Nina tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Would you like me to inform legal that we may need full residential repossession by tonight?”
“Yes,” I said. “And tell them I want every luxury vehicle, every company card, every access credential frozen immediately.”
“All of them?”
I thought of Mia draped across Harrison’s chest. Of the cigarette between his fingers. Of the word adequate.
“All of them.”
By the time Damien’s car pulled up outside the penthouse at eight, the final financial reports were already spreading across the business channels.
Oasis Group had closed the day in catastrophe.
The company wasn’t dead yet.
But Harrison’s version of it was.
Damien stepped out of the sleek black Bentley in a charcoal coat, one hand in his pocket, rain-dark hair pushed carelessly back from his forehead. He was handsome in a way that looked expensive and dangerous at the same time, as if someone had sculpted a weapon and taught it manners.
His gaze swept over me and paused.
“You look,” he said, “like someone who just ended a dynasty.”
“Only an illusion of one.”
His mouth curved. “Even better.”
He opened the passenger door for me himself.
Inside, the car smelled faintly of cedar and leather. Warm. Controlled. Quiet.
Not like Harrison’s constant need to dominate every silence.
Damien glanced at me as the city lights slid past the windows. “I saw the markets.”
“I figured you might.”
“And here I thought I was taking you to dinner.” His voice was smooth with amusement. “Turns out I’m taking out the woman who just detonated half of Manhattan’s favorite corporate gossip.”
“Only half?”
“Give it an hour.”
I leaned back against the seat.
For the first time all day, exhaustion brushed the edge of me. Not weakness. Just the weight of finally putting something down that I’d been carrying far too long.
Damien noticed. Of course he did.
“You don’t have to talk,” he said.
“That may be the nicest thing anyone has said to me this week.”
“I specialize in timing.”
I turned my head to look at him. “Is that what the flowers were? Timing?”
A faint smile touched his mouth. “No. Those were shameless pursuit.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
And God, it felt good.
Dinner was on the private terrace of one of the city’s most exclusive restaurants. Candlelight flickered against crystal. The skyline burned around us. Somewhere, a violinist was playing something soft and expensive.
For the first twenty minutes, we talked about nothing that mattered.
Wine. Weather. A hotel in Rome Damien swore had the best rooftop breakfast in Europe. The fact that he’d hated Harrison on sight years before I ever met him.
Then, just as the first course was cleared, my phone buzzed again.
Harrison.
I stared at the screen.
Damien lifted a brow. “Do I need to have him removed from the phone network?”
“Tempting.”
“Take it,” he said. “I’m curious what a ruined man sounds like.”