thought. We just went back to being us. Grabbing takeout, talking shit, taking random road trips.

We survived countless drunken 2 A.M. phone calls, sobbing or screaming at each other over absolutely nothing.

We shared a hundred quiet sunrises, slouched shouldertoshoulder on the hood of his car, letting the pale morning light wash over us in total, comfortable silence.

Until a tequilafueled night a year ago. The lighting was dim. The boundaries blurred. We slipped, effortlessly, into something way too deep.

I told myself he just needed a warm body. I needed one, too. We knew each other’s rhythms. We skipped all the awkward firsts. Kissing him felt as deeply familiar as a hug.

I thought we had a silent agreement. A mutual, nostringsattached arrangement that kept us perfectly balanced on this jagged, undefined edge. Until right now.

Until this morning, over stale coffee and toast, when Weston casually mentioned his upcoming blind date was Bianca. "You know how it is, Eden," he’d said. "My family's firm desperately needs her family's capital.

If we don't get this injection… we're going under." I knew. God, I knew.

His family's empire looked invincible on the outside, but Marshall and the rest of his greedy uncles had bled it dry from the inside. The supply chain was choking.

Bianca’s family was pure old money. Massive global reach. They desperately needed the proprietary tech Weston's firm held.

A simple signature on a marriage license would flood his accounts with enough cash to save everything.

As the sole heir, auctioning himself off was the fastest way to put out the fire.

I’d tried to test the waters once. "My family isn't exactly broke, you know." He completely missed the desperation bleeding into my voice.

He just gave me that clinical, corporate nod. "Your family is doing great. But you don't have the leverage we need." I never expected the reality of it to hit me this fast.

And I definitely never expected him to be so calm about it. He delivered the news with the same casual tone he used for, "Working late tonight, see you tomorrow." The worst part?

He’d actually smirked, leaning across the kitchen island to ask for my advice. "So," he’d asked, his eyes gleaming with infuriating ease. "What do I bring Bianca tomorrow night?

What are girls even into these days?" Chapter 2 I kept the glass of milk pressed tight against my lips. I downed it in heavy gulps, locking eyes with him in a dead standoff.

I refused to say a single word. He didn't rush. He reached across the island, his long fingers brushing a stray curl from my forehead. "Why the attitude?" I ignored him.

Weston let out a low sigh, scraping his stool back. He walked up behind my chair and leaned over, wrapping his heavy arms around my shoulders. The embrace was painfully familiar.

He smelled like crisp cedar and fresh laundry—a scent that used to ground me instantly. But now, the heat radiating from his chest felt suffocating.

Where his skin met mine, an invisible, prickly chill danced across my skin. "You're seeing Jude tomorrow anyway," he coaxed, his voice dropping into that smooth, persuasive register. "We'll see each other the day after.

I'll come pick you up, yeah?" A sudden wave of nausea hit me.

I slapped his forearm, silently demanding he let go. "Bring flowers for a first blind date," I clipped out. "Gifts are a massive red flag if you guess her taste wrong." He froze for a split second.

Then, he released me, pressing a lingering, appreciative kiss to the crown of my head. "Good point." He pivoted away, effortlessly scraping our plates and loading the dishwasher like he'd done a thousand times. "By the way," he tossed over his shoulder from the kitchen.

His tone was totally stripped of emotion. "Bianca and I… the date is just a formality. We'll be married by next year at the earliest." I mechanically pulled on my clothes.

I stared blankly at the tangled, wrinkled bedsheets from earlier. A mere formality. Then what the hell was this?

The day after I was born, Weston's dad brought him into the maternity ward to see me.

Legend has it, the second his eyes locked onto my swaddled form, he pointed a chubby finger and declared, "Fat." We shadowed each other through kindergarten, elementary, and high school.

Being two years older, he practically appointed himself my fiercely arrogant older brother and personal bodyguard.

But whenever the playground bullies targeted me, he made sure to pay them back double. The summer before third grade, we dared each other to prove who was braver.

We hopped onto a random city bus, blind to the route. It dumped us off in some unfamiliar, dusty rural suburb. The streets were dead empty. Panic clawed at my throat.

I gripped the fabric of his tshirt, biting the inside of my cheek to keep the tears from spilling. "Weston, are we getting kidnapped?" Looking back, he was probably terrified too, but he wore a mask of pure steel.

He locked his small hand around mine, squeezing tight. "Don't panic. I've got you." We trekked for miles under the scorching sun until we stumbled upon a beatendown gas station.

He dug a few crumpled bills from his pocket and bought me a bottle of orange soda. It was icecold and sugary sweet. He used the payphone.

Charles roared up in his SUV thirty minutes later, hauling us into the backseat and chewing us out the entire ride home.

Since that day, we formed a silent pact: no more faking tough in front of each other. We bled our secrets, our highs, and our devastating lows into each other.

Everything clicked without needing a single label. Around him, my armor completely dissolved. I could just be Eden. I didn't have to plaster on my approachable artteacher smile.

I could sprawl out, throwing my legs across his lap on the couch without filtering a single thought. He did the exact same.

He always said my apartment was his only sanctuary—the one place he could rip off the suffocating mask of the corporate heir and actually breathe.

I convinced myself we shared something transcendent. Something operating on a higher frequency than love, family, or friendship.

I really thought we’d exist in this safe little bubble forever. Until the words "blind date" slammed into my chest.

The impact shattered the calm surface of our reality, churning up the dark undertow we'd been ignoring. He required a strategic marriage to anchor his crumbling empire.

But what about me? In this twisted relationship… in their highstakes performance… Where the hell did that leave me?

Chapter 3 My mom and Jude's mom talked nonstop across the table. Jude and I kept our heads down, quietly poking at our food.

He was Pamela's son and a few years ahead of me in college. Even Weston vaguely remembered him. Jude and I barely ran in the same circles.

He made the perfect decoy to mess with Weston. I peeked through my eyelashes, studying his quiet, mildmannered vibe.

Pamela steered the conversation toward his failed relationship overseas. "Shannon moved back stateside at the beginning of the year, right? Is that what killed it?" Jude stiffened.

He shot his mother a warning look, instantly killing the topic. I tuned them out. My phone buzzed relentlessly against my thigh. Weston. Again. "What are you doing?

You meet up with Jude yet? When are you heading home?" So damn annoying. The guy had his own highstakes blind date that night. Why the hell did he care what I did?

I left him on read. Ten minutes later, my screen lit up with a rapidfire assault. "Does this tie work?" A photo loaded on the screen.

His long, calloused fingers gripped a midnightblue silk tie. Hot, irrational anger spiked in my chest. He did this on purpose.

He used this petty, juvenile tactic just to remind me of his presence. "Bianca got pulled into an emergency board meeting. Dinner is pushed to tomorrow night. Are you done yet?

I'm coming to get you." A bitter scoff hitched in my throat. His shiny new toy flaked on him, so he defaulted back to his convenient backup plan. I completely iced him out.

I let two backtoback phone calls ring straight to voicemail. I didn't type a single letter until I stepped out of my shower at eleven o'clock. "Just walked in.

Going to sleep." I swiped his name on DND and didn't open his thread for a solid twentyfour hours. Ghosting him felt incredibly childish. But god, it worked.

The petty thrill of reclaiming my power barely masked the bitterness in my heart, but I desperately needed a win. I dragged myself to the art studio the next morning.

I spent hours helping Hailey and the other kids mix watercolors for their sunflower paintings.

The chaotic energy and bright yellow splatters temporarily shoved the suffocating dread out of my mind. I pushed through the glass double doors at five.

A sleek black Audi idled by the curb. Weston lounged against the driver’s side door.

He wore a sharp, customtailored charcoal suit that hugged every hard line of his body, effortlessly drawing the stares of passing pedestrians.

My sneakers were glued to the pavement. I scanned the street for an escape route, but his dark gaze had already locked onto me.

I plastered on a painfully fake, customerservice smile. "Fancy seeing you here. What a crazy coincidence." A muscle jumped in Weston's jaw.

A cold, dangerous smirk curved his lips. "Drop the act, Eden. Hand over your phone." "Left it upstairs," I lied instantly. He raked a highly unamused glare down my body.

Bypassing the argument entirely, he yanked the passenger door open. "Get in." I planted my feet. "What's your deal?" "Not trying to fuck you right here on the street, if that's what you're asking," he deadpanned, his expression completely unreadable. "I'm driving you home." A string of curses burned the back of my throat.

I caught Betty and a few other parents sideeying us from the sidewalk.

Swallowing my pride, I forced a tight smile and slid onto the leather seat. "Don't you have a very important dinner date tonight?" I asked, buckling my seatbelt. "Oh." He dragged out the syllable, shooting me a wildly exaggerated, sarcastic raised brow. "So you did read my texts." That completely shut me down.

I snapped my mouth shut, terrified giving him an inch would let him corner me. Miraculously, Weston didn't push the issue. He punched the ignition, the engine roaring to life.

The chaotic street noise vanished as he rolled the windows up.

His jaw set into a hard, unyielding line. "We're making a pit stop first." Chapter 4 Weston didn't offer a destination, and I refused to ask. Normally, we never shut up.

We’d rip on our bosses, swap stupid stories, and plot our next weekend escape.

But today, a suffocating silence choked the space between us, underscored by the low thrum of the car's speakers. A razorthin wire pulled taut between our seats.

Neither of us dared to breathe too hard. One wrong move, and the whole thing would snap. He killed the engine outside an upscale restaurant.

We rode the elevator straight to the penthouse level. That’s when my eyes dropped to his hand. He gripped a meticulously wrapped bouquet.

Brett led us through the VIP lounge toward a secluded booth. Someone already occupied the curved leather seat. A woman. Soft waves framed her face.

Her makeup was flawlessly understated, pairing perfectly with her tailored cream power suit. She stared intently at a spreadsheet glowing on her iPad.

At the sound of our footsteps, she looked up. It was Bianca. The college girl softness had completely vanished. In its place sat a razorsharp, untouchable elegance.

Pure, unfiltered indifference. Her gaze flicked past Weston and landed dead on me. She dragged her eyes up and down my frame in a clinical, deeply alienating sweep.

It lasted less than a second, but cold unease crawled over my skin. "Weston.

You made it." Her voice flatlined, utterly devoid of emotion. "And who is this?" "Eden." Weston kept the introduction painfully curt.

His hand slid to the small of my back, his warmth seeping through my shirt. The casual, possessive weight of his touch felt like a silent, territorial claim.

Bianca's perfectly groomed brow twitched up a fraction of an inch. A practiced, corporate smile curved her lips. "Nice to meet you. Weston mentions you constantly." "Bianca.

I've heard a lot about you." I forced my chin into a stiff nod, fighting to keep the tremor out of my voice. Weston mentioned me?

What exactly did he say? "Take a seat." Bianca accepted the bouquet, dropping a hollow word of thanks before gesturing to the chairs across from her.

She carelessly discarded the expensive flowers onto a side console.

Immediately, she snatched up her iPad, cutting straight to the chase. "Weston, about the summit with Jurgen next month.

I pulled their updated itinerary and the proprietary tech specs. I need your team to run the analytics." She slid the glass screen across the table.

Dense blocks of German data covered the display. The atmosphere instantly shifted to that of a sterile boardroom. The whole "blind date" premise clearly didn't faze her.

Bianca operated like a perfectly coded machine, flawlessly executing her directives. Beside me, Weston instantly shifted into his professional role.

Bianca dictated terms with steady, clear logic. Every single syllable hit its mark as she ruthlessly dissected equity ratios, patent sharing, and market cannibalization.

Weston leaned over the tablet, his eyes tracking the data. He fired back sharp, calculated questions. Their synchronized exchange was incredibly fast and efficient.

I sank into the plush leather, gripping my sweating glass of club soda. I was like a ghost haunting their Csuite meeting.

Their highstakes orbit existed entirely outside my universe of watercolor palettes and screaming toddlers. I stared at the hard, punishing lines of Weston's profile.

Total, predatory focus etched his features into stone.

He was nothing like the man who sprawled across my mattress, throwing lazy smirks and teasing me until I threw a pillow at his head.

He was completely unrecognizable from the desperate, lovesick college kid who used to shadow Bianca's every move. Twenty grueling minutes later, Bianca locked her iPad screen.

She checked the diamond face of her watch. "I have a transatlantic Zoom call. I'll have Taylor forward the finalized terms to your inbox tomorrow." "Done." Weston gave a curt nod.

Bianca stood, hooking a ridiculously expensive Birkin bag over her wrist. She aimed one final, sterile nod in my direction. "Excuse me." She spun on her heel and marched out.

The sharp, staccato clack of her stilettos echoed against the marble floor. Clack. Clack. Every single strike echoed like a hammer against my heart.

Chapter 5 The expensive bouquet sat completely abandoned on the side console. Not once did Bianca register my sudden intrusion.

She didn't spare a single ounce of curiosity or surprise. I registered as absolutely nothing to her. A total ghost.

Weston turned, his long fingers yanking at the knot of his silk tie. "See? That's us." "You aren't even eating together?" The words punched out of me. He froze.

A rough, genuine chuckle rumbled in his chest, and the terrifyingly corporate deadness finally vanished from his dark eyes. "She has zero interest in dinner.

I'll take you somewhere else." "It's so… clinical." I caught the complicated look on his face, and for a second, I didn't know how to feel. "Whatever spark we had in college burned out years ago, Eden.

This is purely a transactional merger." "But you're still marrying her." Silence slammed down between us. He snatched his glass, downing the ice water.

The ice cubes clattered sharply against the crystal glass. "Yeah. It's the most aggressive, stable path forward.

My family's board can't afford a delay." "Oh." A crushing weight settled over my chest. The ache had nothing to do with any leftover feelings he harbored for Bianca.

It stemmed purely from the chilling, calculated way he weaponized his own marriage, reducing it to a neat little asset on a spreadsheet.

His phone vibrated a few times through our dinner. He just stared at the screen, flipped the mute switch, and shoved the device away. The drive home felt like an airless trap.

I kept my eyes locked on the blurred neon streetlights streaking across the glass. Complete silence choked the car interior. A foundational shift had fractured us.

We couldn't go back. He killed the engine outside my apartment building, but the door locks stayed engaged. I snapped my head toward him. A faint, knowing smirk curved his lips.

He leaned across the center console, invading my space, his tone dropping into that dark, heavy register reserved strictly for my bedsheets. "What, rushing to run upstairs?" Bile and bitterness clogged my throat. "Yeah." "Why the hurry?" His large hand reached out.

Rough fingertips brushed my jaw, twisting a strand of my hair with agonizing slowness. "Can you even sleep when I'm not there?" I stared dead ahead at the windshield. "I'll have to get used to it, won't I?" He frowned slightly.

He practically threw himself back into the driver's seat, the sudden distance freezing the air between us. "You can't get used to everything," he bit out, sounding like he fought a brutal war in his own head. "What's the alternative?" I kept my voice dangerously level. "We hit the expiration date in May anyway." May.

The month his family would officially lock down the merger with Bianca's empire. Weston gripped the leather steering wheel, his knuckles turning stark white.

A hollow, selfdeprecating laugh scraped up his throat. "What's the alternative?" he echoed, his voice vibrating with a dark, suppressed energy. "So, until May gets here, let's stop wasting time." I knew exactly what we were.

We operated purely on instinct. A raw collision of needs. He carried the suffocating, calculated weight of a corporate empire every single second of his life.

I anchored him to reality. I held every piece of his reckless youth, offering him the only sanctuary where he could strip off the armor and just breathe.

But the second the calendar flipped to May, our sanctuary burned to the ground. "Right. Goodnight." I stubbornly hooked my fingers around the door handle, yanking it.

His hand shot out. His fingers locked firmly around my wrist, stopping me in my tracks.

The searing heat of his palm burned straight through my skin. "Wait." I whipped my head around.

The arrogant smirk had vanished, replaced by a tight jawline and a deep vulnerability in his dark eyes.

His Adam's apple bobbed, a heavy, audible swallow tearing through the suffocating silence of the car. "Kiss me. Just once." Chapter 6 I stared at him for a beat.

Leaning across the center console, I pressed a painfully brief kiss to his lips. "Goodnight." "That doesn't count." His grip on my wrist didn't loosen.

Instead, his long fingers flexed, hauling me hard against the leather seats. He crushed his mouth against mine, completely obliterating the space between us.

The kiss was an intense, desperate collision. He tasted like expensive scotch and pure desperation.

His free hand tangled deep in my hair, anchoring my skull as he demanded entrance, swallowing my soft gasp.

It was a frantic, consuming search for something he was terrified of losing. My logic practically vaporized.

I shoved my hands against his solid chest, dragging in a ragged breath to break the seal. "Enough." He didn't let go.

He kept his fingers twisted in my hair, dragging my forehead down to rest flush against his. His chest heaved against mine. A harsh, fractured exhale fanned across my lips.

In the dim glow of the streetlights, his dark eyes were pitchblack and frantic. "Eden. No matter what happens… we stay exactly like we were.

Please." I stared at his face, so close to mine. I saw exhaustion, pain, emotions I couldn't decipher, and a faint, almost imperceptible plea. "Like what?" I whispered.

He completely froze. His thick lashes fluttered—a microscopic, physical flinch. It took him a heavy beat to grind the words out. "She's just a contract. You are you.

We don't have to change." "Do you even hear yourself?" I asked, the words slicing my throat. "Tell me one thing.

Do you actually like me?" Weston’s brow snapped together in a brutal frown. "Labels don't mean shit to me. You're my anchor.

You're my only escape." "But I like you." The secret I'd kept buried under a decade of banter and tangled sheets finally tore out of my lungs. "So asking me to stay in the shadows while you marry her?

That's fucking cruel." A flash of suppressed pain crossed his face. Raw agony flashed in his dark eyes, but he snapped his jaw shut, swallowing whatever defense he had.

The heavy thunk of the car locks disengaging echoed in the suffocating silence. I shoved the door open and marched toward the lobby. I didn't look back.

His presence lingered everywhere in my apartment. His PS5 controller sat dead on the sofa. A halfread thriller held his place on the bookshelf.

His sleek silver razor mocked me from the bathroom sink. This place used to be our sanctuary. A bulletproof bunker against the real world.

Now, the domestic illusion felt incredibly ironic. A wave of sheer exhaustion washed over me. I sank to the cold hardwood floor. Stay the same? How?

He was about to stand at an altar and sign his life over to a legal wife in the corporate merger of the decade. And I was supposed to just smile and stay his dirty little secret?

His convenient childhood friend with benefits? What the hell am I to you, Weston? We were both suffocating under the weight of a massive, unspoken expiration date.

Weston started clocking insane hours with Bianca. From the outside, their toxic corporate synergy was terrifyingly smooth.

He swore to me it was purely transactional—a ruthless alliance forged in blood and spreadsheets. But behind closed doors, his obsession spiked into dangerous territory.

Every text felt like an interrogation. Every latenight visit reeked of a borderline unhinged need to prove he still owned me.

The sex shifted from familiar heat to something feral and desperate. Every touch was more intense and desperate than before, terrified it might be our last.

Yet, in the quiet aftermath of tangled sheets, he started scrubbing his existence from my apartment. A sweatshirt here. A watch there.

He was slowly erasing his physical footprint, but the crushing weight on my chest only grew heavier. Exhaustion and anxiety visibly piled up on him.

He drank espresso constantly, dark circles bruised beneath his eyes. He tried to fake our old normal, throwing out arrogant smirks and brushing off the boardroom bloodbaths.

But his jaw was permanently locked in a brutal clench. He'd zone out, staring blankly at my ceiling fan while his thumb absentmindedly stroked my spine. Bianca's relentless demands.

Marshall and the board's cutthroat sabotage. The absolute loss of control over his own life. It was gutting him alive.

He crashed at my place almost every night, desperately chasing a temporary high to numb the freefall. We were both bleeding out, pretending the bandages were actually holding.

Chapter 7 It was a Friday night, and rain lashed against the apartment windows.

I was curled up on the sofa, grading a stack of watercolor sketches, when the front door clicked open. I padded into the entryway and froze.

Weston stood in the doorway, entirely drenched. Soaked strands of dark hair plastered to his forehead. He gripped his ruined suit jacket in one hand.

His white dress shirt clung to the hard lines of his chest, completely transparent from the downpour. He just stood there.

His dark eyes were completely hollow, like a stray animal consumed by the storm. "Weren't you with Bianca—" The words died in my throat.

He closed the distance in three long strides. He collapsed forward, burying his face in the crook of my neck. He held me tightly in his arms.

The sharp metallic scent of rain hit me, mingling with the heavy stench of alcohol radiating from him.

Ten minutes later, he walked out of the bathroom, dry and wearing a pair of old sweatpants. I pressed a glass of warm water into his hand.

He sank into the leather sofa, his head tipped back, his eyes squeezed shut. "It's over." His voice was a harsh, gravelly scrape. "What's over?" "The 'date' with Bianca." A dark, selfloathing scoff punched out of his chest. "I booked tickets for the symphony.

She spent the entire two hours staring at quarterly earnings on her iPad. She used the intermission to interrogate me about Q3 supply chain optimization.

When we walked out, it was pouring. Wallace was stuck in traffic. I told her we should grab a drink next door." Weston stopped. A hollow, broken laugh tore out of his throat.

It sounded like shattering glass. "She looked at me and said, 'Let's not waste time. Email me the rest.'" He snapped his eyes open. His eyes were heavily bloodshot.

He stared blindly at the ceiling. "Eden, she's a machine. A perfectly coded algorithm.

And I'm just the hardware her board engineered to plug into her." His tone was terrifyingly flat. It wasn't a rant. It wasn't venting.

It was the chilling, absolute deadness of a man watching his own execution. I grabbed a towel. Stepping between his spread knees, I started drying his damp hair.

The second my fingers grazed his scalp, he violently wrapped his arms around my waist.

He buried his face in the crook of my neck, clinging to me like a drowning man grasping a lifeline. A toxic mix of pity and selfloathing curdled in my gut.

I threaded my fingers through his dark strands. "Weston," I breathed, my chest tightening. "We can't keep doing this." A heavy, agonizing beat passed.

He slowly tipped his head back. Raw, unadulterated panic shattered his gaze. "Don't." He tightened his crushing grip on my hips. "Don't use that tone with me." "I'm not the fix.

I'm just a temporary high." I dropped the towel. My palms cupped his rough, stubblecovered jaw, forcing him to hold my stare. "You can't escape this merger. Accept the reality.

Lock down your board, and then figure a way out." Agony bled through his features.

A harsh frown carved into his forehead, instantly rejecting the logic. "Stop worrying about the firm. Just promise me you'll stay right here.

Promise me I can always find you." The reality of it physically ripped through my chest. I couldn't look at the desperation in his eyes anymore.

I dropped my hands. "I can't." "Why the hell not?!" he roared. His sudden raise in volume startled me.

His voice actually shook. "You know exactly what you mean to me!" "What do I mean to you, Weston?" I snapped back, my pulse hammering a frantic rhythm against my throat. "Am I important enough to keep hidden in this apartment while you sign a marriage license with another woman?" "What exactly is my title?" My voice sliced through the heavy silence like a serrated blade. "Childhood friend?

Secret confidante? Or just your favorite piece of ass?" Chapter 8