Sleep never came.

I'd tried—closed my eyes, shifted, replayed the day a hundred different ways—but my head wouldn't quiet down. Every time I thought I was close, the images returned: her voice in that conference room, the glint of her badge, the stunned silence in my team's car ride back.

By the time I finally gave up and sat up in bed, the clock on my nightstand read 7:58 p.m.

That was when I heard it, her voice downstairs. Soft, composed. Talking to Aline.

My chest tightened.

I stared at the bedroom door, the sound of her heels against the tiles growing closer until it stopped right outside. The handle turned, and there she was.

She paused in the doorway when she saw me awake, fingers still on the knob. For a second, neither of us said anything.

I broke it first. My voice came out colder than I intended.

"You're back."

"Yeah." Her reply was barely above a whisper.

Silence again. She looked exhausted, hair slightly loosened from its usual perfection, makeup faintly smudged. But none of that changed the weight sitting on my chest.

I wanted to let it go. Pretend to be asleep, pretend today didn't exist. But pretending only worked for people who didn't care, and I did. Too much.

Because the thing about loving someone is, you always want to believe they'd never hurt you. Even when they already have.

I exhaled through my nose and leaned back against the headboard.

"So," I said, my tone edged with sarcasm, "I'm guessing work went great today?"

She flinched a little. "Kai—"

I cut her off. "Did you see the news? You're famous now." My laugh was short, bitter. "Miss Celestia Valentina Moreau. Sounds powerful when they say it like that."

Her eyes softened, pained. "I didn't mean for it to happen like that—"

"But it did." The words left before I could stop them. "And somehow, you ended up across the table from me."

Her lips parted, trembling. "I swear, Kai, I had no idea. Dad called me this morning saying it was urgent. I thought it was a meeting about the internal review we've been planning. I didn't even know what it was about until I got there and he told me I'd been assigned as Deputy Project Director. I—"

I let out a short, humorless breath and looked away. "And you didn't think to give me a heads-up? A call? A text? Anything?"

"I couldn't." Her voice cracked. "Everything happened so fast, and by the time I realized—"

I shook my head, cutting her off again. "You know what? I'm just gonna go to bed."

I turned away, sliding under the sheets, my back to her. The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating.

For a moment, nothing moved. Then the mattress dipped behind me. Her hand touched my shoulder, light, hesitant.

"Kai," she whispered, "please don't be mad. I promise I'd never do that intentionally."

Her voice broke on the last word.

I closed my eyes. I wanted to turn around, to believe her—but the day's noise kept replaying. Hale's silence. The look on Tasha's face. The whispers from the office, the headlines, the damn hashtags.

My name beside hers.

Speculation. Betrayal.

All of it swirling into a storm I couldn't shut off.

She pushed gently against my shoulder again, trying to make me face her. "Kai, please—"

"Don't," I murmured, my voice low. "Not tonight."

She went still. A small sound —barely audible—escaped her, like she'd swallowed a sob. Then, slowly, her hand fell away.

For a while, neither of us moved. I kept my eyes on the dim line of moonlight spilling across the floor. She stayed beside me, quiet, her breathing uneven.

Then I heard it, soft, shaky.

She was crying.

Not loud, not dramatic. Just quiet, careful sobs like she didn't want me to notice.

Every part of me wanted to reach out. To pull her close, to tell her I believed her. But I couldn't. Not after today. Not when the image of her standing across from me was still burned into my mind.

So I lay there, pretending to be asleep, while the woman I loved tried not to break beside me.

---

What I didn't know was that, while I lay there trying to make sense of everything, Val had already been through her own kind of hell that morning.

She got to Moreau Dynamics Headquarters earlier than usual, the way her dad's voice had sounded over the phone made it sound urgent, not optional. She barely had time to set her bag down before she called out to her assistant.

"Where's Dad?" she asked, her heels clicking against the polished floor.

"In his office, ma'am," the assistant replied quickly. "With Mr. Rodriguez."

Val didn't even pause. "Thanks."

She walked straight down the hall, shoulders back, expression calm, every inch the poised executive everyone at Moreau Dynamics expected her to be.

When she stepped into her father's office, both men looked up. Philip Rodriguez was standing near the desk, arms crossed, a faint, practiced smile that didn't reach his eyes. Charles George Moreau — the man who could sell a storm to the sea — leaned back in his chair with that calculating calm of his.

"Good," her father said. "You're here. You'll be heading out with Philip to inspect the site today."

She frowned slightly. "But I thought today's the Meridian Development Initiative, and Mr. Rodriguez is supposed to be there?"

Her father nodded smoothly. "It is. After the inspection, Philip will head there."

"Oh." She blinked, trying to make sense of it. "Alright. I'll just get the files and we'll head out."

"Of course."

She turned to leave, missing the small, sharp glance her father and Philip shared.

As soon as the door closed, Charles leaned back further, steepling his fingers. His lips curved faintly.

"Now," he murmured to Philip, "let's see my daughter handles loyalty."

Philip's smile deepened, a knowing look passing between them.

---

It wasn't until the car was ten minutes into the drive that Val noticed something off. She looked out the window and frowned at the familiar street names blurring by.

"Wait," she said slowly, "isn't this… Holloway Avenue?"

Philip didn't look up from his tablet. "Yes."

> "Why are we headed here?"

He simply gave a small shrug. "You'll see."

Her phone rang then. One glance at the screen told her exactly who it was. She exhaled through her nose, already bracing herself.

"Dad," she said, the moment she answered, "please tell me we're not—"

"You've probably figured it out by now," he cut in smoothly, "so I'll say it directly. You'll be attending the Pre-Proposal Conference as Deputy Project Director for Moreau Dynamics."

Her heart dropped. "Dad, I'm not doing thi—"

"You are," he interrupted, tone flat and final. "And you will."

She gripped the phone tighter. "I don't even have the details for the Meridian bid. I can't just—"

"Oh, but you do," he said. "The site project you've been working on this past month — the Drendan file? It's actually the Meridian Development Initiative. I simply had it labeled differently to keep the data classified until today."

Her eyes fell to the folder resting on her lap. Drendan Site Project.

And then, as if perfectly timed, Philip reached into his briefcase and handed her another folder.

The title on the cover read: The Meridian Development Initiative.

Her stomach twisted as she flipped through it — every graph, every report, every figure — all hers. Her data, her work, her proposal. Just renamed.

Only now she understood.

Her father hadn't used her work against her. He'd simply never told her what it really was. He'd made her work on the Meridian project under a different name, all while keeping her in the dark.

"Dad, I can't—"

"Who else should I send, Celestia?" he replied, the calm now edged with quiet irritation. "Lucien? Your brother can't even manage a regional audit without turning it into a circus. You, on the other hand, can handle this. You always have."

She stared out the window as the Moreau convoy pulled to a stop in front of the Meridian Development Initiative site.

Her father continued, voice lowering, persuasive and poisonous all at once. "This is business, nothing more. Treat it as such. And remember — I'll be watching. Make me proud."

The line went dead.

Val let the phone fall to her lap, pulse hammering in her throat.

Philip glanced at her, his tone cool, professional. "You heard the man. Shall we?"

She turned to him. "You knew."

He didn't flinch. "Orders are orders. If you're going to run this company one day, you'd better get used to that."

She didn't reply. She just stared at the window, the reflection of her own face blurring against the glass. For once, she didn't look like the brilliant, untouchable Celestia Valentina Moreau the business world revered. She looked tired. Cornered. Human.

She stepped out of the car, heels clicking against the pavement, expression composed even though her chest felt like it was caving in.

Philip gave her that infuriatingly diplomatic smile. "Remember, it's just business."

She nodded, because what else could she do?

Her father had orchestrated this entire thing — and she couldn't stop it, not without setting fire to the very company she was supposed to inherit.

She walked toward the entrance, back straight, eyes forward, the mask firmly in place. But she knew — deep down — that this was the worst possible battlefield she could've been thrown into.

Because on the other side of those doors wasn't just another competitor.

It was me.

But I didn't know that.

I didn't know her morning had been a trap. That she'd been pushed into that conference without warning, cornered and forced to stand there, representing the one company I never expected her to show up for that day.

All I saw was her sitting across from me in that conference room — calm, sharp, unreadable — while my whole team looked at me like I was the traitor in the room.

And the truth was, I didn't know which one of us was hurting more.

But somewhere between the silence and the distance, something inside me cracked.

Because love wasn't supposed to feel like standing on opposite sides of the same battlefield.

And yet, tonight, it did.

---

To be continued...

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.