I regard the closed doors for a long moment, my mind racing through strategies and counter-strategies, trying to find the tactical approach that will fix this, that will bring her back, that will make her understand. But for the first time in my life, I have no plan. No backup strategy. No clever maneuver that will turn defeat into victory.
I have only the terrible, dawning realization that in my haste to prove myself worthy of conquering her, I may have lost her entirely.
9
CYPRESS
The elevator doors slide shut and I jab the lobby button with more force than necessary, my hand trembling so badly that I miss twice before finally making contact. The fluorescent light above me buzzes with that particular frequency that always gives me a headache, and I press my back against the cold metal wall. The merger document crinkles against my damp blouse, the pages already warped from the humidity clinging to my clothes, and I gawk at the descending floor numbers without really seeing them.
I am such an idiot.
The elevator shudders to a stop between floors, and for one heart-stopping moment I think the rival firm has sabotaged us again, that I am about to be trapped in this metal box while my world crumbles around me. My finger must have slipped, my muscle memory carrying me toward the subway entrance in the basement rather than the street-level lobby where I intended to flee.
I do not move. I stand there in the open doorway, staring out at the rows of expensive cars belonging to executives who probably never worried about being eliminated in a merger, andI feel the fight drain out of me like water through a sieve. Where am I even going? Back to my tiny apartment with its floral sofa still bearing the impression of Knox's frame? Back to a life of soul-crushing corporate drudgery under whatever faceless CEO takes over after the foreclosure claims everything we have built together?
The thought of losing him hurts more than the thought of losing my job, and that realization terrifies me more than anything in that folder.
Behind me, I hear the stairwell door slam open with enough force to crack the drywall, and I spin around to find Knox barreling toward me like a freight train wrapped in a three-piece suit. He skids to a stop three feet away from me.
"You took the stairs," I finally manage.
"The elevator was too slow." His breathing is ragged. "Cypress, please. Let me explain."
"Explain what? Explain how you were planning to dissolve the entire company the moment things got difficult? Explain how I was never part of your long-term strategy?"
"That is exactly backwards." He reaches for the folder and I let him take it, watching as he flips through the pages with hands that are not entirely steady. "This document—these terms—they are not about eliminating you, Cypress. They are about protecting you."
I blink at him, certain I must have misheard. "What?"
"Look at the severance structure." He points to a section near the back, his thick finger tracing lines of text I had skimmed over in my initial panic. "Three years of salary, guaranteed. Full benefits continuation. A letter of recommendation with my personal seal that would open doors at any clan-affiliated business on this continent. This was my backup plan, Cypress. My contingency if I failed. If my leadership proved insufficient, if the rival firm succeeded in crushing us despite my best efforts,I needed to know that you would be protected. That my failure would not destroy your future along with my own."
"You drafted a severance addendum specifically to protect my salary if things went wrong."
I say it slowly, testing each word, trying to make them fit together into something that makes sense.
"During your first week here. After knowing almost nothing about me except that I corrected your math in a conference room."
"I knew enough. I knew you were brave enough to challenge a warchief in front of his new subordinates. I knew you were brilliant enough to identify the flaw in my calculations before anyone else in that room even understood what I was proposing. I knew— I knew that I could not bear the thought of my failures hurting you. Even then. Even when you were nothing more than a human with messy hair and three different colored highlighters."
I look up at him, this green creature who broke down conference room doors and terrorized corporate rivals and ran down twelve flights of stairs because he could not bear to let me leave without explaining himself. The wall I have been building between us, the professional distance I have been desperately maintaining, cracks down the middle and crumbles into dust.
"You absolute idiot," I breathe, and his expression flickers with confusion before I grab his silk tie and yank him down to my level. "You magnificent, ridiculous, overprotective idiot."
Our foreheads touch, his skin warm and slightly rough against mine, and I feel the tension drain out of his frame like air escaping a balloon. His hands come up to cup my face, engulfing my cheeks entirely, and for a moment we just breathe together in the empty parking garage, the folder of backup plans dangling forgotten from his fingers.
"I thought I had lost you. I thought my caution had cost me the only victory that truly matters."
"You need to stop making plans without me," I tell him firmly, pulling back just enough to meet his eyes. "I am not some damsel who needs to be protected from the consequences of your decisions, Knox. I am your partner in this ridiculous corporate warfare you have dragged me into. If we are going to fail, we fail together. And if we are going to win—" I take the folder from his hands and rip it cleanly in half, the sound of tearing paper echoing through the concrete chamber. "—we win together. No backup plans. No contingencies that exclude me. We are in this until the bitter end, whatever that end looks like."
Knox watches the pieces of the document flutter to the ground, his golden eyes tracking their descent with something that looks remarkably like wonder. When he looks back at me, his expression has shifted into something and proud and hungry all at once, the look of a warchief who has just been handed a weapon he never knew he needed.
"Together," he repeats, and the word sounds like a vow on his lips. "Until the bitter end."
"Until the profitable end," I correct him, and the laugh that escapes him is deep and warm and rumbling, filling the parking garage with sound that bounces off the concrete walls. "We still have a foreclosure to prevent, remember? Fifteen days left to hit our profit target, and we are still running about forty percent below where we need to be."
"Then we require a decisive victory." His hands slide from my face to my shoulders, steadying me, grounding me, and I lean into his touch without meaning to. "A single strike that will shatter our enemies and secure our position in one blow."
"I love it when you talk military strategy at me." The words slip out before I can stop them, and I redden as his expressionshifts into something decidedly predatory. "I mean—that is—we should focus on the business problem at hand."
