"That's not what this is," I insist, forcing my voice to remain level despite the panic starting to claw its way up my throat. "I respect you more than anyone I've ever met. Your competence, your intelligence, your ability to command a room full of Orcs twice your size—it's extraordinary. I wanted to give you the freedom to use those skills without someone like Richard holding you back."
"By buying my company," she says slowly, as if explaining something to a particularly stubborn child. "By making yourself my boss. By creating a situation where I'm financially dependent on you and professionally indebted to you. That's not freedom, Thrall. That's just a prettier cage."
"It's not… I didn't mean—" I'm actually struggling to articulate my thoughts, which never happens, my usual ruthless verbal precision completely deserting me in the face of her righteous anger. "You can run the company. Full autonomy. I'll be a silent investor. You'll have complete creative control?—"
"I don't want your money!" The words explode out of her with shocking force. "I don't want your investment or your protection or your high-handed Orc solutions to problems I was perfectly capable of solving myself! I wanted to build somethingon my own terms. I wanted to succeed because I'm good at what I do, not because some CEO decided to white knight his way into my professional life!"
"I was trying to help," I bite out, my own temper finally igniting. "You were being exploited. Systematically. And you were so busy being perfect and managing everyone else's problems that you couldn't see how badly you were being used. Someone needed to intervene."
"But it didn't have to be you!" Her voice cracks slightly on the last word, and the sound does something terrible to my chest. "It didn't have to be some grand gesture that puts me in your debt. I could have found another job. I could have started my own agency. I could have?—"
"Failed," I finish brutally. "You could have failed, Romee. Because the industry is vicious and Richard would have sabotaged you at every turn and you would have spent years fighting an uphill battle against his lies and his connections while struggling to keep your head above water financially. I gave you a shortcut. I gave you resources and security and the freedom to actually use your skills instead of wasting them on survival."
"I didn't ask for any of that!"
"You shouldn't have to ask!" I'm shouting now, my control finally snapping completely. "You shouldn't have to beg for basic professional respect or fight for opportunities that should have been yours from the beginning! You shouldn't have to prove yourself over and over to mediocre men who will never appreciate your value! I saw what you're capable of and I wanted to give you the platform to actually do it without obstacles!"
"By removing my agency!" she shouts back, matching my volume despite the significant size difference. "By making decisions about my life without consulting me! By assuming you know what's best for me better than I know myself!"
The accusation hangs in the air between us, heavy and damning, suspended like a blade suspended above my head. It's the kind of silence that fills a room entirely, suffocating and absolute, and I can feel every word she's thrown at me settling into my bones.
And I realize, with a sinking horror that crawls up my spine and claws at my throat, that she's absolutely, devastatingly right.
I did exactly what Richard did. Every manipulative, controlling, paternalistic thing he inflicted upon her, I replicated it. I simply dressed it up in different clothing, wrapped it in better intentions and justified it with more sophisticated business strategy. I just used better intentions and significantly more expensive resources to accomplish the same fundamental violation of her autonomy. The method was different, the scale was grander, but the underlying assumption was identical: that I knew better than she did what she needed, and that my judgment should supersede her own agency.
The realization tastes like ash in my mouth.
"Romee," I start, my voice rough, but she's already moving, already turning away, her small frame radiating a level of hurt and betrayal that makes my chest physically ache.
"I need some air," she says quietly, all the fight draining out of her voice, leaving behind something worse. Something broken. "I can't—I need to think."
"Don't leave," I hear myself say, hating desperation in my tone. "Please. We can fix this. I can—I'll reverse the acquisition. I'll transfer ownership to you. Whatever you want."
She pauses in the doorway, her compact frame outlined against the fading afternoon light filtering through the corridor windows, her back still turned resolutely toward me. Her shoulders are rigid, locked in that defensive posture she adopts when she's fighting back tears, a gesture I've learned to recognize with painful clarity over these past weeks.
"What I wanted," she says softly, her voice stripped of its usual razor-sharp authority and reduced to something raw and honest, "was a partner. Someone who actually saw me as an equal. Not a problem to be solved with the right algorithm or an asset to be acquired with sufficient capital and business acumen." She takes a shaky breath, and I can hear the tremor in it from across the room. "Someone who trusted me to make my own choices, even the ones that scared me or that you disagreed with."
The words land like hammer blows, each one detonating against me with surgical precision.
Then she's gone, moving forward with that quick, efficient stride that I've watched navigate a thousand retreats and contingencies. Her footsteps echo down the hallway with terrible finality, the sound growing fainter and fainter until there's nothing left but silence and the lingering ghost of citrus perfume that clings to the air like an accusation.
I stand in the empty dining hall, surrounded by abandoned chairs and the lingering scent of her citrus perfume, and realize I've just destroyed the best thing that's ever happened to me.
With the very best of intentions, truly, the kind that felt righteous and protective in the moment, the kind that seemed like the obvious solution to any problem worth solving. And impeccable business strategy layered underneath it all, the sort of calculated, methodical approach that had built my company into an empire and made me a fortune. The kind of decision-making framework that had never failed me before, that had always delivered results, that had always been proven correct by the bottom line and the market response.
And yet, underneath it all, absolutely no understanding whatsoever of what she actually needed. No comprehension of her desires or her autonomy or the fact that her needs existed entirely outside the parameters of what I could acquire orcontrol or restructure through financial leverage. No grasp of the fundamental truth that had become painfully, devastatingly clear in these past hours: that Romee Lin could never be bought or fixed or protected into submission, no matter how many companies I absorbed or how many problems I solved with ruthless efficiency.
Three hours later,I'm sitting in my cabin, staring at the laptop screen without actually seeing any of the financial projections displayed there, when Joffrey knocks on the door.
"Go away," I call out, not looking up.
He enters anyway, because Joffrey has been my COO for eight years and has long since stopped taking my orders at face value when he thinks I'm being an idiot.
"She's packing," he announces without preamble.
My head snaps up. "What?"
"Romee. She's in her cabin, packing her bags. One of the staff saw her carrying her suitcase to the car." He pauses, his craggy features settling into an expression of deep disapproval. "What did you do?"
