I protected my own ego. She snaps, turning to look at me. Her eyes are bright in the fire light. My father is dead, Delano. A piece of paper isn't going to bring him back, and bankrupting an old man isn't going to make me feel safe.
She drops her hands. She looks exhausted, worn down to the absolute bone. I don't know how to stop, she whispers. The confession is jagged, tearing out of her. I don't know how to turn it off.
The hostility, the defense mechanisms. I pay people to tolerate me. I pay you to tolerate me. You don't pay me to tolerate you, I say, my voice steady. You pay me to fix your messes.
And what if I am the mess? She is standing inches from me. The proximity is dangerous. The air between us feels charged, heavy with the adrenaline of the storm and the sheer brutal honesty of the dark. I stand up.
I am taller than her, but she doesn't back away. She looks up at me, her face pale in the fire light, her eyes searching mine for an answer I don't have. Then you fix yourself, I say quietly. You stop burning the world down just because you're cold. She reaches out.
Her fingers are freezing. She rests her hand flat against my chest, right over my heart. The touch is electric. It sends a shock wave straight through my nervous system, bypassing every professional boundary, every logical safeguard I have spent three years building. "Are you cold, Dano? " she asks.
I look down at her. I look at her mouth. I think about the envelope with $25,000 sitting in my bag. I think about my son. I think about the 82nd floor, the glass walls, the corporate hierarchy that dictates every interaction we have ever had.
None of it matters right now. Not in this room. Not with the wind screaming outside. I reach up and wrap my hand around her wrist. I don't push her away.
I pull her closer. Yes, I say. She exhales a ragged, desperate sound and closes the distance. The kiss is not gentle. It is a collision.
It tastes like scotch and panic and absolute desperation. She anchors her hands in my hair, pulling me down, her mouth hot and demanding against mine. I wrap my arms around her waist, lifting her slightly off the ground, backing her into the heavy stones of the fireplace. She gasps against my mouth, her fingers gripping my shoulders like she is afraid I will drop her. I won't.
I can't. I am drowning in her in the sheer overwhelming reality of Viven Bailey, stripped bare of everything but instinct. We stumble back toward the couch. My knee hits the edge of the heavy coffee table, but I don't feel it. I push her down onto the leather, following her down, tangling our legs together beneath the heavy down comforter.
The storm rages outside, shaking the glass. But I don't hear it anymore. I only hear her breathing. I only feel the frantic, desperate grip of her hands. It is a profound, terrifying mistake.
And it is the most alive I have felt in 5 years. The generator dies at 6:45 a. M. The loud mechanical clunk echoes through the cabin, followed by the immediate deafening silence of a dead machine. The harsh emergency light above the door flickers and goes out.
I open my eyes. The fire is nothing but white ash. The ambient light in the room is blinding. I sit up, the heavy comforter falling away from my chest. The storm has broken.
The sky outside the glass walls is a brilliant, piercing, cloudless blue. The snow is piled halfway up the massive windows. A sparkling, untouched ocean of white. The sudden silence of the dead generator is what wakes Viven. She shifts beside me, pushing the blankets off her face.
She looks at the dead emergency light, then looks at me. The memory of the last 3 hours hangs in the freezing air between us, heavy and undeniable. The vulnerability is gone. Instantly, I watch it happen. I watch the billionaire CEO rebuild her fortress behind her eyes in real time.
She pulls the blanket tight around her chest, sitting up and scooting away from me, creating a deliberate physical distance on the couch. The generator, she says. Her voice is flat. Business. Out of fuel, I say, matching her tone, suppressing the sudden hollow ache in my chest.
Or it froze. Doesn't matter. The storm is over. Check your phone. I reached to the floor, grabbing my phone from the pocket of my jeans.
No service. The tower must be down from the blizzard. Viven stands up. She doesn't look at me. She gathers her scattered clothes from the floor, holding them against her chest.
I'm going to change, she says, her voice brittle. Pack your bag. We need to hike down to the main road before the temperature drops again tonight. A plow will eventually come through. She turns and walks quickly up the steel stairs to the loft.
I sit on the couch, staring at the dead ash in the fireplace. The magic of the dark is gone, bleached away by the harsh morning light. I am not the man who held her together in the dark. I am the director of special projects, and she is my boss. I dress quickly in the freezing air.
I pack my duffel bag, making sure the manila envelope with the cashier's check is secure in the side pocket. I touch the heavy paper through the canvas. It is the only real thing that happened on this trip. It has to be. By the time Viven comes back down, she is fully armored.
She is wearing her tailored charcoal trousers, a heavy wool turtleneck, and her designer boots. Her hair is pulled back into its severe functional knot. "Ready? " she asks, grabbing her aluminum suitcase. "That suitcase isn't going to roll through 3 ft of snow," I point out. "Then I'll carry it," she snaps.
"I walk over, gently take the handle from her grip, and lift the heavy case. " "I've got it, Vivien. " She doesn't argue. She just nods once sharply and walks to the door. The hike down the logging road is brutal. The snow is thigh deep. Every step is a physical battle.
I break the trail, dragging her heavy suitcase through the powder while she follows in my footsteps. We do not speak. The silence is not companionable. It is the silence of two people who have seen too much of each other and are desperately trying to forget it. It takes us 2 hours to cover the two miles to the main highway.
When we finally break through the tree line, the highway is a wide plowed ribbon of black asphalt. A massive yellow snowcat is parked a quarter mile down the road, its amber lights flashing lazily in the bright morning sun. The driver sees us waving and rumbles over. He takes one look at Vivian's expensive clothes and my exhausted face and shakes his head. You folks are lucky, the driver says, leaning out of the heated cab.
Mountain Rescue wasn't coming up here until tomorrow. Hop in the back. The ride to Boseman Airport takes 3 hours. We sit in the cramped utilitarian jump seats of the snowcat. The heater blasts dry diesel scented air.
Viven stares out the small frosted window the entire time. She doesn't look at me once. When we finally reach the private terminal, the Gulfream is fueled and waiting. The flight crew is frantic, apologizing profusely for the weather delay. Vivien waves them off with a curt flick of her wrist.
She walks up the steps onto the jet without waiting for me. I stand on the tarmac for a second, feeling the biting Montana wind on my face one last time. I look at the manila envelope in my hand. I survived. Lionus is going to be fine.
The debt is handled. I won. So why do I feel like I just lost everything? I climb the stairs and step into the quiet, luxurious hum of the jet. Viven is already sitting in her seat, a tablet in her hand, rapidly typing an email.
I walk down the aisle. I stop next to her seat. She doesn't look up. Draft the press release for the Oak Haven acquisition," she says, her voice echoing in the empty cabin. "I want it out before the market opens on Monday," I look at her.
I look at the rigid line of her shoulders, the cold set of her jaw. "Understood, Miss Bailey," I say softly. I walk to the back of the plane, take my seat, and open my laptop. The engines whine, pushing us forward, accelerating down the runway. I watch the snowcapped mountains fall away through the window, returning to the 82nd floor, where the air is perfectly controlled and nobody is allowed to feel a thing.
The $25,000 hits my checking account on a Tuesday morning. The bank notification pops up on my phone screen while I am standing in the fluorescent lit aisle of a corner pharmacy. I stare at the glowing green numbers. Five digits. It is a digital string of code that fundamentally alters the gravity of my life.
I walk to the counter. I ask the pharmacist for Lionus's inhaler. When she rings it up and tells me the total, my chest doesn't tighten. I don't mentally calculate which utility bill I have to push back a week to cover the cost. I just tap my debit card against the machine.
It beeps. Approved. I buy the inhaler. I buy the winter boots that won't pinch Lionus's toes. I pay my sister back the $5,000.