Page 120 of Discretion at Its Finest

The man inside me I had buried under rage, grief, ambition, power… I felt him the more she spoke, felt him awaken from his death as I watched her.

Her hands dangled uselessly at her sides. “I know you won’t forgive me now. Maybe not ever.” Her voice was barely audible. “But I couldn’t let you disappear alone. Not again… You told me not to follow you to the end of the earth, because I’d leave my world behind. Well,” she whispered, breath trembling out of her, “…I left it. Because I had to choose you… one last time.”

Her eyes filled with tears, overflowing. I wanted to say something… say anything… but I couldn’t.

Because my heart, the one she shattered years ago, the one she left bleeding in the dark, took a single, violent beat. The man beneath my shield of corporate armor, the one I suffocated, silenced, killed for my own sanity… he took a breath.

This woman… this fucking impossible woman… had done the one thing I had spent years believing she never would.

She followed me into the dark… the lion’s cage.

She followed me to the end of the earth.

My pulse hammered, another violent, painful beat of my heart. She didn’t understand what she’d done. What this meant or would cost her.What it did to me.

Something lethal uncoiled within me. Possession, rage, need so vicious my hands shook to touch her.

“Come here.” My voice penetrated the silence.

She moved like her body responded before her mind did, one staggered, shaking step after another.

I reached out, grabbed her face in both hands, and pulled her into me so fast she gasped.

Her palms slapped against my chest as her eyes were wide, shimmering. Her lips parted around a trembling breath as I tilted her chin up with my thumb, forcing her to look at me.

“You left your world,” I murmured, voice dark, dangerous. “And now you’re standing in mine, begging me to keep you in it… Do you even understand what that means?”

Her throat worked gently. “It means I choose you,” she whispered.

My grip tightened on her delicate face, making sure she was focused and that she’d heard every word I said.

“No,” I said quietly, leaning in until our foreheads nearly touched. “It means there’s no going back. You stay on this plane, you let that door close…” I continued, voice deepening, threading through her, “…you’re fucking mine. You hear me? In every way you ran from before. In every way you lied about and were too fucking afraid to admit to yourself. You don’t get to walk away from me again.”

She shook her head. “I won’t.”

“You left your children,” I said, each word a slow incision, giving her one more opportunity, one more chance to realize her mistake. “You left your safety. Your reputation. Your family. Everything you built without me.”

Her nails curled into my suit. “I know.”

“You stay on this plane, Vieve… and the world stops knowing you. You become a rumor. A ghost. You disappear. And you won’t have anything left to run back to if you regret it.”

Silence hummed between us, her lip trembling, shaking as she let out a small wavering breath. “I know what I’m choosing.” Her hands gripped my suit tighter, anchoring me to her. “I know it’s you.”

I stared down at her, searching for some flicker of hesitation, or doubt. Anything that would make this easier to walk away from and let me keep the armor I’d built around the wreckage she left behind.

Nothing.

All I could see was her devotion, her ruin.

The woman who had always been my undoing.

And my control finally snapped. My hands found her waist, grabbing her and drawing her close, my lips crashing against hers before I could control myself. Her breath hitched against my lips before she melted into me, clutching me like she’d drown if she let go.

My blood buzzed under my skin. With lightning on my skin at her touch, I felt on fire. She was the gasoline to my match. Making me burn, making me dangerous, addicted to her, desperate for her to fucking survive.

Every kiss, every frantic pull of her body against mine, fed the flame until I couldn’t tell where rage ended and devotion began. She made me feral. She always had. And now she was choosing it, choosing me, like it was her salvation instead of the end of her world.

A low sound tore from my chest, half-groan, half-laugh… Her ruin tasted sweet; the inevitable devotion to me tasted sweeter.